The document summarizes the Progressive Era in the United States from 1890 to 1920. It describes the roots of progressivism in rapid industrialization, immigration, and rejection of social Darwinism. Progressives were mainly middle and upper-class citizens who believed the government could enact reforms to address problems and continue social advancement. Their goals included trust-busting, increasing democracy, labor reforms, consumer protections, and social justice issues like civil rights and women's rights. Muckrakers like Upton Sinclair exposed issues through investigative journalism. Under Teddy Roosevelt, the federal government took a more active role in regulating industry and passing reforms like the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts.

1. THE
PROGRESSIVES
An Era of Reform: 1890 to 1920

2. CTQS FOR
PROGRESSIVE ERA
Who is responsible for solving the
problems brought on by industrialization?
Who were the Progressives?
Middle and upper class; women are
a key element of the movement.
Progressives believed that society,
through active and effective
governmental reforms and
legislation was capable of continued
growth and advancement.

3. ROOTS OF
PROGRESSIVES
Rapid growth of big business, coupled with social
problems associated with overpopulation in urban
environments led to political and social tensions
Immigration’s influence: 1900 76 million
Americans (1 in 7 foreign born) by 1914 another
13 million immigrants arrived on American soil.
Rejection of Social Darwinism - progressives
believe that domination by the rich and powerful
was a distortion of democracy.
As the middle class expanded, so to did supporters
of the progressive movement. Technicians,
managers, engineers and clerks, joined doctors,
lawyers and teachers to form the progressive base.

4. The Populists: Goals
1.Improve conditions for
farmers and workers
2.Curb the power of big
business
3.Make government more
accessible
The Social Gospel
Movement:
1.Christianity
2.Social reform
3.Society must take
responsibility for the less
fortunate
The Progressives:
1.Want to improve society
2.Use political action
3.Use the government to
solve problems
4.Regulation of Big Business

5. GOALS OF PROGRESSIVES
1. To decrease the role of special interest groups in government
2. To make the government more honest and responsive to
citizen needs
3. To increase popular participation in the American system
4. To create a more active, stronger role for the Federal
government
5. To push the government to be responsible for the social
welfare of its citizens (reject Social Darwinism)

6. PROGRESSIVE UMBRELLA
Trust Busting [anti-monopoly]
Increase Democracy and curb
corruption
Rejection of laissez faire
Conservationism
Civil Rights and Social Justice
Prohibition
Women’s rights
Labor Reform

7. MUCKRAKERS
Influential muckrakers in the movement
a. Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) - The Jungle
(1906) - an expose of the meatpacking industry,
although it was written as a socialist view of
contemporary history.
b. Ida Tarbell - History of the Standard Oil
Company
c. Others
(1) Frank Norris - The Octopus (1901)
(2) Lincoln Steffens - Shame of the Cities (1904)
(3) Jack London - The Iron Heel (1907)

8. CONSUMER
PROTECTION
Food and Drug Legislation
a. Meat Inspection Act 1906 provided for
inspection of meat packing plants
b. Pure Food and Drug Act 1906 - same day
(1) Unproven claims about a product could
not he made.
(2) A list of ingredients had to be made
available.
(3) Prohibited adulterated or mislabeled
foods and drugs from interstate commerce
but did not regulate intrastate food and
drugs.
The Pure Food and Drug Act took
medicines with cocaine and other
harmful ingredients off the
market
FOOD: IN CONTEXT 549
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
Administration, charged with oversight of the regulation
and inspection of medicines and foods.
The Federal Meat Inspection Act required four
main reforms. First, livestock must undergo a mandatory
advance copy of The Jungle. In response to the public
outcry raised by Sinclair’s book and the work of other
muckraking journalists, Roosevelt sent labor commis-
sioner Charles P. Neill (1865–1942) and social worker
James Bronson Reynolds (1861–1908) to conduct a
secret inspection of the nation’s meatpacking industry.
The large meatpacking companies were tipped off about
the inspections. They ordered all facilities to be cleaned,
and instructed English-speaking workers not to talk
to inspectors without a supervisor present. However,
Neill and Reynolds ultimately confirmed the existence
of unhealthy practices within the meatpacking indus-
try. The complete Neill-Reynolds Report indicated that
Sinclair’s novel may have underrepresented the scope of
the hygiene and corruption problems in food process-
ing at the time. Roosevelt later invited Sinclair to the
White House and solicited his advice on how to reform
the industry.
■ Impacts and Issues
On June 30, 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food
and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Also cre-
ated at Roosevelt’s request was the Food and Drug
WORDS TO KNOW
MEATPACKING: The process of slaughtering animals and pre-
paring meat for sale to consumers.
MUCKRAKERS: Late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth
century journalists, authors, and photographers who
sought social change by featuring injustices in such a way
as to create maximum interest and action in the public.
PROGRESSIVE ERA: A period of social and political reform in
the United States from the 1890s to the 1920s. Progres-
sive Era reforms included labor, education, food safety,
and anti-corruption laws.
REGULATION: Controlling behaviors, business practices, or
industrial practices through rules, restrictions, or laws to
encourage preferred outcomes or prevent undesired out-
comes that may otherwise occur.
An early-twentieth century cartoon features U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt taking control of the investigation into the meatpacking
scandal. © North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy.

