Ch.6 the progressive spirit and reform

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Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Chapter 6
US History: Civil War to the Present
The Gilded Age and the Progressive Movement
The Big Idea
From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, the Progressive movement addressed problems
in American society.
Main Ideas
•Political corruption was common during the Gilded Age.
•Progressives pushed for reforms to improve living conditions.
•Progressive reforms expanded the voting power of citizens.

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Chapter 6
Main Idea 1: Political corruption was common during the Gilded Age.
• Political machines strongly influenced city, county, and even federal politics in the late
1800s.
• Political machines used both legal and illegal means to get their candidates elected to
public office.
— Stuffed ballot boxes with votes for their candidates
— Paid people to vote with bribes, or bribed vote counters
• Supporters of political machines were often rewarded with government jobs.
• The most notorious political machine was New York City’s Tammany Hall, headed by
William Marcy Tweed.

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Chapter 6
• The administration of Ulysses S. Grant, who was elected in 1868 and reelected in 1872, was
charged with corruption.
• In Grant’s second term, federal officials were jailed for taking bribes from whiskey distillers.
• The scandal caused many Americans to question the honesty of national leaders.
Corruption in Washington

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Chapter 6
Grover Cleveland (1885–1889, 1893–1897), a
Democrat, worked hard to hire and fire people
based on merit, not party loyalty.
Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893) helped control
inflation and passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.
William McKinley (1897–1901) avoided scandal
and helped win back public trust in the
government.
Cleaning Up Political Corruption
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) promised
radical and complete changes in government
and made some minor reforms.
James B. Garfield (1881) attempted reforms,
but was assassinated by a disgruntled federal-
office seeker early in his term.
Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885), Garfield’s vice
president, became president. Backed the
Pendleton Civil Service Act passed in 1883.

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Chapter 6
• Progressives were reformers who worked to solve problems caused by rapid industrial and
urban growth.
– Eliminate causes of crime, disease, and poverty
– Ease overcrowding in cities
– Advocate for better education
– Promote better working conditions and less child labor
– Fight corruption in business and government
• Muckrakers were journalists who wrote about child labor, racial discrimination, slum
housing, and corruption in business.
– Influenced voters, causing them to pressure government officials
Main Idea 2: Progressives pushed for reforms to improve living conditions.

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Chapter 6
• Progressives started settlement houses, such as Jane Addams’s Hull House.
• City planners
– Helped design safer building codes
– Opened new public parks
• Civil and sanitation engineers
–Improved transportation
–Addressed pollution and sanitation issues, including waste disposal and
clean water
• Death rates dropped in cities where city planners and civil engineers addressed urban ills.
Reform Successes
Reform and Reformers

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Chapter 6
• Education reform included the enacting of school attendance laws.
• Susan Blow opened the first American public kindergarten.
• John Dewey advocated new teaching methods designed to help children learn problem-
solving skills, not just memorize facts.
• Joseph McCormack led the American Medical Association in supporting public health laws.
Social Reforms

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Chapter 6
•Progressives worked to reduce the power of the political machines by
– Ending corrupt ballot practices
– Adopting the secret ballot
–Adopting the direct primary, which allowed voters to choose party candidates
rather than having it done by party bosses
•The Seventeenth Amendment allowed Americans to vote directly for U.S. senators.
Main Idea 2: Progressive reformers expanded the voting power of citizens.

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Chapter 6
Recall, Initiative, and Referendum
Initiative
•Some states adopted the
initiative.
•It allowed voters to propose a
new law and vote on it.
Recall
•Some states and cities adopted
the recall.
•It was a special vote that gave
citizens the opportunity to
remove an elected official from
office.
Referendum
•Some states adopted the
referendum.
•It permitted voters to directly
approve or reject a proposed or
enacted law.

