The Progressive Era from 1890-1915 was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States. Reformers worked to address issues like women's suffrage, child labor, prohibition, conservation, and trust-busting. During this time, immigration increased substantially and many immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe. Urbanization also grew as documented by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, who showed the poor living conditions faced by immigrants and child laborers. Notable progressive leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and reformers who sought to clean up corrupt machines and humanize big business through efficiency and regulation. A variety of influences shaped the progressive movement, including pragmatism, social gospel teachings, muckraking

1. THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
1890-1915

2. The first modern reform movement
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Women’s suffrage
Child labor laws
Prohibition
Conservation
Trust busting
Shorter working hours
Voting reforms
Graduated income tax
Social welfare reforms

3. Change: Immigration
After the depression
of the 1890s,
immigration jumped
from a low of 3.5
million in that
decade to a high of
9 million in the first
decade of the new
century.
After the 1880s,
immigrants
increasingly came
from Eastern and
Southern European
countries, Asia,
Canada, and Latin
America.
New Immigration 1880-1920s

4. Change: Urbanization
Reformer
Jacob Riis
documented
poor
immigrants in
the slums on
the lower east
side in NYC in
How the Other
Half Lives

5. Change: Industrialization
Lewis Hine
documented
poor laborers,
especially
children,
working long
hours under
harsh
conditions.

6. Other changes
T. Roosevelt
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W. Wilson
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Technological changes that impact
communication/transportation
Development of modern social sciences
New styles of presidential leadership
New role of US as a power in world
affairs
Great White Fleet 1907

7. Middle Class Concerns
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Economic power concentrating in the hands
of a few industrialists
Rising power of big business
Increasing gap between rich and poor
Violent conflicts between labor and capital
Dominance of corrupt political machines in
the cities
Minorities: racist, Jim Crow laws in the
South
Political reform and greater democracy
William “Boss” Tweed

8. Who were the progressives?
Middle class
 Educated
 Residents of cities
 Protestants
 Optimistic about human nature
 Women found a public role in
reform

Ida Tarbell & Florence Kelley

9. Who were the progressives?
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Fought for social reform and believed
government power could be used to
achieve it
Believed that cleaning up an
environment would improve the people
living in it—(saloons, movie houses,
temperance, prostitution, city beautiful
movement)
Carry Nation & Lincoln Steffens

10. Who were the progressives?
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Feared immigration (Jane Addams an
exception)
Wanted to humanize big business, not
eliminate it
Believed in the virtue of efficiency
Jane Addams & Frederick Taylor

11. Influences
Susan B.
Antony &
Elizabeth C.
Stanton
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Horace Mann
Reformers (1840s)
Populism (1890s)
Grimke
Sisters
W. J. Bryan
Mary Lease
Dorothea Dix

12. Influences
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Pragmatism--practical. From John Dewey
and William James. Pragmatists believed
that people should take a pragmatic or
practical approach to morals, ideals, and
knowledge.
They should experiment with ideas and
laws and test them in action until they
found something that seemed to work well
for the better ordering of society
William James (top), John Dewey (bottom)

13. Influences
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Scientific Management—efficiency.
From Frederick Taylor. Businesses and
governments should organize in the most
efficient manner possible.
Time and motion studies efficiency

14. Influences

Gladden
Rauschenbusch
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Social Gospel—Christians have social
responsibility (Washington Gladden,
Walter Rauschenbusch)
Goals of the movement were ending child
labor, a weekly day off, a living wage,
improved working conditions for women,
and religious/moral education for the
poor. Because they stressed God’s love for
all over damnation, it was known as a
“church of love.”

15. Influences
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Professionalism—growth of
professions and professional
organizations.
American Medical Association
American Bar Association
American Federation of Teachers

16. Influences
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Civic organizations
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
Society of American Indians (1911)
An 1890 photo of
Carlos Montezuma,
a member of the
Society of American
Indians

17. Influences
Presidents
Wilson and T.
Roosevelt
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Alice Paul
Charismatic leaders/feminists
Margaret Sanger
Eugene V. Debs
W. E. B. DuBois

18. Influences
Ida Tarbell
Lincoln
Steffens
Upton Sinclair
Ray S. Baker
S. S. McClure
David G.
Phillips
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Writers (i.e. Muckrakers)

19. Influences
William
Glackens
George
Bellows
Robert Henri
John Sloan
George Luks
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Artists (i.e. Ashcan School)

20. Influences
Booker T. Washington & Tuskegee Inst.
Niagara
Movement

21. Influences
IWW
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Labor leaders & unions
Knights of
Labor
AF of L
American
Railway Union
S. Gompers
E. Debs
Bill Haywood