The Progressive Era
1900-1917
What are the major
problems in America
today?
What are you going to do about it?
What led to the rise of
Progressivism?
• Immigration
• Industrialization
• Urbanization & urban slums
• Muckrakers
• Social Gospel
Muckrakers
Writers who exposed the
corrupt and illegal
practices of big business
and government
Jacob Riis
• Wrote How the Other
Half Lives (1890), a
novel which describes
the urban slums and
tenements
• Shocked the nation and
created many reforms
• Quote in United States
History textbook p. 418
Lincoln Steffens
• The “Father” of the
Muckrakers
• Wrote The Shame Of
The Cities (1904)
• Exposed corruption in
St. Louis city politics
Ida Tarbell
• Wrote The History of
Standard Oil
Company (1904)
• Exposed the illegal
business practices
of Rockefeller’s
company
Upton Sinclair
• Wrote The Jungle (1906), a
novel which describes the
foul conditions in Chicago’s
meatpacking plants
• After President Theodore
Roosevelt read it, he created
the Meat Inspection Act and
Pure Food and Drug Act
Chicago Stockyards &
Meatpacking Plants
Social Gospel
Belief that individuals could follow the
Bible and make society “the kingdom
of God” leads to reform
• Settlement houses – community
center that provided services to the
urban poor like English classes,
nurseries, arts programs
– Jane Addams created Hull House in
Chicago (famous settlement house)
– goal is to “Americanize” immigrants
Robert La Follette
• Governor of Wisconsin
• “Fighting Bob”
• Many reform laws
– “direct primary” = citizens vote for
nominees
– RR lower fees, pay higher taxes
– Improved education
– Made factories safer
• Wisconsin was a model state for
progressivism!
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
• New York City, 1911
• Fire on the 8th, 9th,
10th floors
• 148 workers died--
jumped from windows
and down elevator
shafts or smothered
• Showed the nation
that workers needed
greater safety
Progressive Goals
• End child labor
• Increased educational opportunities
• Provide services for urban poor
• Improve industrial working conditions
• End corruption in government
• Increase democratic opportunities for
voters
Women
Progressives
Prohibition
• To prohibit the sale of alcohol
• Led by Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU) and
Anti-Saloon League
• Cause: heavy drinking, domestic
abuse and health problems
• Carrie A. Nation – entered
saloons and attacked liquor
bottles with her axe while
people sang hymns at the door
18th Amendment – Prohibition
Volstead Act – gave the detailed
laws of Prohibition
Women’s Suffrage
• National American Women’s
Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
• Susan B. Anthony was
President, then Carrie
Chapman Catt in 1900
• Creation of National Women’s
Party (NWP) by Alice Paul to
push for an amendment
Three-Part Strategy
1. State Legislatures
- wanted states to grant women’s suffrage
2. Court Cases
- to make the 15th Amendment applicable to
women
3. Constitutional Amendment
-In 1913 the National Women’s Party pressured
Congress to create an amendment to grant
women’s suffrage
In 1919, after World War I, the 19th Amendment
was ratified, granting women the right to vote
Election and Political
Reforms
The Progressive Era Part 2
Direct Primary Elections
Before: candidates chosen by a small
group of party leaders and voters had no
say
Reform: “direct primaries” in which voters
could choose which candidates they
wanted to run
Secret Ballot
Before: corrupted leaders often
counterfeited ballots and cheated the
voting system
Reform: the secret (Australian) ballot was
regulated by the government with a list of
candidates and positions AND citizens vote
in private!
