The Progressive Era Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Shirtwaists Factory Work Horror Press Accounts Anger Union Response Progressivism • Influential reform movement – mid 1890s-end of WWI • Many impulses – both liberal and conservative; Republican and Democrat • Desired to soften the harsh impact of industrialization, urbanization and immigration • Began in the cities among the middle classes • First nationwide reform movement General Middle Class Unease • America now a world power with an empire • Most productive industrial nation • Dramatic economic and demographic changes • Social Problems Specific Developments • Depression of the 1890s • Emergence of both Populist and Socialist parties • Numerous strikes and the rise of some small, but violent, unions • Arrogance of large corporations • The assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist Reforms • Relied on the new social sciences • Moralistic and optimistic • Need to reform society and institutions for “social efficiency” • But no single motive behind reforms Social Gospel • Humanitarian reformers • A means to translate faith into action • “ministers of reform” and “reforms of the heart” • Social justice impulses Jane Addams and Hull House Self-Interest • Middle class feared possible class warfare or the rise of socialism • Believed that reform to institutions and society needed • Worried about widening gap between the few “haves” and the many “have-nots” • Also feared the rising immigrant tide as a “menace” to democracy Sense of Vulnerability • Individuals no longer exercised control over their own destinies • The powerful corporation, “vested interests,” “malefactors of great wealth” held the people hostage • Reforms needed to protect/extend individual rights in the modern industrial era Muckrackers • Articulated the general fears • Gave focus to anxieties • Laid bare the “shameful facts” • Raised public awareness of specific issues upon which to focus reform Women’s Activism • General Federation of Women’s Clubs – united white middle class women’s clubs in 1890 • National Association of Colored Women – organized black middle class women’s clubs in 1896 • Issues: suffrage, libraries, schools, parks, hospitals, sanitation, juvenile courts, public health, pure foods and drugs, etc. Types of Reform • Four broad categories – To make the government more efficient, honest and responsive to the popular will – More stringent regulation of business to protect consumers, workers and small businesses – Efforts to improve the quality of life in the cities – Use of the coercive power of government to impose middle class standards on personal behavior and morality Moral “Reforms” • Prohibition, anti-gambling, close dance halls • Mandatory sterilization of sex offenders, certain criminals and mentally deficient persons • “Americanizing” immigrants Grass-.

1. The Progressive Era
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Shirtwaists
Factory Work
Horror
Press Accounts
Anger
Union Response

2. Progressivism
• Influential reform movement – mid 1890s-end of WWI
• Many impulses – both liberal and conservative;
Republican and Democrat
• Desired to soften the harsh impact of industrialization,
urbanization and immigration
• Began in the cities among the middle classes
• First nationwide reform movement
General Middle Class Unease
• America now a world power with an empire
• Most productive industrial nation
• Dramatic economic and demographic changes
• Social Problems
Specific Developments
• Depression of the 1890s
• Emergence of both Populist and
Socialist parties
• Numerous strikes and the rise of

3. some small, but violent, unions
• Arrogance of large corporations
• The assassination of President
McKinley by an anarchist
Reforms
• Relied on the new social sciences
• Moralistic and optimistic
• Need to reform society and institutions for “social
efficiency”
• But no single motive behind reforms
Social Gospel
• Humanitarian reformers
• A means to translate faith into action
• “ministers of reform” and “reforms of the heart”
• Social justice impulses
Jane Addams and Hull House

4. Self-Interest
• Middle class feared
possible class warfare or
the rise of socialism
• Believed that reform to
institutions and society
needed
• Worried about widening
gap between the few
“haves” and the many
“have-nots”
• Also feared the rising
immigrant tide as a
“menace” to democracy
Sense of Vulnerability
• Individuals no longer exercised control over their own
destinies
• The powerful corporation, “vested interests,”
“malefactors of great wealth” held the people hostage
• Reforms needed to protect/extend individual rights in the
modern industrial era

5. Muckrackers
• Articulated the general fears
• Gave focus to anxieties
• Laid bare the “shameful facts”
• Raised public awareness of
specific issues upon which to
focus reform
Women’s Activism
• General Federation of
Women’s Clubs – united white
middle class women’s clubs in
1890
• National Association of
Colored Women – organized
black middle class women’s
clubs in 1896
• Issues: suffrage, libraries,
schools, parks, hospitals,
sanitation, juvenile courts,
public health, pure foods and
drugs, etc.

