1. Please Note:
The images included in this presentation, some of which are copyrighted,
are being used under the “fair use” provision (for educational purposes)
of the U.S. law governing usage of copyrighted material.
3. My Approach to Teaching History
• Conflict: Finding and Exploring Conflict and Debate
• Agency: Recognizing How People Shape Their Era
• Choices: History is the study of Choices - Nothing is
inevitable!
• Relevance: Make Connections (carefully) to the
Present
• Documents and Images
4. The Progressive Era
• Defined
• Background to the Progressive Era
• Three Main Ideas of Progressivism
• Who Were the Progressives
• Key Progressive Era Reforms
• The Darker Side of Progressivism
• When Did the Progressive Era End?
5. The Progressive Era
Defined
The period from (roughly) 1890-1920 when
many diverse groups in American society
launched efforts to reform or eliminate the
many social problems resulting from rapid
industrialization, urbanization, and
immigration.
6. Background to the Progressive Era
The “New” Immigration
total
1880 1,206,299
1890 1,515,301
1900 3,437,202
1910 4,766,883
1920 5,620,048
1930 6,930,446
7. Who Came?
• Russian and Eastern European Jews
• Italians
• Poles
• Greeks
• Czechs
• Bohemians
• Irish and Germans (continuing but declining)
• African Americans - The Great Migration
9. Immigrant Cities
1910
% immigrants and their US-
born children
New York 78.6%
Chicago 77.5%
Milwaukee 78.6
San Francisco 68.3
Overall, the foreign-born = 14.8% of US population in 1910
(12.5% in 2009)
11. Many
Types
of
Nativism
• Disease
• Superstition
• Poverty
• Anarchy
• Sabbath
desecration
• Intemperance
• Crime The Immigrant: The Stranger at Our Gate from The Ram’s Horn April 25, 1896
Source: www.projects.vassar.edu/1896/0425ramshorn.html
12. Toward Immigration Restriction
Early Immigration Restriction
• 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act
• 1885 Contract
Labor Prohibited
• 1890 Federal
Immigration Act
• Ellis Island opens
• Four Categories of
Exclusion
1. Health
2. Poverty
3. Criminality
Dumping European Garbage
4. Radicalism Judge Magazine, 1890
18. Background to the Progressive Era
Conquest of the West
The Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890
19. Three Main Ideas of Progressivism
1. Anti-Monopoly (vs. Big Business)
2. The Common Good (vs. Individualism)
3. Government Regulation (vs. Laissez-Faire)
20. Who Were the Progressives?
1. Women
2. Evangelicals
3. Journalists
4. Social Workers
5. Experts
6. Professionals
7. Politicians
8. Conservationists
9. Civil Rights Activists
21. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Political Reform
The Problem
- corruption
- unresponsive
government
22. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Political Reform
The Goal
- revitalize democracy
and increase the
influence of the people
- eliminate corruption
23. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Political Reform
Municipal Government Reforms
1. City Manager
2. City Commission
3. Civil Service Exams
24. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Political Reform
State Government Reform
1. The Initiative
2. The Referendum
3. The Recall
25. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Political Reform
Federal Government Reform
17th Amendment – the direct election of Senators
26. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
The Problem
1. Unchecked power of big
business
2. Lack of competition
3. Dangerous products
4. Boom and Bust cycles
28. “What A Strange Little Government”
The Verdict Jan 22 1900 [source: Andrist_The Confident Years]
29. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
The Limits of Economic
Reform
1. Diminish the power of
Trusts, but leave most intact
2. Regulate private business,
but not control it
3. The Underlying Assumption
– capitalism’s benefits outweigh its
harmful effects
-- the government should minimize
the latter
30. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
Corporate Regulation
1902 Trust Busting
1906 Hepburn Act
1911 Standard Oil Trust
broken up
1914 Clayton Anti-Trust
Act
31. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
Consumer Protection
• The Pure Food and Drug Act
• The Meat Inspection Act
32. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
Banking Regulation
Goal – reduce “Boom and
Bust”
1907 Banking Crisis
1911 Pujo Investigation
1913 Federal Reserve Act
33. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Economic Reform
Greater Tax Equity
No Income Tax
- Carnegie’s $25 mil
The 16th Amendment
34. Growing Economic Disparity
1890