10. UPTON SINCLAIR’S THE
JUNGLE (1906)
“There was never the least attention paid to
what was cut up for sausage; there would
come all the way back from Europe old
sausage that had been rejected, and that was
mouldy and white—it would be dosed with
borax and glycerine, and dumped into the
hoppers, and made over again for home
consumption. There would be meat that had
tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and
sawdust, where the workers had tramped and
spit uncounted billions of consumption germs.
There would be meat stored in great piles in
rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would
drip over it, and thousands of rats would race
about on it.”

11. CONSUMER
PROTECTION
Regulating Industry
a. 1904 - 318 Corporations
controlled $7 billion (40%) of US
manufacturing investment capital.
b. Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890
ineffectively curbed the growth of
industry and business mergers into
trusts (184 of the 318 were formed
after 1898).
c. Supreme Court Assistance and
Hindrance

12. TRUSTBUSTING
Worked to curb the power of Trusts and
to protect the Common Man
By 1900, Trusts – legal bodies created to
hold stock in many companies –
controlled 80% of U.S. industries
Six companies controlled 95% of
railroads
1902 - TR filed suit against N. Securities
Company
Roosevelt filed 44 antitrust suits under
the Sherman Antitrust Act
Establishes Fed. Gov’t position in
industry

13. PROGRESSIVE
GOVERNORS
Gov. Robert La Follette “Battlin’ Bob” - Wisconsin
governor who fought, often by himself, for major political
legislation.
Hiram Johnson, CA - 1911, introduces Initiative,
Referendum and Recall giving California voters a level
of direct control. Only other locations are S. Dakota and
Oregon “Oregon System”
a. Initiative and referendum, adopted first in Oregon and
in several other states by 1900
b. Recall, which allowed public officials to stand
reelection before their original term ended.
c. A Secret Ballot first, adopted in Wisconsin as well as
direct primary elections (1903)
d. 17th Amendment - Direct Election of Senators 1913

14. SOCIAL JUSTICE REFORMERS
The idea that social evils could be legislated away grew
popular but was carried to its extreme with the passage of
the 18th amendment, which prohibited the sale, distribution
or manufacture of intoxicating liquors in the US.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) and the Settlement House
Movement
(1) In Chicago in 1889, Addams established a settlement
house which was voluntarily run by middle-class white
women in the midst of a slum to provide direct relief to the
poor.
(2) The "Hull House" project was the model for other such
projects in several cities.
(3) Among the services: soup kitchens, clubs for boys and
girls, baths for children, reading classes, day nursery, classes
on personal hygiene, a gymnasium and a little theater.

15. IDA B. WELLS
Booker T. Washington made a great mistake in imagining
that black people could gain their rights merely by
making themselves factors in industrial life. -Ida B. Wells
Began her career as a journalist and would later be
published by the North Star
Sued Chesapeake Railroad company for being forced to
give up her seat in 1884. Won, but later over turned in
1887.
World’s Fair in Chicago (1892) Wells published and
distributed pamphlets emphasizing that Afro-Americans
were not an evolutionary lower race as Darwinian
thought proclaimed.

16. IDA B. WELLS
Along with W.E.B. Du Bois was a
founding member of the NAACP [1909]
and with the help of Jane Addams
successfully blocked the segregation of
schools in Chicago.
Her articles published in Chicago area
newspapers vehemently attacked
southern reasons for lynchings against
black men and women.
One of a few blacks who spoke out
against Booker T. Washington, the
founder of the Tuskegee Institute, who
advocated in favor of segregation of the
races.

17. ANTI-LYNCHING
CAMPAIGN
Since 1882 there have been 4,733
people killed in known lynching
cases.
1918 - Mary Turner incident
Ida B. Wells became active in
1892 after losing three friends to a
lynch mob. In 1892, 231 people
were killed, the most in any one
recorded year.
Last known lynching is 1955 -
however - James Byrd Jr (’98)
Brandon McClelland (’08), USC
and UCSD prank “noose” left
(’10)
Over 60 actively known hate
groups in CA according to SPLC

18. Strange Fruit
By Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol (1937)
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

19. Progressive Failures
• No significant steps were taken at this time to challenge the
South's Jim Crow system, solidly in place by 1900, which
kept Blacks in second class citizen status until the 1960s.
• a. No books like Helen Hunt's Century of Dishonor
challenged the American conscience toward the plight of
Southern Black citizens.
(1) 90% of American Blacks lived in the rural South during
the Progressive Era.
(2) One out of seven farmers in the US in 1900 was Black.
• b. Although Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the
White House for dinner, Southern anger, reacting with violent
acts against Southern Blacks, caused Roosevelt to back away
from further commitments after he lost Southern support.
• c. The Southern-born Wilson had no enthusiastic support
towards Black rights.