17th Amendment
Before: U.S. Senators were chosen by
state legislatures
Reform: 17th Amendment creates the
direct election in which voters choose the
Senators
Initiative, Referendum, Recall
Before: voters had no input on government
actions
Reform: voters have a greater voice in local
government
Initiative = voters can introduce a specific bill
into the legislature
Referendum = voters can express views on
proposed measures
Recall = voters can remove a public official
from office
Progressive Amendments
16th – Federal Income Tax
17th – Direct Election of Senators
18th – Prohibition
enforced by Volstead Act
19th – Women’s Suffrage
Theodore
Roosevelt
1901-1909
Background
• aristocratic New York family
• sickly as a child, so he was
determined to be physically fit
and an outdoorsman
• Jobs: U.S. civil-service
commissioner, governor of New
York, Secretary of Navy,
McKinley’s Vice-President
• On a hunting trip, he refused to
shoot a bear cub and a toy-
maker marketed a new product:
the Teddy Bear
• VERY gregarious and boisterous
Outdoorsman
As President
• Becomes President when William McKinley is
assassinated in 1901
• Use of the “bully pulpit” = used his position
and power as president to shape public
opinion and pursue his goals
• Progressive!
• Very loud and passionate about the issues
• Called for a “Square Deal” for Americans:
keep the wealthy and powerful from taking
advantage of small businesses and the poor;
create a fair government
“Trustbuster”
• Enforces the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
• U.S. v. E.C. Knight & Co. (1895) – Supreme Court
ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act doesn’t apply
to manufacturing more trusts created
• Northern Securities v. U.S. (1904) –Supreme Court
ruled that this RR company was an illegal trust
• Broke up beef industry and others
• Differentiated between “good trusts” (efficient, fair)
and “bad trusts” (bullied, cheated consumers)
Anthracite Coal Mine Strike, 1902
• Coal miners in PA went on strike for a raise and shorter
workday
• Roosevelt summoned both sides to the White House
because the nation needed coal to heat their houses in
the winter
• Owners wouldn’t go, so TR threatened to send in federal
soldiers to take over the mines
• The owners gave in; miners got a raise and shorter
workday
• Success! TR is seen as pro-labor
because he didn’t use force to
end the strike.
Interstate Commerce
• Strengthens the
Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC)
• Elkins Act (1903) –
fined railroads that
gave special rates to
certain shippers
• Hepburn Act (1906) -
allowed the ICC to set
maximum railroad
rates and fees
Health and Food
• Roosevelt was disgusted and revolted
after reading The Jungle
• Meat Inspection Act (1906) – federal
agents to inspect meat-processing plants
and meat sold across state lines
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) – required
correct and true labeling of food and
drugs; today this is the job of the FDA
Environmental Conservation
• Creation of the U.S. Forest Service led by Gifford
Pinchot
• Closed off 100 million acres of forestland
• Creation of national parks
End of Presidency
• Since Roosevelt had served most of
McKinley’s second term, he had always
promised to not run for reelection
• Handpicks Secretary of War William
Howard Taft to be his successor and carry
on his policies
• TR goes on an expedition
William
Howard Taft
1909-1913
Presidential Decisions
• More antitrust cases than TR
– Did not differentiate between “good” and “bad”
trusts
– American Tobacco v. U.S. (1911) – Duke family’s
tobacco company was an illegal trust
– Standard Oil & U.S. Steel were sued
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909) – lowered the tariff
• Mann-Elkins Act (1910) – government control over
telephone and telegraph rates
• Mann Act (1910) – prohibited white slavery (selling
girls into prostitution) and transporting females
across state lines for “immoral purposes”
End of Presidency
• TR was unhappy with him
• Unpopular with the public; didn’t like being
president
• Lost reelection in 1912
• After presidency served as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court
Progressive / Bull Moose Party
• Theodore Roosevelt called for a New
Nationalism -- a program to restore the
government as a trustbuster
• Said he was “strong as a bull moose”
• TR campaigned for a third term as
president
• Split the Republican Party
between himself and Taft
Candidates in Election of 1912
William H. Taft - Republican
Woodrow Wilson - Democrat
Theodore Roosevelt - Progressive
Eugene V. Debs - Socialist
Election Results
Who won? Why?
