progressive era ppt · the progressive era • a period in history, from 1890 to 1920, where...
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The Progressive Era1890s-1920
The Progressive Era
• A period in history, from 1890 to 1920, where Americans responded to the economic, social and political problems that existed as a result of industrialization and urbanization and sought to reform these poor conditions.
• Reform: to change
Who were the Progressives?
Progressives: people who fought to reform problems in society• Aka reformers
Reform: to change
• Mostly educated, middle-class Americans • Muckrakers: journalists
who uncovered dirt (“muck”) in society in order to draw attention to problems
What the Progressives want to reform (change)?
• Economic problems- regulate big business and protect the consumer; establish a fair tax system
• Social problems- make life safer and more comfortable by fixing issues that affect day to day life for different groups of people (housing, voting, worker’s rights, etc…)
• Political Problems- increase participation in democracy, improve efficiency
Early Political Reformers
• The Populist Party(“The People’s Party”: a political party formed in 1892 to address the problems faced by many farmers
• Main goals:• Wanted the government to help raise
farm prices
• Regulate railroad rates• An income tax• An Eight hour workday
• Limits on immigration• Coin money with silver
Economic Reform
• Industrialization à bosses abused workers by paying them very little yet working them very hard in unsafe conditions
• Laissez Faire economics caused these problems- allowed big business to go unregulated
• Trustbuster: someone who fought to break up big trusts (Teddy Roosevelt)
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890):• Any business that limited trade between
customers and other businesses was illegal
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914):• Strengthened the Sherman Anti-trust
Act and allowed the government to further enforce anti-trust laws
Other Economic Reforms
• Interstate commerce: trade or business that crosses state lines. The Constitution gives the Federal government the right to regulate interstate commerce.
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887): It forbade practices such as pools and rebates, and said that shipping rates had to be “fair and just.” • Pool: joint action of rival companies to avoid competition• Rebate: partial refund of money given to valued customers (even though they gave back
money, they gained a steady source of business [i.e. Rockefeller])
• Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC): organization established to oversee the railroads.
The 16th Amendment:The Graduated Income Tax
• Congress has the right to tax a person’s income
• Graduated Income Tax: An income tax which rises in steps with the amount of money you make:• The more you make, the more you are
taxed. The less you make, the less you are taxed.
Gilded Age Politics = Corruption
THE PROBLEMS• Political machines ran the cities-
took advantage of immigrants by providing for their needs in exchange for votes
• Spoils System: the practice of rewarding political supporters with jobs. Also known as patronage.
THE SOLUTION• Civil Service Commission:
federal jobs are given out based on merit (ability), not politics. Candidates must take a test to demonstrate skill or knowledge for a position first.
Increasing the Federal Government’s Role in the Economy
• Federal Reserve Act (1913): Established the Federal Reserve System, an organization that controls the supply of money to the US and regulates federal interest rates
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): a “watchdog” agency that investigates companies to ensure they are not using unfair business practices to eliminate competition
Political Reform:The Problems
• Ordinary people did not have a say in government• Laws benefited big businessmen and did not protect the average
person• Laissez faire economics allowed big business to control the
government• Government corruption: the spoils system regarded unqualified
people with government jobs, tax money was used to pay salaries
Political Reform:The Solutions- Empowering THE VOTER
• Primary elections: the people elect candidates• Initiative: the people propose bills to become laws• Referendum: the people can vote directly on bills• Recall: the people can remove an elected official from office• Civil Service Commission: people must prove they are
qualified for a job• 17th Amendment: Direct election of senators by the people
SOCIAL REFORM WAS NEEDED
• Crowded cities• No garbage disposal or clean water
• Dangerous neighborhoods• Tenements- unsafe, unsanitary
• Workplace dangers• Child labor
• Women’s rights
JACOB RIIS
• Photojournalism- How the Other Half Lives
• Exposed the living conditions in tenements
• Lead to building codes, zoning laws, landlord requirements, clean water efforts for cities
LINCOLN STEFFENS AND IDA TARBELL
• Muckrakers- journalists who uncovered problems in society to draw attention to them• Both used magazines to reach wider audiences
• Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities-exposed political corruption in cities
• Ida Tarbell: The History of Standard Oil- exposed corrupt and cutthroat business tactics used by monopolies
UPTON SINCLAIR- THE JUNGLE
• Revealed disgusting conditions in meatpacking plants:• Rats, poison, spoiled meat, mold, dirt. Meatpackers would dye meat to look fresh and
mix it with spoiled ingredients
• Lead to the Pure Food and Drug Act- a consumer protection law that required the proper labeling of food and drugs. Prevented the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous or dangerous foods, drugs and liquors.