–Top 1% of pop owned 51% of all
wealth
–Lower 44% of pop owned 1.2% of
all wealth
–Top 12% owned 86% of all wealth
–Remaining 88% owned just 14% of
all wealth
Source: Walter Licht, Industrializing America, p 183
35. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
The Goal - The Protection and Expansion of Individual Rights
36. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Pro-Labor Legislation
The Problem – few
laws or protections for
workers
Growing labor unrest
ex: The Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire
39. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Pro-Labor Legislation
1902 Coal Strike
1903 Dept of Commerce and
Labor
By 1912 38 states enact child
labor laws
By 1912 24 states enact the 8-
hour day for public works
By 1917 38 states enact
workmen’s compensation laws
41. A moments glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a
year. Rhodes Mfg. Co. Lincolnton, N.C. (Lewis Hine)
42. Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken
threads and to put back the empty bobbins. Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Ga. (Lewis Hine)
43. One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill
one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how
old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially,
"I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were
ten children about her size. Whitnel, N.C. (Lewis Hine)
57. Traditional Views of the Poor
Demonizing the Poor
“There is a large class—I was about
to say a majority—of the population
of New York and Brooklyn … to
whom the rearing of two or more
children means inevitably a boy for
the penitentiary, and a girl for the
brothel.”
-- A New York City judge, ca. 1885 Loring Brace,
Source: Illustration in Charles
The Dangerous Classes and My Twenty Years
Among Them, 1874
58. Traditional Views of the Poor
As Dangerous Revolutionaries
“The city has become a serious
menace to our civilization. . . . It has a
peculiar attraction for the immigrant. …
Here is heaped the social dynamite;
here roughs, gamblers, thieves,
robbers, lawless and desperate men of
all sorts, congregate; men who are
ready on any pretext to raise riots for
the purpose of destruction and plunder;
here gather foreigners and wage-
workers; here skepticism and irreligion
abound.”
-- Josiah Strong, a prominent Midwestern minister, in
his best-selling book, Our Country: Its Possible
Future and Its Present Crisis (1885)
59. Traditional Views of the Poor
Social Darwinism
“What a blessing to let
the unreformed
drunkard and his
children die, and not
increase them above all
others. … How wise to
let those of weak
digestion from gluttony
die, and the temperate
live. What benevolence
to let the lawless perish,
and the prudent
survive.”
— The Christian Advocate (N.Y.), 1879
60. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Jacob A. Riis sheds
new light on poverty
and its causes
70. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Settlement Houses
71. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Tenement Reform
72. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Public Education Expansion
Before After
73. Key Progressive Era Reforms
Social Reform
Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Public Parks in Poor Neighborhoods
Elite Recreation in Central Park in New York
86. The Dark Side of Progressism
The Anti- Lynching Crusade
“Although lynchings have
steadily increased in
number and barbarity
during the last twenty
Ida B. Wells years, there has been no
single effort put forth by the
many moral and
philanthropic forces of the
country to put a stop to this
wholesale slaughter.”
-- Ida B. Wells
87. The Dark Side of Progressism
The Birth of A Nation (1915)
90. Progressivism and Imperialism?
America Becomes an Imperial Power
1867 Purchase of Alaska
1878 Naval Bases Established in Samoa (Pacific)
1893 Hawaii annexed
1898 Spanish-American War: U.S. acquires Cuba,
Philippines, Samoa, and Guam
1899 "Open Door" policy established with China
1899-1902 U.S. puts down Philippine insurrection
1904 Columbia "Revolution" leads to creation of pro-US
nation of Panama which agrees to allow Panama Canal
1909-10 US troops occupy Nicaragua
1912-25
1926-33
1914 US intervenes in Mexican Revolution
1916-1924 US troops occupy Dominican Republic
1915-1934 US troops occupy Haiti
95. Teaching American
History
“Who dares to teach must
never cease to learn”
-- Librarian and Educator, John Cotton Dana
“Trying to plan for the future
without knowing the past
is like trying to plant cut flowers.”
-- Historian Daniel Boorstin
