Reform Movements: Progressive Era Solutions

1. Chapter 11 The Progressive Reform Era

2. At the end of the 1800s, problems resulting from rapid industrialization, immigration, and urban growth spurred the creation of many reform movements during what is known as the Progressive Era. This period lasted from 1890-1920.

3. Private charities and social organizations could not solve problems on such a large scale. Lodging house , 1872

4. Why were progressives from the middle class and not immigrant, poor, working class people? Goals of the Progressive Era Governments should do all of the following: • Be accountable to its citizens • Curb the power of wealthy special interests • Expand powers to improve the lives of all citizens 4. Become more efficient and less corrupt *This is the first time that citizens had looked to the government to solve their problems and assume responsibility for their welfare.

5. The term muckraker was used by Theodore Roosevelt to describe journalists and writers who wrote about corruption in business and politics. Upon reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Teddy Roosevelt wrote the author, “the specific evils you point out shall, if their existence be proved, and if I have power, be eradicated.

6. Packingtown-from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle Workers walk over the meat and put it back into the line to be processed. Rats will crawl over the meat and workers will spread poison around for them to die. When the rats have been killed, the rats and the leftover poison will then be packed together in the meat.

7. The Labor Movement • courts on the side of big business • issued an injunction, a court order that prohibits certain activities, to prevent workers from going on strike Pinkerton Guards escort strikebreakers (scabs)

8. Some workers were attracted to socialism, an economic and political philosophy favoring public or government control of property and income. • Most Americans against socialism and still favored capitalism!!

9. Many women believed that they had to have the right to vote in order to institute progressive reforms that they believed in. Many people thought that voting would make women too masculine.

10. women and children faced horrible conditions in factories • many women’s organizations sought to reform the workplace Child textile worker Many women work in crowded factories, such as this lock and drill department in Ohio in 1902 Child mine worker

11. Florence Kelley-against child labor Kelley was placed in charge of investigating labor conditions in Chicago. Because of her efforts, in 1893 Illinois passed a law prohibiting child labor, limiting working hours for women, and regulating sweatshop conditions. When she became frustrated that the attorney general would not enforce the law, she earned a law degree to take action herself. Later in life she would fight tirelessly to improve health conditions for women and children

12. Mary Harris “Mother” Jones With miner children With President Coolidge Mother Jones’s husband and four children died in a yellow fever epidemic. She then lost everything that she had in the Chicago fire in 1871. She was forced to go to work to support herself. It was then that she appealed to the Knights of Labor for help and took on their cause of improving working conditions. She organized unions for both men and women. She became best known for her work improving mining conditions in West Virginia and Colorado. Well into her eighties, she was still making pro-union speeches. In 1905 she helped to found the International Workers of the World (IWW).

13. Veteran labor organizer “Mother” Mary Jones, age 88, urges steel workers to vote “Yes” for a strike against the steel corporations In one mill, I got a day-shift job. On my way to work I met a woman coming home from night work. She had a tiny bundle of a baby in her arms."How old is the baby?""Three days. I just went back this morning. The boss was good and saved my place.""When did you leave?""The boss was good; he let me off early the night the baby was born.""What do you do with the baby while you work?""Oh, the boss is good and he lets me have a little box with a pillow in it beside the loom. The baby sleeps there and when it cries, I nurse it.“ From Mother Jones’s autobiography

14. Progressives often met with resistance from the very people that they were trying to help. • poor people needed their children to work to help support the family • If progressives succeeded in outlawing child labor, many families would have to survive on even less money. Some people did not believe that it was the government’s responsibility to be so involved in the lives of its citizens- that the government should not interfere in housing, health care, and even moral issues like alcohol consumption.

15. Section 2 Progressive legislation

16. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire • March 25, 1911, New York City • Employees were mostly young Italian and Jewish girls • Fire was feed by fabric and trash • Doors and window were locked to prevent women from taking breaks • Fire escape was old and in disrepair and collapsed when women piled onto it. • Fire department ladders not long enough to reach upper floors where women worked • Water pressure would not reach upper floors • 146 workers died

17. Protesting voices arose, bewildered and angry at the lack of concern and the greed that had made this possible. • Outraged cries called for action to improve the unsafe conditions in workshops.

19. T. Roosevelt Reforms • Promised a “Square Deal”(fair) for the public • Vigorously enforced the Sherman Anti-trust Act (42 suits)-no monopolies • Pure Food and Drug Act • Expanded environmental protection (federally protected lands) • ***TR expanded the power of the executive branch of government

20. Amendments during Progressive Era • 16th Amendment- federal income tax • 17th Amendment-direct election of U.S. Senators • 18th Amendment-Prohibition-outlawed alcohol

21. Section 3 Progressivism Under Taft and Wilson

22. Progressivism under Taft Ballinger-Pinchot Affair • Promised to follow progressive lead of TR • TR had placed Gifford Pinchot, a strong conservationist, over the US Forest Service • Taft placed Ballinger, a man that supported business, over the Department of Interior. • Ballinger allowed a businesses to take possession of coal rich land in Alaska that was set aside as public lands • Pinchot complained publicly about Ballinger and Taft fired Pinchot

23. Taft a failure as a Progressive President • Roosevelt returned from Africa and was furious about the job Taft was doing • Taft was not excited about continuing with another term in the Presidency

24. Election of 1912 • Roosevelt sought the nomination from the Republican party but did not get it • The Progressive (Bull Moose) Party created; Roosevelt presidential candidate • Supported: women’s suffrage(the right to vote), child labor ban, worker’s compensation, and direct election of senators

25. Wilson: 42% Popular Vote T. Roosevelt 27% Popular Vote Taft: 23% Popular Vote Debs 8% Popular Vote **Wilson WON the 1912 election because the Republican Party SPLIT THE VOTE!

26. Woodrow Wilson-1912 • Clayton Anti Trust Act made Sherman Anti Trust stronger by protecting unions • Created the Federal Trade Commission to watch businesses to make sure they were behaving and not attempting to become powerful monopolies • Federal Reserve System to control cash flow and help stop economic panic

27. WILSON=New Freedom platform

28. Section 4 Suffrage at Last

29. The Women Get Organized • 1st organization of women: Seneca Falls ConventionNew York • Susan B. Anthony argued that the 14th amendment gave women the right to vote • Other suffrage activists: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

30. Susan B. Anthony In the 1800s, women in the United States had few legal rights and did not have the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony was arrested for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872.She was tried and then fined $100 but refused to pay.

31. 3 ways to possibly acquire the vote • 14th amendment • Each state pass a law allowing for women’s suffrage • A Constitutional Amendment so that every state would then have to recognize the amendment to the “Law of the Land”

32. NAWSA: National American Women’s Suffrage Association • NAWSA continued to fight a state by state campaign and push for an amendment to the Constitutionalong with the Congressional Union • Leader Carrie Chapman Catt

33. Congressional Union • Lucy Burns and Alice Paul tried new tactics in their fight for suffrage • They burned speeches Wilson had made • Picketed the White House • Were arrested and started hunger strikes in jail ALICE PAUL

34. 19TH AMENDMENT (gave women right to vote) WAS PASSED IN 1920It was a “reward” for all work that they had done in World War I.