The document provides an overview of progressive reforms that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. It discusses political machines and corruption at this time. It also summarizes reforms to working conditions, such as restrictions on child labor and improved workplace safety after disasters like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Women's suffrage and the temperance movement are covered as are early civil rights leaders seeking racial equality. The document concludes by outlining some progressive presidents and their policies around trust-busting, banking reforms, and consumer protection.

1. Chapter 21:
The Progressive Spirit of Reform

2. Section 1
THE GILDED AGE
- Nickname for the period of
the late 1800s in the U.S.
- Emphasized the difference
between the wealthy business
owners and the extremely
poor workers

5. Political Machines
Organizations that used both
legal and illegal methods to get
candidates elected
Run by ‘bosses’
Methods:
◦ Stuffed ballot boxes
◦ Paid for votes
◦ Bribed vote counters

6. The Political Machine: Bosses
Traded favors for votes
A lot of support from immigrants and
poor
◦ Provided services, jobs, social
services (e.g. fire brigade)
Tammany Hall – NYC machine
Boss, William Marcy Tweed, may
have stolen up to $200 million from
the city

7. Cleaning Up Corruption
Scandals happen in Congress too,
and Americans begin to doubt
their leaders
◦ Whiskey taxes
◦ Government funds for railways
Call for a change in the spoils
system

8. Open your books to page 664
for a closer look! You will
need to know these
presidents!

9. Reform from Within
Presidents Hayes and Garfield
made attempts to reform
President Chester A. Arthur
(1881-5) backed the Pendleton
Civil Service Act
◦ Required more than 10% of
government workers to pass an
exam to be hired

10. Working for Social Change
Progressives
Worked to improve society in the
late 1800s
Goal = to eliminate the causes of
crime, disease, and poverty

11. Working for Social Change
Muckrakers
Journalists who vividly described the
problems of the United States
Effects:
1. Inspired the progressives to action
2. Angered politicians and business
leaders
Video clip notes:
Galvanize – to awake awareness
or call to action

13. “I aimed for the public’s heart, and, by accident, I
hit it in the stomach” – Upton Sinclair

14. Examples of Progressive Reform Already Learned in Class
(fyi, not notes!)
The 1901 New York State Tenement House Act
Settlement Houses
Jane Addams’s Hull House

15. Reform Effects and Successes
1. Housing reforms
2. New Professions (city planners and civil
engineering)
3. Education
◦ Compulsory in some states
◦ 4,000 kindergartens by 1898
4. Health
◦ Mortality rates drop
◦ American Medical Association (AMA) forms,
spread information

16. Voting Reforms
Progressives fought the political
machines
◦ Replaced corrupt ballots with
government prepared ones
◦ Secret ballots are adopted in
some states

17. Voting Reforms (cont.)
The Seventeenth Amendment
◦ Americans vote directly for the
U.S. Senators
◦ Passed in 1913
Recall – unhappy citizens sign a
petition that calls for a vote to
remove a politician from office

18. Voting Reforms (cont.)
Initiative – voters can propose a
new law by collecting signatures
for a petition
Referendum – allows voters to
approve or reject a law passed by
the government

19. Government Reforms
Some governments are changed to
run like businesses, with city councils
with professional managers
Robert M. La Follette (Wisconsin) was
a city manager
◦ Decreased political machine power
◦ Used experts to write laws
◦ Made politicians voting information
public to voters

21. Section 2
Imagine…
You have been working in a hat factory since 1900, when you
were eight years old. Now you are experienced enough to
run one of the sewing machines. You don’t earn as much as
older workers, but you family needs every penny you bring
home. Still, the long hours make you very tired. One day you
hear that people are trying to stop children from doing
factory work. They think children should be at school or
playing.
Would you be for or against this social reform? Why?
Reforming the
Workplace

22. Improving Conditions for Children
In 1900, more than 1.75 million
children age 15 or under worked in
factories, mines, and mills
Some states passed laws to help with
child labor conditions and minimum
age
Some parents still have their children
work, lying about their age.

23. Workplace Safety
Workplace accidents were common
• In 1900, 35,000 died and 50,000
injured
In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire shocks the nation into passing
laws that improve factory safety
standards
Also pass workers’ compensation
laws

24. The Courts and Labor
Some businesses want the gov. to
“mind its own bees wax” and take it
to court
Lochner v. New York
States can not force employers and
workers into any labor agreement
Muller v. Oregon
Court upheld restrictions on women
and children’s working hours

25. Labor Organizations
Different labor organizations support
different economic systems
Capitalism – private businesses run
industry, competition determines prices
Socialism – government owns and operates
a country’s means of production
◦ Industrial Works of the World (IWW) led
by William “Big Bill” Haywood, wanted to
have one U.S. union that would overthrow
capitalism

26. Section 3:
The Rights of
Women and
Minorities
Eighteenth Amendment
National American Woman
Suffrage Association
Alice Paul
Nineteenth Amendment
Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells
W.E.B. DuBois
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)

27. Women Fight…
More women attended college in the
late 1800s. They entered social work
and education because fields like law
and medicine were dominated by
men
Many used their new education to
fight for reform.
◦ Temperance
◦ Woman suffrage
◦ Social reforms
Smith College Basketball Team - 1902

28. The Temperance Movement
Some blame social issues on alcohol
and want government to restrict or
even ban it
◦ Saloons are forced to shut down
The Eighteenth Amendment – 1919
◦ Bans the production, sale, and
transportation of alcohol in the U.S.

29. Women’s Suffrage (the right to vote)
Gains national support in the 1890s.
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
◦ Founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
◦ Suffrage gained in some western states
National Woman’s Party (NWP)
◦ Founded by Alice Paul
◦ Used more aggressive measures
Nineteenth Amendment- 1919
Grants women the right to vote

32. Booker T. Washington
Believed African
American education
would lead to the end
of racism
Ida B. Wells
Used newspaper
journalism to inform
public about lynching
and inequal education
W.E.B. DuBois
Harvard PhD recipient.
Studied and publicized
cases of racial
prejudice. Founded
NAACP z
African American Leaders against Discrimination

33. National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Founded in 1909 by DuBois and
others
Argued for economic and educational
equality
Used the court system to combat
racism

34. Reform FAILS
Assimilation
Some minorities were encouraged to
assimilate to European culture or were
merely ignored.
The Society of American Indians – 1911
Some were completely ignored...
Chinese district associations, cultural
groups, churches, temples
Chinese immigration dropped and
Mexican immigration increased

35. Section 4: Progressive
Presidents
Yellowstone National Park – 1872
Becomes the first national park in
the U.S.A.

36. President Theodore Roosevelt, 25th President
Labor Business
Consumer Environment
Roosevelt’s
“Square Deal”

38. William Howard Taft, 27th President
• Upset progressives because he was too cautious
with reform
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909 raised some tariffs
• Progressive Party splits republican votes and Wilson
wins the 1912 election
Woodrow Wilson, 28th President
• Wanted banking revision and tariff reform
• Sixteenth Amendment instates the income tax
• The 1913 Federal Reserve Act creates the national
bank
• Clayton Antitrust Act fought monopolies

40. Looking Ahead…
1/26, Monday: Practice
Test Reviewed. Review Day
1/27, Tuesday: Chapter 21
Test