Progressivism
Progressive Movement Social Progress Cities: Cleaner Safer Less Disease More Education Assistance to Poor Child Services 1905: Bathroom" in a New York City cold-water tenement flat. Toilets like this, 4 per floor, were communal
State Government Reforms Recall Initiative Referendum Allows voters to petition if necessary and have an elected representative removed from office. Allows voters to petition state legislatures in order to consider a bill desired by citizens. Allows voters to decide if a bill or proposed amendment should be passed.
Politics: Presidents of the Progressive Era Woodrow Wilson (D) 1913-1921 Teddy Roosevelt (R) 1901-1909 William Taft (R) 1909-1913
Teddy Roosevelt: Trust Buster TR wanted to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to actually go after bad trusts One s that hurt the public
Teddy Roosevelt: Trust Buster TR was not always consistent: Initiated suits against Tobacco, DuPont, Standard Oil, & Railroads
Teddy Roosevelt: Conservation TR created 1 st comprehensive national conservation policy: Defined conservation as wise use of natural resources
Teddy Roosevelt: Justice and Labor T-Rex orders Collective Bargaining 1902 to 1903 Coal Strike Union wanted shorter days and higher wages Owners of coal mine said no Workers strike Winter, nation needed coal to heat homes Coal supplies drops dangerously low TR calls a conference at the White House
Muckrakers Journalists and photographers who exposed abuses of wealth and power Uncovered secrets of corporate greed and effect on workers and the public They felt it was their job to write and expose corruption in industry, cities and government Progressives exposed corruption but usually offered no solutions
Muckrakers
Muckrakers Thomas Nast: Political cartoons Exposed corruption in New York City gov t: Tweed Ring at Tammany Hall Jacob Riis: Photographer How the Other Half Lives Exposed horrible living conditions in slums of cities Focused on poor in tenements Response: new regulations for building construction and inspection
Upton Sinclairs, The Jungle, exposed filthy, unsanitary working conditions and corruption in a meatpacking company in Chicago
Food and Drug Act Meat Inspection Act
McClure s Magazine 1904 - Ida Tarbell, History of Standard Oil Rockefeller s monopolistic practices 1904 Lincoln Steffens, Shame of the Cities Corruption in urban politics
Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906 Labels with medicine as well as food. Contents of food and drug packages must be listed All additives/chemicals must be listed on labels. FDA today or Food and Drug Administration
The Settlement House Movement Social welfare reformers work to relieve urban poverty Moved into poor communities Their settlement houses served as community centers and social service agencies. Hull House, founded by Jane Addams a model settlement house in Chicago, offered cultural events, classes, childcare, employment assistance, and health-care clinics.
To provide a center for higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises. To investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago. To help assimilate the immigrant population
RUN BY COLLEGE EDUCATED WOMEN provide educational, cultural, social services send visiting nurses to the sick help with personal, job, financial problems
Social Reformers SOCIAL GOSPEL Jane Addams Pioneer in the field of social work who founded the settlement house movement through the establishment of Hull House in Chicago, Illinois. Margaret Sanger Educated urban poor about the benefits of family planning through birth control. She founded the organization that became Planned Parenthood.
The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity."
16 th Amendment: Income Tax (1913) Progressive income tax assigned higher tax rates to people with
(1913) Increased voters power and reduced corruption in Senate
Banned interlocking directors from forming trusts Held business officers personally liable for monopolies Helped workers by allowing strikes & banning injunctions
Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896 Supreme Court legalized segregation throughout nation Separate but Equal as long as public facilities were equal Problem: Black facilities never equal to White facilities
social reality After Reconstruction, there were several ways that Southern states kept Blacks from voting and segregated, or separating people by the color of their skin in public facilities. Jim Crow laws, laws at the local and state level which segregated whites from blacks and kept African Americans as 2nd class citizens and from voting. poll taxes literacy tests grandfather clause
"It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true. Woodrow Wilson
A New Generation Women s Suffrage
19 th Amendment provides full suffrage to women in all the states, 1920.
New Generation Women s Suffrage
Most successful and well known WCTU reformer was Carrie Nation. She would march into a bar and sing and pray, while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet.
18 th Amendment: Prohibition (1919) Banned manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages