The Age of Reform

Chapter 16

The Progressives

• Progressivism – Began because of the number of new goods, wide

gap between rich & poor, unsafe & unfair working conditions

– Focused on urban problems – workers, sanitation, corrupt political machines

Who were the progressives?

• native born, middle to upper class & college educated

• women– More going to college– (jobs still limited)– Were able to join movement and put their degrees to use

Who were the progressives?

• Women (continued)– First woman superintendent of schools in Chicago

(Ella Flagg Young)• (raised teachers’ salaries)

• Strength gaining in women’s suffrage movement

Progressive Issues

• Improving working conditions– Focused on 8 hour work day, no child labor,

minimum wage, ending monopolies

• Social reforms– Schools– Politics– Settlement houses

Role of Religion

• Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel.– It was the Church’s duty to help the

poor.– Wrote In His Steps– The movement applied Christian

principles to social problems, (especially poverty, inequality, liquor, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene…)

Walter Rauschenbusch

Muckrakers• Teddy Roosevelt gave journalists this

name because (he felt) they focused on pointing out the bad aspects of society.

• Their goal was to get people angry (about the social wrongs so they would fight for change.)

• Magazines, like McClure’s, were cheap and accessible (5 cents) contained fiction stories & muckraking articles.

Muckrakers

• Lincoln Steffens – Shame of the Cities• Ida M. Tarbell – History of Standard Oil• Upton Sinclair – The Jungle

Lincoln Steffens

Upton Sinclair Ida Tarbell

Radical Groups

• Socialists– Organized in 1901 by Eugene V. Debs.– Advocated elimination of private ownership of

production.• (Didn’t want to keep the capitalist system.)

– Progressives distanced themselves from them.• (Were too radical to achieve real political reforms.)

Reforming the Industrial Order

Labor Laws• Florence Kelley– (Daughter of a US Senator)– Child and female labor

advocate (across the US)– By 1912 helped get child

labor laws passes in 39 states– Fought for minimum wage• (succeeded in MA, but not

until 1938 did Congress make it a national law)

Supreme Court

• 14th Amendment– Protects against violation of “life, liberty &

property” w/o due cause

• Court often sided w/ business owners– (Lochner v. New York – overturned NY law limiting

workers to a 10 hr, work day b/c workers should be free to accept what the company was offering)

Supreme Court

• Mueller v. Oregon – Argued by Louis Brandeis (future Supreme Court

Justice)– “Brandeis Brief” research convinced Court that

working conditions were harmful

Reforming Society

Cleaning up the City

• Clean up garbage, housing, & public education

• New York was found to have the worst tenement house problem in the world– (horrible stench, dirty, noisy,

lacking light, no fresh air, no water, electricity, or plumbing)

Cleaning up the City• Lawrence Veiller– (Secretary of NY State’s State

Tenement House Commission)– Got the New York State

Tenement House Act passed• (under the law) new tenement

homes had to have courtyards & air flow, 1 restroom per apt (or every 3 rooms)

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Legacy of Reconstruction & its failure– ended in 1877– North tried to help alleviate racial tensions

gave up left South to deal with the race issue

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Few Progressives devoted little energy to (helping) African and Native Americans

• (when it comes to the issue of race, the Progressive Era could almost be called the “Regressive Era”)

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Scientific Racism– (Eugenics and biological reasons for racism)– (protestant Churches even said African Americans

were biologically inferior)

• Many African Americans were pushed out of sports

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Jack Johnson– Son of two former slaves– (1908 he became) the first African-American to

earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World.

– Johnson's victory started a worldwide search for a “great white hope" to restore the title to the white race.

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Jack Johnson– Victories over white boxers caused race riots– Unfairly charged with violating the Mann Act,(a

progressive era piece of legislation designed to stop commercialized vice — not relationships between consenting adults) — Jack Johnson was convicted and sentenced to jail.

– He Skipped bail & Johnson fled to Europe(where he remained a fugitive for many years)

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Birth of a Nation 1915– Pioneered filmmaking – fight

scenes, camera movements & editing

BUT– unquestionably racist in its

portrayal of heroic Klansmen and its depiction of blacks [played by white actors in blackface] as predatory (and parasitical.)

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Birth of a Nation– Based on the book The Clansman– NAACP called for a boycott; Woodrow Wilson screened it at the White House– Film directed by acclaimedDirector D.W. Griffiths

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Southern Progressivism– African Americans were the cause of all society

problems– Improve Southern society if African Americans

were removed• (idea took off quickly)• (justified through laws)

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Southern Progressivism– Rapid spread of segregation• (in workplace seen as progressive to “humanize the

workplace”)

– Disenfranchisement of African Americans1.Fear/threat of violence2.Literacy tests3.Poll tax4.“Grandfather Clause”

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• W.E.B Du Bois– Born in the north (MA)– First African American to earn Dr. from Harvard– Civil rights advocate

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• Booker T. Washington– Born in south (VA)– Born a slave– Educated – devoted life to seeing Tuskegee

Institute succeed

Progressive Era & Racial Discrimination

• W.E.B. Du Bois– Access to college

education & vocational training = essential

– Active in reform

• Booker T. Washington– Don’t fight

discrimination– Improve yourself

through education & economic prosperity