The Progressive Era

Progressivism

Muckrakers

• Term coined by TR was a negative one• Ida Tarbell, wrote about the Standard Oil

Company• Described the firm’s cutthroat methods of

eliminating competition• Upton Sinclair, “The Jungle”• Detailed the lives of stockyard workers and the

meat packing industry.

Muckrakers cont.

• Jacob Riis, “How the Other Half Lives”• Book of photographs about the poor living

conditions in the cities and slums.• Lincoln Steffens, “The Shame of Cities”• Link between big business and crooked

politicians• Vote stealing and other corrupt practices of

urban political machines

Religious Groups

• Preaching the “Social Gospel”• Churches work to improve conditions for

workers and poor• Religious organizations like the YMCA, YWCA,

concentrated efforts on helping newcomers adjust to life in the big cities.

• Provided food and clothing and set up settlement houses.

Radical Groups

• Socialist Party, organized by labor leaders including Eugene V. Debs in 1901

• Advocated govt. takeover of big business• Some, Communists, advocated govt. takeover

of all businesses.

Progressive Political Reformers

• Robert La Follette: Wisconsin governor & senator: instituted the Direct Primary

• Initiative: The idea that a citizen could introduce legislation

• Recall: The ability of citizens to recall an elected official

• Referendum: Legislation submitted to voters for approval.

• Led to direct election of Senators in 17th Amendment

Changes in City Government

• Commission form of government – experts appointed to head commission’s

• Council/Manager form of government – elected council that sets laws. Appointed manager to run city departments.

• Secret ballot: Political machines did not know how people voted so they could not reward or threaten them

The Suffrage Movement

• The movement for women’s voting rights• Suffrage is the right to vote• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

organized the first women’s right convention in 1848

• Many progressives joined the suffrage movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s

• The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments protected the voting rights of African Americans.

The Suffrage Movement

• The woman suffrage movement had wanted these amendments to apply to women as well

• In 1918 the House of Representatives passed a woman suffrage amendment, but the amendment failed by 2 votes

• On August 26, 1920 the states ratified the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Social Welfare Progressivism

• Social welfare progressives created charities to help the poor and disadvantaged

• pushed for laws to fix social problems• Temperance movement called for the

moderation or elimination of alcohol• It pushed for prohibition – laws banning the

manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol

Progressives Versus Big Business

• Some progressives wanted to break up big companies to restore competition

• Some wanted the government to regulate big companies

• Socialism – the idea that the government should own and operate industry for the community as a whole

• Eugene Debs – led the American Socialist Party• Most progressives and most Americans believed in

the American system of free enterprise

Roosevelt

• Roosevelt’s reform program was known as the Square Deal

• Bureau of Corporations – had the authority to investigate corporations

• Meat Inspection Act – required federal inspection of meat sold and set standards of cleanliness in meatpacking plants.

• Pure Food and Drug Act – prohibited the manufacture, sale, or shipment of impure or falsely labeled food and drugs

Roosevelt

• Conservation – Newlands Reclamation Act, authorized the use of federal funds to pay for irrigation and land development projects

• Roosevelt’s actions during his presidency caused Americans to increasingly look to the federal government to solve the nation’s economic and social problems.

• The executive branch increased in power

Election of 1912

• Taft was the Republican nominee• Wilson was the Democratic nominee• Theodore Roosevelt was the Progressive

nominee• Eugene Debs was the Socialist nominee• Woodrow Wilson won with Roosevelt coming

in second

Election of 1912

• Roosevelt’s New Nationalism – reforms that favored legislation to protect women and children in the workforce and compensation for those injured on the job.

• He wanted a federal trade commission to regulate industry

• Wilson’s plan, the New Freedom – supported free enterprise

Wilson as President

• Wilson issued reforms that affected tariffs, the banking system, the trusts, and workers’ rights

• Underwood Tariff – provision for levying an income tax, or direct tax on the earnings of individuals and corporations.

• Wilson supported Federal Reserve system where the banks would have to keep some of their deposits in a reserve to protect customers’ money

Wilson as President

• What made the Federal Reserve Act so significant?

• The system could fight inflation by raising interest rates and stimulate the economy during a recession by lowering interest rates

• In 1916 Wilson signed the Keating-Owens Child Labor Act, which prohibited children under the age of 14 from working in factories.