Thomas Nast
• Political cartoonist- used art and satire to expose political “dirt”• Satire: the use of humor, irony,
exaggeration to prove a point
• Created the familiar donkey for Democrats, elephant for Republicans, and Uncle Sam
• Went after Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring
Carrie Nation• Fought for temperance- the prohibition (banning) of
alcohol• Arrested 30+ times, smashed up bars with a a
hatchet• Member of the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU):• Focused on health and hygiene, prison reform,
temperance, other reforms• Helped to pass the 18th Amendment- Prohibition-
banning alcohol in the U.S.
Jane Addams and Lillian Wald
• Settlement houses- community centers that offered services to the poor:• Cooking, hygiene, English,
government, sewing, reading, sports and music
• Jane Addams: Hull House in Chicago (1889). Won a Nobel Prize for her work
• Lillian Wald: Henry Street Settlement, Lower East Side NYC (1893)How might the efforts of these settlement
houses be viewed as forced assimilation?
The Fight for Civil Rights
• W.E.B. DuBois- African American activist who wanted equality for all- helped to establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)• ADL: Anti-Defamation League- fought to end
discrimination against Jews and to end Anti-Semitism
Worker’s Rights
• Florence Kelley- fought to end child labor and establish laws to limit children in the workplace
• Mother Jones- worked with the Knights of Labor to fight for worker’s rights (especially miners)
Women’s Suffrage
• Suffrage: the right to vote
• Suffragist: Someone who fights for the right to vote
• Suffragette: term used in England to describe someone who fights for the right to vote
Women’s Suffrage
• Not a new battle- women had been demanding the right to vote for generations
• Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, calling for a Constitutional amendment for the right to vote
• American Woman Suffrage Association focused on earning the right to vote one state at a time
• Eventually they merge and become the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt
A New Generation of Suffragists
• Alice Paul: spent time in England and witnessed the more militant tactics of the British suffragettes; believed those tactics would be more successful in the U.S.• Pickets, marches, protests, hunger strikes
• 1916: Founds the National Woman’s Party, a single-platform political party: get women the right to vote
NWP Focuses on President Wilson
The 19th Amendment- Women’s Suffrage
• The 19th Amendment (1919) granted women the right to vote.
• Ratified in 1920, just in time for a presidential election
Presidents of the Progressive Era
• Teddy Roosevelt
• Former Rough Rider (Calvary unit of the Spanish-American War)
• Former Governor of NY
• Unlikely president: was added to McKinley’s reelection ticket in 1900 by political machines; McKinley is assassinated in 1901
Teddy’s Square Deal
• Conservation- protect natural resources, set aside millions of acres of land for federal parks and preserves
• Trustbusting- break up bad trusts
• Consumer Protection- pass laws to protect people from being hurt by businesses (Pure Food and Drug Act)
• Foreign Policy (coming soon!)
Presidents of the Progressive Era
• William Howard Taft- 1908• Former Secretary of War• Opposite of Roosevelt: quiet, cautious,
didn’t want power• Supported most progressive efforts, like
trustbusting and the graduated income tax, but still lost the support of progressives
Election of 1912
• Roosevelt decides to run for re-election against Taft for the Republican nomination:• T.R. had more public support, but Taft had the support of the
Republican party leaders = vote was split, the nomination went to Taft
• T.R.’s supporters stormed out of the convention and formed a third party, the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party), and nominated Roosevelt.• “I feel as strong as a bull moose”
• The Democrats put forward a reform-minded New Jersey governor, Woodrow Wilson.
Presidents of the Progressive Era
• Woodrow Wilson- Democratic nominee. Very progressive, former Governor of New Jersey
• Together, Taft and Roosevelt had more votes than Wilson, but because the Republicans split their vote, Wilson won the election of 1912.
• Wilson’s New Freedom: Wilson’s program for economic reform• Several of the economic reforms of this era were passed under Wilson’s presidency:
Federal Reserve Act, FTC, Clayton Anti-Trust Act, etc…
• Progressive Era basically ends with the U.S. entering WWI- focus shifts to winning the wa
THE LEGACY OF PROGRESSIVISM
WHAT IT DID:• Increased government
intervention in economic, social and political issues
WHAT IT DIDN’T DO• Create equality for all:
• Discrimination still existed, inequality still existed, specially for African Americans and other minority groups