21. African Americans Respond
Niagara Movement - the first collective attempt by African-
Americans to demand full citizen rights in the 20th century
(without even indirect white support)
(1) Led by W.E.B. Du Bois
(2) Purpose: "organized determination and aggressive action on
the part of men who believe in Negro freedom and growth" and
opposition to "present methods of strangling honest criticism."
(3) In a Declaration of Principles , they espoused black rights
including the unrestricted right to vote and the end of all
segregation in public places
NAACP - 1909
(1) Its primary purpose became to challenge racial
discrimination and segregation in public places through the
legal system.
(2) Its publication Crisis was edited for 24 years by W.E.B Du
Bois, whose participation in the organization was
indispensable.

27. What happens to cause this shift from 1890 to 1920?

28. DAWN OF THE “NEW
WOMAN”
Before the Civil War, American women were
expected to devote their time to home and
family - remember “Republican Motherhood”
“Cult of Domesticity” used to identify four
key ideals for women to live up to: Piety,
Purity, Submissiveness and Domesticity
Victorian ideals prevailed through most of
the middle and upper classes. “Father knows
best” idea that women needed to be
protected as they were more susceptible to
sin

29. DAWN OF THE “NEW WOMAN”
Industrialism (in particular with the
lower working class) changes the
traditional family structure to include
women in the workforce. Immigrant
women were forced to work out of
necessity.
However, the wealthy working class
felt the urban poor woman in the
workforce was a contributing factor to
declining conditions and morals in
cities.

30. EDUCATION OF WOMEN
“A woman has a head almost too
small for intellect, but just big
enough for love” - physician at end
of 19th c.
The education of middle to upper
class women in the 1870s and 1880s
is a key moment in the emancipation
of women in the political system.
Jane Addams, Florence Kelley,
Ellen Richards, Amelia Bloomer,
Susan B. Anthony.

31. WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
1869 NWSA (National
Woman Suffrage Association
is founded. Led by Stanton
and Anthony it was considered
politically radical as it attacked
the institution of marriage as
entrapping for women.
The Subjection of Women by
John Stuart Mill 1869
AWSA also founded in 1869
by Lucy Stone. It was a more
moderate group; allowed men
to join and supported the
15th Amendment as a step
toward suffrage for women.

32. WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
Stanton, Anthony and Stone all threw their
support behind the African American
community hoping to combine efforts under a
shared desire of equal rights.
The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which
extends to all citizens, except women, the
protections of the Constitution against unjust
state laws. This Amendment was the first to
define "citizens" and "voters" as "male."
Later, the Fifteenth Amendment extended
suffrage to all African American males

33. WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
By 1870, frustrated with the lack of progress - the
NWSA refocused on achieving suffrage cause and
less on equal pay and divorce rights.
By the 1890s, Susan B. Anthony had achieved
national recognition as a female leader - a first in
American History.
The NWSA would later influence Emmeline
Pankhurst and the WSPU (Women’s Social and
Political Union) and the American ERA push by
Alice Paul
"it will come...It is inevitable. We can no more deny
forever the right of self-government to one-half our
people than we could keep the Negro forever in
bondage.” - Susan B. Anthony, 1900

34. WOMEN LEADING
REFORM
Alice Paul, who organized the Woman's Party
in the 1910s and introduced the first Equal
Rights Amendment in 1916, represented the
young face of radical feminism.
The campaign for the ERA during the 1910s
was so radical that most social feminists
rejected it out of fear that the proposed
constitutional amendment would endanger
protective legislation for women. As a result,
the campaign for the ERA remained a
minority movement within feminism.

36. WOMEN LEADING REFORM
In addition to the ERA, another point of division
among various feminist groups was World War I. Jane
Addams and other social feminists were vocal pacifists
who opposed Wilson's decision to enter the war.
Radical suffragists, led by Alice Paul and Carrie
Chapman(NAWSA), endorsed Wilson's decision, with
the understanding that Wilson would support women's
suffrage at war's end. After the war came to a close,
Wilson pointed to women's loyalty in the war effort
and urged Congress to pass the Nineteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.
In 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment
and the states ratified it in 1920.