HIST 12 - Slideshare Lecture

1. Chapter 21 – Whose Government? Politics,
Populists, and Progressives, 1890-1920
Poverty and Wealth, Winsor McKay, 1909. The caption reads, “When wealth ignores poverty
too long, wealth is in danger of being dragged down by the poverty it has ignored. It has
happened many times and will happen again. The man with dollars and power should realize
it.” Interesting how, over one hundred and ten years later, this same theme is dominating the
American political discourse. 1

2. Progressive propaganda
poster, 1910s
You’ve all driven by construction sites like the one below,
where the temporary wooden walls have been “bombed”
by graffiti and endless numbers of flyers and posters
promoting something, usually records, movies, concerts…or
political issues. The Progressives were not just skilled at
this, they essentially invented the tactic to raise public
awareness about problems confronting society, problems
such as child labor, politicized in the poster at right and
following, and also captured in the accompanying images as
well.
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8. Cliff Dwellers, George
Bellows, 1913
George Bellows was an affluent member of the
upper class who became interested in painting
the “real life” of New York City – its streets, its
people, its daily life; but this was something
which had never been done. He went into the
slums and really looked at the people there and
their living conditions, and the first painting he
executed on this new subject matter was Cliff
Dwellers.
The title was inspired by a trip he had taken to
the Southwest where he saw the ruins of the
Pueblo peoples at Canyon de Chelly and other
sites; to him, the crowded streets; the tenement
buildings with their laundry lines; and folks
shouting down to the street and up to the
window and the fire escapes; the hustle bustle of
everyday life were reminiscent of what it must
have been like to live amongst the Indians of the
past amongst those canyons and mesas.
Bellows was no Progressive, but Progressive
reformers, seeing his work in gallery shows, were
inspired to go into the slums themselves to
investigate the living conditions there.
Inadvertently, Bellows’ work became one of
many sources of information that helped pave
the way to reform.
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9. Female garment worker in
sweatshop, 1903
Working conditions like these were to
be found in every workshop and
smaller factory in the United States
and, indeed, the world. It was
tragedies like this that proved to be
rallying points for Progressives,
resulting in the creation of such
organizations as the Women’s Trade
Union League and the New York State
Factory Commission. Similar
organizations were established in
other industrial cities, and city- and
state-level commissions passed
legislation that created strict codes to
protect the lives of workers, as well as
providing for inspections of workshops
and factories by municipal and/or
state agents whose task was to ensure
that the new laws were being
followed.
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10. The Landlords Game, Elizabeth Magie, 1904. Several different versions of the game had been manufactured
and sold going back twenty years, each with the same basic theme: “Get rich and show no mercy to those with
less.” This is the first copyrighted version of the game that would later become Monopoly (see next image),
which you’ve all played, and if you haven’t, what are you doing here? Go out and buy yourself a Monopoly
game and have yourself some fun!
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11. MONOPOLY, 1935
Have you ever taken a minute to really
think about the Monopoly board? The
Railroads and Utilities, the Community
Chest and Chance? Stop for a moment
and try to relate the game to what
you’ve been reading about in the
book. Does the policeman offer you a
lawyer, due process of law? Think
about how life’s randomness, the
simple twists of fate, for good or bad,
are reflected in the Chance
spaces/cards. What about the ways in
which the basic costs of life for anyone
can be felt in the paying of rent, utility
bills, taxes, and the costs of simply
being a part of an urban village as
reflected in the Community Chest
spaces/cards?
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13. “The Modern Colossus of
Railroads,” Joseph Kepler,
1879
With a clever tip of the hat to the
ancient world’s Colossus of
Rhodes, Kepler’s cartoon shows
Cornelius Vanderbilt as a colossal
controller not just of the railroads
but of their tracks and stations
and comments on the trust that
was established between
Vanderbilt and fellow railroad
tycoons Jay Gould and Cyrus W.
Fields. To the left a banner flies
above the depot proclaiming
Fields’ unofficial motto: “Many
nickels stolen are millions gained.”
Monopoly, anybody?
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14. “Next,” Joseph Kepler, 1904
This criticism of the power of Standard Oil shows the largest company in the
world as a malign octopus, its tentacles wrapped around the powers of the
railroads, the shipping industry, the state legislatures, assorted politicians and
businessmen, Congress, and it’s reaching for the White House, the last great
power it needs for total domination. 14

