african americans and women during the progressive era
TRANSCRIPT
African Americans and Women During the Progressive Era
• Industrialization led to smaller families and greater opportunities for women to work outside of the home
• Jobs were mainly in the textile industry, although women also worked as telephone operators, secretaries and typists.
• Women’s universities opened throughout the nation.
• International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
• 1911• Windows, doors and fire exits were blocked• 146 women died• Led to greater reforms in the conditions of
garment factories in NY
• Mother Jones continued to work for the rights of railroad workers and coal miners.
Political Rights• 1900- Carrie Chapman Catt became president of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association– Argued that if women were given the right to vote,
they could support Wilson’s causes– Catt eventually formed the League of Women Voters
• Alice Paul broke from NAWSA to form the National Women’s Party– More militant – Picketing, hunger strikes– Eventually began advocating for passage of the ERA
19th Amendment
• 1920• Supported by Wilson• Granted women suffrage
Other issues
• Margaret Sanger advocated birth control education (movement evolved into Planned Parenthood)
• Educational equality• More liberal marriage and divorce laws• Property rights• Reducing discrimination in business and the
professions
African Americans
• 1896- Plessy v. Ferguson• Segregation• Loss of political rights (poll taxes, literacy tests,
etc.)• Violence/lynchings
• Many progressives ignored the plight of African Americans
• Wilson issued an executive order to segregate federal buildings
• Birth of a Nation- glamorized the KKK
• “Colored Troops Disembarking,” 1898 Edison film during the Spanish American War
• http://www.loc.gov/item/00694179/
• “Do the colored people of the United States deserve equal consideration with the Cuban people at the hands of your administration, and shall they, though late, receive it?”
-I.D. Barnett et. al, Open Letter to President McKinley by Colored People of Massachusetts, October 3, 1899
• “If it is a white man’s government, and we grant it is, let him take care of it. The Negro has no flag to defend.”
-Missionary Department of the Atlanta, Georgia, A.M.E. Church, “The Negro Should Not Enter the Army,” May 1, 1899
Ida B. Wells
-Fought for African American rights-Wrote articles against lynching-Opposed Booker T. Washington’s policy of accommodation
Laboratory at Tuskegee Institute, 1902
Booker T. Washington
• Head of the Tuskegee Institute• Most influential African American at the turn
of the century• Atlanta Exposition Speech (1895)• Continued to argue that African Americans
needed the skills necessary to work within the white world- “accommodation”
W.E.B. Du Bois
• Distinguished scholar and writer• The Souls of Black Folk (1903)• Demanded equal rights• While Booker T. Washington took a pragmatic
approach to economic advancement, Du Bois was more militant– This would frame the debate throughout the 20th
century
Niagara Movement
• 1905• W.E.B. Du Bois held a meeting in Niagara Falls• Believed that African Americans should
demand social and political equality• 1908 Group joined with other African
Americans and whites to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Urban League
• Formed 1911• Helped African Americans migrating from the
South to the North• Emphasized self-reliance and economic
advancement
Marcus GarveyBorn in JamaicaMoved to America in 1916
-Formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association-it became an international organization-emphasized racial pride and economic empowerment-known for “back to Africa” movement-deported in 1927
Great Migration
• 1910-1930• Millions of African Americans moved from the
South to northern cities in search of jobs and a better life
• Reasons- deteriorating race relations in the south; destruction of the cotton crop by the boll weevil; job opportunities especially during WWI
• The fight against discrimination was just as difficult in the North
• Various cities experienced race riots (Chicago 1919)
