The document discusses several key aspects of the Progressive Era in the United States, including: 1) Reformers known as Progressives worked to improve America's political and social environment in response to concerns about business excesses, and their efforts strengthened American democracy. 2) Novels like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed unsafe practices and spurred legislation like the Pure Food and Drug Act to regulate industries and protect consumers. 3) Women reformers played a large role in social reforms addressing issues like temperance, suffrage, education, and racism through organizations like settlement houses. 4) Jim Crow laws imposed racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans in the South despite the end of Reconstruction.

1. Goal #1 – Chapter 18

2. Overview
 The perceived excesses of business and industry coupled
with growing social concerns inspired reformers to make
important improvements in America’s political and social
environment.
 These reformers were known as Progressives. The
Progressive Era marks the second definitive era of social
and political reform, comparable to the reform movements
of the 1840’s.
 Progressive reforms strengthened American democracy in
ways carried forward into present times. Sadly, these
reforms did not extend to all parts of American society as
African Americans found themselves left out of reform
efforts when southern whites continued to deny basic
rights to black citizens.

3. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
 The Jungle (1906) was an intended exposé on the dangerous




working conditions faced by immigrant workers but instead is
remembered as an exposé on the Chicago meatpacking industry.
In 1904, Upton Sinclair was sent by a socialist magazine to work
undercover in the Chicago meatpacking industry.
In his undercover research, Sinclair learned about all aspects of
the meatpacking industry and about the lives of the immigrant
workers who made up its workforce.
The novel took two years to be published because of its horrific
subject matter and it was an instant success.
The role of the government was expanded by these efforts to
protect the U.S. population and to require regulation of business
practices.

4. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
 Just as Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought the issue of abolition
into middle class homes of the1850’s, Sinclair’s novel had a
similar effect in rousing the middle class in calling for
action against unsafe food packaging and preparation
practices.
 Popular history has President Theodore Roosevelt reading
the novel at breakfast and resolving to take action against
the practices described by the novelist.
 The Jungle served as an impetus for passage of laws to
regulate the meatpacking industry, to require meat packers
to produce food that was safe to consume, and, ultimately,
the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

5. Women’s Role in the Progressive Era
 By the last quarter of the 19th century, many middle class
women had received considerable education and society
still respected women as nurturers and agents of stability.
 Women used this influence and their educational
attainment to advocate for social change.
 These reforms included a re-born temperance
movement, women’s suffrage, sanitation, educational
reforms, and attacks on racism.
 Women, such as Jane Addams, played a huge role in
improving the lives of the urban poor, especially immigrant
women and children who were forced by circumstance to
work and live in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

6. Women’s Role in the Progressive Era
 Jane Addams (1860-1935) was the founder of the Settlement





House Movement in the United States.
The Settlement House Movement began in urban England as a
way of helping the poor by using donations from the wealthy in
an effort to improve the lives of the destitute.
Addams decided to create similar settlement house in Chicago
after visiting Toynbee House in London, England.
She founded Hull House in 1889 in an immigrant community for
the purpose of provide educational opportunities for
immigrants, especially immigrant women.
By 1893, Hull House was serving 2000 clients. Addams was also
gradually drawn into advocating for legislative reforms at the
municipal, state, and federal levels, addressing issues such as
child labor, healthcare, and immigration.
Later, Addams also became actively involved in women’s suffrage
and was a charter member of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.

7. Jim Crow Laws (1876 – 1965)
 Following the end of Reconstruction, white Democrats regained




power in southern legislatures, and, beginning in 1876, ten of the
eleven former Confederate states had created a legal framework for
separating whites and African-Americans known as “Jim Crow
laws”.
The initial purpose of Jim Crow laws was to prevent AfricanAmericans from participating in the political process, including
voting, serving in office, and participating in jury trials.
Gradually, Jim Crow laws were extended to include public
education, transportation, and other public facilities.
There were separate water fountains, waiting rooms, and restrooms
for whites and African-Americans. The laws were supposed to
provide “separate but equal” facilities but, in practice, facilities for
African-Americans were separate and inferior.
Jim Crow laws were initially created by states but, during the
Woodrow Wilson administration, Jim Crow was extended to the
federal government.

8. Jim Crow Laws (1876 – 1965)
 In 1890, Louisiana passed just such a Jim Crowe law that
required separate facilities on railroads.
 Concerned citizens, of all races, were determined to
challenge the legality of the new law.
 The opportunity came in 1892 when Homer Plessey (who
was 1/8th African-American, thus meeting the legal
definition, but not looking African-American) decided to
challenge the law.
 He was arrested for refusing to leave a whites only railroad
car. Plessey’s case was fought all the way to the Supreme
Court. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessey v.
Ferguson that “separate but equal” was constitutional.
Racial discrimination was now legal.