Woodrow
Wilson
1913-1921
Background
• From a family of Presbyterian preachers
• Grew up in the South
• President of Princeton University
• Governor of New Jersey
New Freedom
• Called for strict government controls on
corporations and create more opportunities for
small businesses
• Attacked the tariffs, the banks, the trusts
• Tariffs
– lowered tariffs (Underwood Tariff Act)
– raised taxes (16th Amendment -- federal
income tax)
Banks
• Before: no supervision of banks
• Federal Reserve Act (1913) – Created the
Federal Reserve System; regional banks held
reserve funds from commercial banks to spread
money around the country; sets interest rate;
supervises banks
Trusts
• Before: TR and Taft were “trustbusters”
• Believed that there could be “good” and “bad”
trusts
• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) - strengthened other
antitrust laws; detailed illegal business activities
• Federal Trade Commission (1914) – “watchdog
agency;” monitored corporations to make sure
they were using legal business practices;
watched for false advertising and dishonest
labeling
Other Info
• Encouraged the passage of the 19th
Amendment
• Allowed segregation laws to be passed
• Eventually took us into World War I in
1917
How were African-Americans
treated across the nation?
• Disenfranchisement – denied the right to vote
– Literacy test – show that you are literate
– Poll tax – pay to vote
– Grandfather clause – if your grandfather voted,
you can vote
• Segregation
– “separate but equal”
– De jure segregation - segregation by law
– De facto segregation - segregation by “choice”
– Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws
• State and local laws
enacted in southern and
border states
• Enforced between 1876
and 1965
• Laws that segregated
streetcars, schools, parks,
and even cemeteries
• Black schools and other
facilities became inferior
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• Homer Plessy boarded an all
white car, being 7/8th white and
1/8th black, and was arrested
after refusing to change cars.
• Justices upheld a law requiring
segregated railroad cars
• Segregation was constitutional
as long as facilities were equal -
“separate but equal”
• Affected all minorities
Booker T. Washington
• Born a slave
• Believed blacks needed to
acquire skills (ex. farming
and carpentry) and be
economically stable before
seeking equality
• Wanted African-
Americans to wait
patiently for change and
earn the respect of white
Americans
Washington’s
Accomplishments
• Founded Tuskegee Institute - a vocational
school in Alabama for African-Americans
• Wrote Up From Slavery, an autobiography
• Atlanta Compromise - speech given at the
Atlanta Exposition
– See quote on page 433 (“Comparing Viewpoints”)
W.E.B. DuBois
• First African-American to
earn his Ph.D. from
Harvard
• Demanded full, immediate,
racial equality, including
equal educational
opportunities
• Wanted African-Americans
to resist all forms of racism
DuBois’s
Accomplishments
• Niagara Movement (1905) - African-Americans
met to denounce gradual progress and
vocational education
• Founder of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) -
multiracial group that fought legal challenges to
achieve political and social equality for blacks
• Editor of The Crisis (NAACP Newsletter)
• Wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a book which
criticized Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells (Barnett)
• African-American
journalist
• Moved to Chicago
from Memphis in 1892
after a white mob
destroyed her offices
• Led a national anti-
lynching campaign
• Supported the NAACP
Wilmington Race Riot of 1898
• Was an integrated city
in the late 1800s after
the Civil War
• In 1898 an African-
American journalist
wrote an editorial about
white women
• White mobs attacked his
press
• African-Americans left
Wilmington and the city
became segregated with
Jim Crow laws
How did technological changes
redefine American culture?
• Electricity
• Skyscrapers
• Mail Order Catalogs
• Kodak Camera
• Movie Camera
• Wright Brothers
• Model T
Henry Ford
• Model-T affordable, basic car;
$825, went about 30 mph
• Assembly Line faster, cheaper
method of production
• Workers paid $5 a day - high wages!;
wanted to have workers who could buy the
product they made
• Great businessman
The End of the Progressive Era
• War erupts in Europe (WWI) in 1914
• The U.S. enters the war in 1917
• Decreased desire to reform society and
push for governmental change
Recap!
• People
– Muckrakers:
– Progressives:
– Presidents:
– African-American Leaders:
• Issues
Accomplishments of the
Progressive Era
SOCIAL & ECONOMIC POLITICAL