6. Types of Reform
• Four broad categories
– To make the government more efficient, honest and
responsive to the popular will
– More stringent regulation of business to protect
consumers, workers and small businesses
– Efforts to improve the quality of life in the cities
– Use of the coercive power of government to impose
middle class standards on personal behavior and
morality
Moral “Reforms”
• Prohibition, anti-gambling, close dance halls
• Mandatory sterilization of sex offenders, certain criminals
and mentally deficient persons
• “Americanizing” immigrants
Grass-Roots
• Progressive movement began locally with
ending corruption and increasing social services
• State level most crucial

7. – Elected U.S. Senators
– State legislators could enact wide variety of laws
• Federal –
– Began in the House, more slowly in the Senate
– Received a boost with Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully
pulpit”
Roosevelt: Trust Busting
• Invoked the existing Sherman
Antitrust Act (1890) as the basis of
a suit against the Northern
Securities Company
• Government won – first time the
court ordered the dissolution of a
corporation
• More than 40 suits initiated
against monopolies
• Bureau of Corporations – 1903
• Finally realize the difference
between bad and good big
businesses
Labor Disputes

8. • Used executive authority to mediate
labor dispute
• 50,000 coal miners’ strike in
Pennsylvania in 1902 – owners
refused to negotiate with strikers
• TR forced negotiations resulting in an
increase in pay, decrease in hours but
with no union recognition
• Government would now be a third
party in major labor disputes
TR after 1904 Election
• Railroad regulation
• Public health issues
• Hepburn Act (1906) – substantially
increased the powers of the Interstate
Commerce Commission
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
• Meat Inspection Act (1906)
• Overhauled executive branch for more
efficiency
Conservation

9. • Added 150 million acres
to government reserves
• Scientific management
and use of national
resources – first national
conservation policy
Expanded Role of the Presidency
• TR made reform respectable
• Used White House as a “bully
pulpit”
• Established central role of the
federal government in the
implementation of progressive
reforms
• Redefined the modern
presidency
William Howard Taft
• TR’s hand-picked successor – wins
1908 election

10. • Wanted to place the “circle of law”
around changes wrought by TR
• Caught in the cross fire between two
Republican factions – the progressive
wing (Insurgents) and the conservative
wing (Old Guard)
• Bad blood develops between
Insurgents and Taft over a tariff bill
Taft’s Important Reforms
• Children’s Bureau
• Mann Act of 1910
• Taft initiated more antitrust suits
and withdrew more public lands
than did TR
1912 Election
• Roosevelt-Taft feud and
Republican factionalism leads
to three way election
• Woodrow Wilson – Democratic
Party

11. • William Howard Taft –
Republican Party
• Teddy Roosevelt – Bull Moose
Party
• Eugene Debs – Socialist Party
Roosevelt’s New Nationalism
• Business – big does not necessarily
mean bad
• Vigorous regulation of big business
• Social justice measures
– Abolition of child labor
– Suffrage and minimum wage for
women
• System of social insurance
• Health and safety standards for
labor
Wilson’s New Freedom
• Commitment to limited
government

12. • Small businesses
• Free competition
• Big business is bad –
break them up
• Tariff reduction
Wilson’s Economic Reforms
• Underwood-Simmons Act (1913) – imposed a graduated
income tax as authorized by the newly ratified 16th
Amendment
• Federal Reserve Act (1913) – banking reform – creates
the system of federal reserve banks and the Federal
Reserve Board
• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
• Creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Other Reforms
• Federal Farm Loan Act
• Warehouse Act
• Federal Highways Act

13. • Child labor laws
• Workers’ compensation for federal employees
• 8 hour days
Progressive Constitutional Amendments
• 16th – Income Tax
• 17th – Direct Election of U.S. Senators
• 18th – Prohibition
• 19th – Women’s Suffrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Prohibition.jpg
TR and Race
A Mixed History
• TR thought in the stereotypical racial
terms of his day – but he made
gestures of goodwill to most groups
• Invited Booker T. Washington to dinner
at the White House

14. • Appointed several qualified blacks to
minor federal posts – including Dr.
William D. Crum to head the
Charleston, SC customs house in 1905
Brownsville Riot
• However, TR could be quite
insensitive
• 1906 – members of a black army unit
stationed in Brownsville, TX faced
discrimination
• One hot August night one white man
was killed and several wounded
• TR ordered all 167 members of three
companies dishonorably discharged –
after the midterm elections
The Progressive Era and Race
• Progressive era coincided with the years of greatest
segregation in the South
• Progressives seldom included blacks in their reform
schemes

15. • However, the black middle class with some white
supporters do make some attempts for social justice
Two Paths
• Booker T. Washington’s
Atlanta Compromise –
accommodation and vocational
uplift
• WEB DuBois’s Talented Tenth
– political struggle to achieve
full suffrage and equal rights
led by a cultured black
vanguard
Birth of the NAACP
• 1905 – Du Bois forms the Niagara Movement for
cultural and economic equality
• 1909 – movement transforms into the NAACP –
Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, white settlement workers

16. like Jane Addams are founding members
• From the beginning and organization of both
black and white
Women’s Suffrage
• Susan B. Anthony – most prominent member of the suffrage
movement
in the late 19th – early 20th century
• Grass roots movement led by Carrie Chapman Catt – worked
state-by-
state for suffrage and on the federal level for a constitutional
amendment
• Militant movement led by Alice Paul – more radical protests,
hunger
strikes, arrests
Success – 19th Amendment (1920)