15. “What a funny little government...” Horace Taylor, 1899
And here is how Standard Oil got that powerful: John D. Rockefeller’s bribes of corrupt government officials which,
according to Taylor, are taken care of in the same meticulous fashion with which a jeweler inspects a rare gem
(notice the jeweler’s loupe in JDR’s eye). This, according to Taylor, will result in an American landscape covered in
oil barrels, and the Congress reduced to nothing more than a Standard Oil Refinery. In the next cartoon by J. S.
Pughe (1901) ‘King’ Rockefeller stands atop the ‘throne’ of Standard Oil which affords him such power that he can
dictate the rates to all of the nation’s railroad combines which form a crown upon his swollen head. 15

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17. “Jack the Giant Killer,”
1904, Puck magazine
Theodore Roosevelt as Jack the Giant-
Killer of faerie tale fame stands proudly at
center, wielding a mighty sword with the
words “Public Service” on its blade. From
each side of the canyon-like city streets
come the giants, but writ in modern
terms: Rockefeller, Gould, Hill, Oxnard,
and Morgan - captains of industry or
robber barons? In their own eyes,
certainly, the former; in the eyes of the
majority of Americans, the latter. The
question then, must be – how can such a
tiny hero defeat these mighty giants,
these architects of the trust, these
monopolists? Since the power of money
(the New York Stock Exchange) is off to
one side (directly to the left of
Roosevelt), and the power of
righteousness is aligned with the
President right down the middle of the
street (the church in the distance), the
implication would seem to be that the
little guy is going to win, as indeed
Roosevelt did – forty-four monopolies
were “busted” during his presidency.
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18. Roosevelt as the mighty tamer of wild beasts, as well as men – here you see visual
symbols of, from left to right, the trusts, the G.O.P. (Republican Party), and various
foreign countries, among them, San Domingo, Panama, and the Philippines. In the
next image, it’s all about the trusts.
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20. Yet another commentary on
Roosevelt’s trust-busting, this
one riffs off of the famous
hunting trip to Mississippi he
took during the first term of
his presidency. A bear had
been attacked by the dogs
and chained to a tree by the
time TR arrived on the scene,
He was asked if he wanted to
shoot the bear, and he
declined, saying that it would
be unsportsmanlike, but that
someone should put the bear
out of its misery. This story
got wide coverage in the
press (as did everything TR
did or said), and several
different bright fellows had
the idea at the same time to
manufacture stuffed bears for
children, calling them “Teddy
Bears.” Within a matter of
years, every child in America
had a teddy bear within their
first few years, and eventually
the teddy bear had become a
worldwide phenomenon.
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21. Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, Yosemite Valley, 1903
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, Yosemite Valley, 1903. During his presidency,
Theodore Roosevelt signed into existence five national parks, eighteen national
monuments, fifty-five national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national
forests. There has never been a president who was so deeply committed to
conservationism (conserving, or wisely using the country's national resources). As a boy,
the young Roosevelt was often found smelling of formaldehyde, as one of his favorite
pastimes was amateur taxidermy; another was sitting in the woods near his home for
hours on end, watching the movements of birds and making careful notations on them in
his journal. As a man, he would follow his presidency with a six-month safari in Africa,
during which time he would shoot and kill over six hundred animals, including a number of
elephants. (For most of us this latter, of course, is appalling, but it’s not 2010
anymore…)
He was, always, a bundle of contradictions.
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23. The present-day system of national parks and forests, in large part
a legacy of Theodore Roosevelt's interest in environmentalism and
conservationism.
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24. W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington, the two most significant
black leaders/intellectuals of the early 20th century.
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25. “The New Nationalism,” 1912
Roosevelt’s platform for the New Nationalism seemed, to his critics, to be a little bit of
everything: conservatism, liberalism, democracy, Progressivism…something for everyone, and for
every voter.
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