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22 The Progressive Era1895–1917
The Muckrakers At the beginning of the twentieth century magazines enjoyed increasing popularity. McClure’s Magazine pioneered investigative journalism. The November 1902 edition featured the first installment of Ida Tarbell’s two-year series on Standard Oil that exposed the corrupt practices and deals that had helped create the company.
The Progressive Era1895–1917 • The Changing Face of Industrialism • Society’s Masses • Conflict in the Workplace • A New Urban Culture
Muckrakers Call For Reform • Journalistic voice of progressivism • Reflected worry about society, the effects of industrialization and urbanization, social disorder, political corruption • Thousands set out to cure ills of society
The Changing Face of Industrialism • Industrial growth meant more goods at lower prices • Residue of social problems from 1890s • New century began on optimistic note
The Innovative Model T • Henry Ford transformed auto industry with mass production • Small profit on each unit, gross of huge profit on high volume of sales • 1908: Model T introduced • 1916: Federal government began highway subsidies
Rise of Mass Production Henry Ford built his first car in 1896, then produced improved models, each designated by a letter of the alphabet. Shown here are Henry Ford and a friend in a 1905 Model N, Ford’s best-selling model before the Model T debuted in 1908. The “Tin Lizzie” was Ford’s “motorcar for the multitudes,” affordably priced so that every family could own one. The automobile changed American life and the American landscape as it spawned the development of paved roads, traffic lights, and numerous auto-related businesses.
The Burgeoning Trusts • The trend toward bigness in industry accelerated after 1900 • Bankers provided integrated control through interlocking directorates • Trusts controversial • Often denounced as threats to equality • Some defended as more efficient
Managing the Machines • Frederick Taylor advocated “Scientific Management” to increase efficiency • Worker welfare, morale suffered • Better paychecks • Increased danger, tedium • 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire demonstrated risks of factory work
Tragedy at the Triangle Company Fire nets were of no avail to the workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company who jumped from the upper stories to escape the flames. Speaking to a mass meeting after the fire, labor organizer Rose Schneiderman inveighed against a system that treated human beings as expendable commodities.
Tragedy at the Triangle Company (continued) Fire nets were of no avail to the workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company who jumped from the upper stories to escape the flames. Speaking to a mass meeting after the fire, labor organizer Rose Schneiderman inveighed against a system that treated human beings as expendable commodities.
Society’s Masses • Employment expanded rapidly to increase production • Women, immigrants, blacks, Mexican Americans entered work force
Better Times on the Farm • Isolation reduced by mail and parcel post deliveries to farms • Tenant farmers remained impoverished • Western farmers benefited from vast irrigation projects
Women and Children at Work • Women resisted ideals of domesticity to enter work force • Women's labor unions defended rights of women, child laborers • Sheppard-Towner Act 1921: Protected health of pregnant workers and their infants
Child Labor Breaker boys, who picked out pieces of slate from the coal as it rushed past, often became bent-backed and suffered respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and tuberculosis after years of working 14 hours a day in the coal mines. Accidents—and deaths—were common in the mines.
The Niagara Movement and the NAACP • Most African Americans were poor sharecroppers, segregated by Jim Crow Laws and at mercy of violent white mobs • Black workers gained least from prosperity • 1905: W.E.B. DuBois, others rejected accommodation to racist society
The Niagara Movement and the NAACP (cont’d) • "Niagara Movement" demands immediate respect for equal rights of all • NAACP, Urban League, advocate African American rights
Immigrants in the Labor Force • 1901–1920: Fresh influx of Europeans, Mexicans, Asians to labor force • Non-English speakers considered a social problem
Figure 22.2 Immigration to the United States, 1900–1920 (by area of origin) Note: For purposes of classification, “Northern and Western Europe” includes Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, and Germany. “Southern and Eastern Europe” includes Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, European Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. “Asia, Africa, and America” includes Asian Turkey, China, Japan, India, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, and all of Africa. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, DC, 1975.
Immigrants in the Labor Force (cont’d) • Programs to "Americanize" them • Immigration limitations • Chinese immigration banned in 1902 • Literacy tests used against other immigrant groups
Figure 22.3 Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1900–1920
Immigrants from Asia Japanese immigrants wait with a Methodist deaconess in the administration building of the immigration station at Angel Island, near San Francisco. Quota systems and exclusionary laws limited Asian immigration, while other laws placed restrictions on the immigrants, curtailing their right to own or even rent agricultural land. Some Asian immigrants, after months of detention at Angel Island, were refused permission to enter the United States and were forced to return to their homelands. (Source: Courtesy of the California Historical Society, FN-18240.)
Conflict in the Workplace • Low wages combined with demands for increased productivity led to increase in labor unrest in early 1900s • Industrial productivity fell • Union membership soared
Figure 22.4 Labor Union Membership, 1897–1920 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1982–1983, 103rd ed., Washington, DC, 1982.
Organizing Labor • A.F.L., led by Samuel Gompers was the largest union • 1903: Women excluded from A.F.L. form Women's Trade Union League: Triangle Shirtwaist Co, Fire—1911 • Hart, Schaffner Agreement: first successful collective bargaining • 1905: Industrial Workers of the World— unskilled, foreign-born workers
A Radical Union Holding signs and banners that proudly display their union allegiance, including a sign with the slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” women of the IWW participate in a strike at the Oliver Iron and Steel Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1913. The Clayton Act in 1914 legalized picketing and other union activity.
Organizing Labor (cont’d) • Led major strikes • Fears of class warfare increase • Employers improved working conditions to avoid trouble • Henry Ford doubled wages, reduced workday • Plant production increased • Union activity ended
A New Urban Culture • Mass production required mass consumption • Growing middle class consumed new inventions and entertainment
Production and Consumption • 1900–1920: New advertising techniques created demand for goods • Goods increased U.S. standard of living • Wealth increasingly concentrated
Living and Dying in an Urban Nation • By 1920, the average life span increased substantially, infant mortality still high • Booming cities took on modern form • Zoning regulations, first in Los Angeles, separated industrial, commercial, residential areas
Popular Pastimes • Ordinary people achieved leisure for first time in American history • Spectator pastimes included baseball, football, movies, concerts • Popular music: Sousa marches, ragtime, blues, jazz, vaudeville • Light reading included romance, detective, science-fiction novels
Experimentation in the Arts • Dance: Isadora Duncan • Painting: Ashcan School, post-Impressionists • Poetry: T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
Conclusion: A Ferment of Discovery and Reform • Racism, labor conflict remained • Solid social and economic gains made • Optimism that social experiments can succeed