9. Jim Crow Laws (1876 – 1965)
 Widespread violence, including lynchings, against African-
Americans led to the formation of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in 1909.
 Created by a group of white supporters and W.E.B. Dubois,
the NAACP's stated goal was to secure for all people the
rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
to the United States Constitution.
 The organization quickly began to challenge Jim Crow laws
and lynching through the courts.
 Success in an Oklahoma case enhanced the organization’s
reputation and foreshadowed the success the NAACP
would have in ending public school segregation in 1954.

10. Ida Tarbell’s Role as a “Muckraker”
 The term “muckraker” originated from a speech that President
Theodore Roosevelt used praising journalists in their role of
uncovering that which was hidden from and corrupted society.
 Between 1902 and 1904, Ida Tarbell (1857-1944) wrote a series of
magazine articles exposing Standard Oil’s business practices.
 Tarbell’s 19 part “The History of the Standard Oil Company”
marked the beginning of investigative journalism. Spurred by
her father’s business loss at the hands of Rockefeller, Tarbell’s
methods became a model for other investigative journalists.
 She investigated Standard Oil for two years by examining public
records, newspaper coverage and interviewing former Standard
Oil executives in order to piece together how Rockefeller was
able to create the company.

11. Ida Tarbell’s Role as a “Muckraker”
 The articles told of how Rockefeller used his business methods
to destroy independent oilmen in Pennsylvania in order to create
an oil monopoly.
 She concluded her series by examining Rockefeller’s character in
which she characterized him as “money-mad” and that
Rockefeller had created a national life that was far meaner,
poorer, and uglier than had existed prior to Rockefeller’s creation
of Standard Oil.
 Her series was well received because, unlike Sinclair’s socialist
tendencies, Tarbell was not critical of capitalism but instead
focused her criticism on the unethical practices of Rockefeller
and his associates in building Standard Oil.
 Issues raised by Ida Tarbell’s role as a muckraker led to the
growing belief that the government should intervene in business
and not allow monopolies.

12. The Significance of Progressive Reforms
 In the early 20th century, Progressivism emerged as a




movement to improve American democracy, to achieve
social and economic justice, and to correct the evils of
industrialization and urbanization.
The Progressive Movement was generally made up of the
educated middle class who saw reform as civic duty.
Politically, the Progressives planned to attack graft, the
political machine, and the influence of big business on
government.
The Progressive Movement also planned to create new
political procedures that would enable greater political
participation.
To attack poverty, the Progressive planned to lobby for
greater governmental regulation to protect consumers and
workers.

13. The Significance of Progressive Reforms
Political Reforms
 Local/ State Reforms
 Initiative/referendum: allowed voters to suggest and
approve laws directly without going through state
legislatures.
 Recall: enabled voters to get rid of politicians who were
unsatisfactory, without waiting for a complete election cycle.
 National Reforms
 Direct election of senators: The Seventeenth Amendment
provided for the direct elections of U.S. Senators ending the
state legislative cronyism responsible for the appointment of
Senators.

14. The Significance of Progressive Reforms
Economic Reforms
 Labor laws
 State child labor laws set a minimum age for
employment and restricted the types of jobs that
children could hold.
 State laws were also pass to protect women by setting a
minimum wage and laws that created maximum hours.
 Work site inspections to insure health, safety, and
sanitation.
 State Worker’s Compensation Laws

15. Improving Living Conditions for the
Poor in Cities
 At the outset of the Progressive Era, Jacob Riis, a New York
photojournalist documented the living conditions of the
urban poor.
 His work How the Other Half Lives (1890), documented the
unhealthy tenement housing that workers and families
were forced to live in, as well as the sanitary conditions of
slum streets.
 His work led to the institution of municipal housing codes
calling for the re-design of urban housing and the creation
of sanitation departments that removed garbage and dead
animals from the streets.
 In addition, large urban centers began providing sewer and
water services lessening the chances of typhoid and cholera
outbreaks in cities.

16. The Conservation Movement
 The Conservation Movement emerged in the 1870’s.
 There were three schools of conservationist thought at the
time.
 1 - Business supported a laissez-faire approach believing that
business should be allowed to do as they wished with public
lands.
 2 - There was the Environmentalist school led by John Muir.
The Environmentalists believed that nature was sacred and
humans were the intruders. Further, humans should make a
minimal impact on nature.
 3 - Theodore Roosevelt and his mentor, Gifford Pinchot,
belonged to the Conservationist school. They believed that
nature could be used but it should also be protected.

17. The Conservation Movement
 Theodore Roosevelt was a life-long naturalist, who
majored in Natural History at Harvard, and an avid hunter.
 Roosevelt saw the continued despoliation of land for
timbering and mining would result in the loss of key
habitat needed for hunting and future economic
development.
 Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt increased national
reserves of forests, mineral lands, and hydropower sites.
 During his tenure in office, Roosevelt created the National
Forest Service, five new national parks, 18 new U.S.
national monuments, 51 bird reserves, four game
preserves, and 150 national forests. This also encouraged
states to follow the lead of the national government.