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Chapter 6
The States
•Governor Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin
challenged the power of the political bosses.
•He began a series of reforms called the
Wisconsin Idea.
•His reforms decreased the power of the
political machine.
•The Wisconsin Idea influenced other states.
Government Reforms
The Cities
•Some cities adopted a council-manager form of
government, in which a professional manager
runs the city.
•Other cities adopted a commission form of
government, in which a group of elected officials
runs the city.

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Chapter 6
Reforming the Workplace
The Big Idea
In the early 1900s, Progressives and other reformers focused on improving conditions for
American workers.
Main Ideas
•Reformers attempted to improve conditions for child laborers.
•Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in the workplace and to limit working
hours.

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Chapter 6
• Marie Van Vorst focused attention on the problem of child labor.
• Many children worked in industry—in 1900 more than 1.75 million children age 15 or
younger.
• Children as young as seven years old provided cheap labor for manufacturers but brought
home only small amounts of money to their families.
• Reformers wanted labor laws to protect women and children.
Main Idea 1: Reformers attempted to improve conditions for child laborers.

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Chapter 6
•Florence Kelley was a leader in the fight against child labor.
•Massachusetts passed the first minimum-wage law in 1912, and established a commission
to set wage rates for children.
•Congress passed federal child-labor laws in 1916 and 1919, banning child-labor products
from interstate commerce.
–The Supreme Court ruled the laws unconstitutional.
Child-Labor Reform

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Chapter 6
•Workplace accidents were coming in 1800s and early 1900s.
–Some 35,000 Americans were killed industrial accidents in 1900.
–About 500,000 suffered injuries in 1900.
•The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that killed 146 workers, mostly women and girls, led to laws to
improve factory safety.
•Reformers fought for workers’ compensation laws, which guaranteed a portion of lost
wages to workers injured on the job.
•In 1902 Maryland became the first state to pass a workers’ compensation law.
Main Idea 2: Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in the workplace
and to limit working hours.

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Chapter 6
• Some businesses opposed workplace regulations, believing that the economy should operate
without government interference. They went to court to block new labor laws.
• New York passed a law in 1897 limiting bakers to a 10-hour workday.
– Bakery owner Joseph Lochner sued.
– In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional.
–The court ruled that the state could not restrict employers from entering into any
kind of agreement with employees.
• In 1908, however, the Supreme Court upheld a law restricting women’s work hours in Muller v.
Oregon, ruling that it was a public health issue.
The Courts and Labor

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Chapter 6
Labor Organizations
• American Federation of
Labor led by Samuel
Gompers
• Supported capitalism, an
economic system in which
private firms run industry
• Labor unions tried to
improve working conditions
and pay.
• Union membership rose
from 800,000 in 1900 to
about 5 million in 1920.
• Some unions supported
socialism, a system in which
the government owns most
industry.
• Leading socialist union was
Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW).
• IWW led by William “Big
Bill” Haywood

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Chapter 6
The Rights of Women and Minorities
The Big Idea
The Progressive movement made advances for the rights of women and some minorities.
Main Ideas
•Women fought for temperance and the right to vote.
•African American reformers challenged discrimination and called for equality.
•Progressive reforms failed to benefit all minorities.

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Chapter 6
• New educational opportunities drew more women into the Progressive movement.
• Denied access to such professions as law and medicine, women entered fields such as social
work and education.
• Women’s clubs campaigned for many causes, including temperance, women’s suffrage,
child welfare, and political reform.
Main Idea 1: Women fought for temperance and the right to vote.

