The Progressive Era

1. The Progressive Era 1900-1920

2. Road to Progressivism • Greenback Labor Party of 1870s sought to thwart power of "robber barons" • Populism: ideas geared to rural life, many of its ideas appealed to progressives who sought to regulate trusts, reduce power of political machines, and remedy social injustice

3. Rise of Progressivism • Mugwumps (reform-minded Republicans of late-19th c.) desired a return to pre-monopoly America • Protestant/Victorian ideals of hard work = success were now threatened by “nouveau riche”

4. Emerging middle class sympathized with Mugwump views ("3rd great awakening") • Political reformers, intellectuals, women, journalists, social gospelites • Saw themselves being unrepresented

5. The Progressives • Believed efficient gov’t could protect public interest and restore order to society • Government is an agency of human welfare • Specific issues for reform • The break-up or regulation of trusts • Killing political machines • Reduce the threat of socialism (by improving workers’ lives) • Improve squalid conditions in the cities • Improve working conditions for women and end child labor

6. Continued… • Consumer protection • Voting reform • Conservation • Banking reform • Labor reform (working conditions and unionization) • Prohibition of alcohol • Female suffrage • Thus, Progressive crusaders created a reform movement not seen since the 2nd Great Awakening

7. Early Progressive writers and social critics • Henry Demarest Lloyd -- Wealth against Commonwealth (1894) • Criticized Standard Oil • Beginning of investigative journalism • Thorstein Veblen -- The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) • Criticized the nouveau riche for its flaunting of wealth

8. Jacob A. Riis -- How the Other Half Lives (1890) • Photojournalist who exposed the dirt, disease, vice, and misery of rat-infested New York slums • Heavily influenced progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt

9. JACOB RIIS: DOCUMENTED POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS Jacob Riis

14. Evicted

16. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Woman and Economics (1898) • Considered a classic of feminist literature • Called on women to abandon their dependent status and work outside the home

17. Socialists criticized existing injustices • Many were European immigrants who hated excesses of capitalism

18. Social Gospel Movement (late 19th century) • Emphasized role of church in improving life on earth rather than in helping individuals get into heaven • Settlement house movement and Salvation Army

19. Muckrakers • Name coined by Theodore Roosevelt as criticism of their journalism • Journalists who attempted to expose evils of society • Popular magazines such as McClure’s, Cosmopolitan (owned by Hearst), Collier’s, and Everybody’s emerged

22. Lincoln Steffens -- Shame of the Cities (1902) • Detailed the corrupt alliance between big business and gov’t • Ida M. Tarbell: published devastating expose on Standard Oil Co • Detailed Rockefeller’s ruthless tactics to crush competition • In 1911, Standard Oil trust was broken up; seen as a “bad trust”

23. IDA TARBELL CARTOON SHOWING THE “OCTOPUS” STANDARD OIL SEIZING THE NATION’S OIL BUSINESSES

24. Upton Sinclair -- The Jungle (1906) • Graphic depictions of unsanitary conditions in packing plants sparked a reaction to the meat industry and led to regulation under TR • Inspired Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

25. UPTON SINCLAIR HIS BOOK, THE JUNGLE DESCRIBED THE FILTHY CONDITIONS IN THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY AND LED TO THE PASSAGE OF THE FEDERAL MEAT INSPECTION ACT OF 1906

26. EXCERPT FROM THE JUNGLE “…old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white – it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, 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. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together… the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit.”

27. John Spargo: The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906) • Exposed the abuses of child labor • Ray Stannard Baker: Following the Color Line (1908) • Attacked the subjugation of America’s 9 million blacks, & their illiteracy • Frank Norris: The Octopus (1901)and The Pit (1903) • Showed how railroads and corrupt politicians controlled California wheat ranchers

32. Political Reforms • Robert La Follette & the "Wisconsin Experiment“ • Governor of Wisconsin, 1901: he helped destroy the political machine, take control away from lumber & railroad trusts & establish a progressive gov’t

33. Direct primary: In 1903, La Follette pressured the legislature to institute an election open to all voters within a party

34. Introduced the initiative, referendum, and recall • Initiative: allowed citizens to introduce a bill • referendum: voters cast ballots for or against proposed laws • recall: gave citizens right to remove elected officials from office • Direct election of Senators • Before, the state legislature chose their senator • In 1913, approved as 17th Amendment

35. Adopted a state income tax; first state to do so • Replaced the existing spoils system with state civil service • Other states followed Wisconsin’s lead

36. Australian Ballot (secret ballot) • Introduced to counteract boss rule • Voting now done secretly and bribers unable to monitor voters • Ballot also eliminated illiterate voters as party workers could not help voters mark ballots • Hundreds of thousands of black and white voters became disenfranchised

37. Commission System • For state, local governments • Galveston, TX destroyed by hurricane, Sept. 1900- 8,000 dead • City gov’t too corrupt, inept to rebuild • Galveston Plan- appoint a commission to run the city

39. Progressive Activists/Crusaders • Sought improved living conditions in cities and labor reform for women & children • Jane Addams ("St. Jane"): Hull House • Settlement House mov’t

40. Women & Child Labor Reform • Child labor most successful of all Progressive social reforms • Florence Kelley • Investigated and reported on child labor while living at Hull House • As leader of the National Consumers League, helped organize consumer boycotts of goods made by children or by workers in unsanitary or dangerous jobs • As women were primary consumers, boycotts were often effective

49. Gains in women and child labor reform • Muller v. Oregon, 1906: Supreme Court upheld Oregon law restricting women’s labor to 10-hour workday; case won by Louis Brandeis who argued that women were weaker than men

50. Many states passed safety and sanitation codes for industry and closed certain harmful trades to juveniles • Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in 1911 killed 146 women workers, mostly girls • NYC and other legislatures passed laws regulating the hours and conditions in sweatshops