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Chapter 6
• Women reformers took up the cause of temperance: avoidance of alcohol consumption.
• The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union campaigned to restrict the sale of alcoholic
beverages.
• Radical temperance fighter Carry Nation stormed saloons and smashed bottles with an axe
in the 1890s.
• Temperance efforts led to the Eighteenth Amendment (1919), banning the production,
sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.
Temperance

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Chapter 6
• Women reformers fought for suffrage, or the right to vote.
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National American Woman
Suffrage Association (1890).
• Alice Paul founded the more radical National Woman’s Party (1913).
– Used parades and public demonstrations, picketing, and hunger strikes to
spread their message
• Suffragists won the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment (1919).
Women’s Suffrage

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Chapter 6
W. E. B. Du Bois attacked discrimination and helped found the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. They called for economic and educational equality for African
Americans.
The National Urban League, founded in 1911, helped African Americans moving from the South
to find jobs and housing.
Booker T. Washington encouraged African Americans to improve their educational and
economic well-being.
Ida B. Wells spoke out against discrimination and drew attention to the lynching of African
Americans.
Main Idea 2: African American reformers challenged discrimination and called for
equality.

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Chapter 6
• The Society of American Indians wanted Native Americans to adopt the ways of white
society, but many of them resisted.
• Chinese Americans formed their own groups to help support their members, including
neighborhood and district associations, cultural groups, churches, and temples.
– Built San Francisco’s Chinese hospital in 1925
• Immigration by Mexicans increased during this period, and many worked in farming.
• Progressive reforms did little to improve working conditions for farm workers.
Main Idea 3: Progressive reforms failed to benefit all minorities.

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Chapter 6
The Progressive Presidents
The Big Idea
American presidents in the early 1900s did a great deal to promote progressive reforms.
Main Ideas
•Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive reforms tried to balance the interests of business, consumers,
and laborers.
•William Howard Taft angered Progressives with his cautious reforms, while Woodrow Wilson
enacted far-reaching banking and antitrust reforms.

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Chapter 6
• Theodore Roosevelt called his reform policy the Square Deal.
• Used his policy to help settle the 1902 coal miners’ strike
• Threatened to take over the mines unless managers agreed to arbitration, a formal process
for settling disputes, with the strikers
Main Idea 1: Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive reforms tried to balance the
interests of business, consumers, and laborers.

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Chapter 6
• Influenced by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Roosevelt urged Congress to enact meat
inspection laws.
• Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.
– Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of mislabeled or contaminated
food and drugs
• Roosevelt persuaded Congress to regulate railroad shipping rates.
• Was the first president to successfully use the 1890 Sherman Trust Act to break up a
monopoly
• The public largely supported this expansion of federal regulatory powers.
Regulating Big Business

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Chapter 6
• Roosevelt strongly supported conservation, the protection of nature and its resources.
– Considered it an important national priority
• Some preservationists wanted to protect nature to save its beauty.
• Other preservationists wanted to make sure the nation used its natural resources
efficiently.
• Roosevelt responded by
–Adding 150 million acres of public land to the Forest Service to regulate use of
forest resources by business
– Doubling the number of national parks to preserve natural beauty
– Created 18 national monuments
– Started 51 bird sanctuaries
Conservation

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Chapter 6
• William Howard Taft moved more cautiously than Roosevelt had toward reform and
regulation.
• Progressives were disappointed in Taft’s approach to reform.
• Taft’s signing of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, which raised prices for consumers, was opposed
by many Progressives.
Main Idea 2: William Howard Taft angered Progressives with his cautious reforms,
while Woodrow Wilson enacted far-reaching banking and antitrust reforms.

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Chapter 6
Election of 1912
• Taft ran for reelection on the Republican ticket.
• Roosevelt, angry at Taft, formed the Progressive Party to run for president.
• Woodrow Wilson ran on the Democratic ticket and was elected president by a wide
margin.
• Eugene V. Debs ran on the Socialist Party ticket.
• Woodrow Wilson won by a wide margin as the Republican voters split between Taft and
Roosevelt.

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Chapter 6
• Introduced the modern income tax, made possible by ratification of the Sixteenth
Amendment in 1913
• Addressed banking reform with the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating a national banking
system
• Pushed for laws to regulate big business
– The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 strengthened laws against monopolies.
– The Federal Trade Commission, created in 1914, had the power to investigate
and punish unfair trade practices.
Wilson’s Reforms

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Chapter 6
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