The Progressive Era

1. The Progressive Era

2. The Basics • Progressive Movement = “Aimed to return control of the government to the people, restore economic opportunities, and correct injustices in American life” • 4 Goals • Protect Social Welfare • Promote Moral Improvement • Create Economic Reform • Create Political Reforms

3. Identifying Reform Movements • Get into your group and look through the documents on your table. • On the 4th page in your Progressive Packet, fill out the web that has social, moral, political and economic in four different boxes. • You will use the documents to help you decide where the reform should be placed. • Some may be placed in more than one box

4. Moral Reforms- Strove to improve peoples personal behavior. • Social Reforms- Strove to relieve urban problems. Wanted to soften some of the harsh effects of industrialization • Economic Reforms- Prompted some Americans to question the capitalist economic system. Economic reformers looked at the industry/business. • Political Reforms- Strove to come up with acts that were more responsive to what citizens wanted.

5. Prohibition • The banning of alcoholic beverages. • Moral Reform • WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) • Most influential temperance org. • HUGE membership. • Carrie Nation- walked into saloons with a hatchet and destroyed them! • http://www.history.com/videos/prohibition-raid#prohibition-raid

6. Social Gospel • Social or Moral reform • Social reform to apply to “christian ethics” • “What would Jesus do?” • Backed Prohibition

7. Florence Kelley • Social reformer • Secretary of the National Consumers’ League • Lobbied to improve factory conditions • Promote a fair marketplace for workers and consumers

8. Scientific Management • Improve efficiency in work place by applying scientific principles to work. • Make tasks simpler and easier = More Productivity! • Followers started seeing how quickly each task could be performed.

9. Henry Ford • Model T. • Assembly Line. • Reduced workday to eight hours and paid workers $5 a day. • Created a car many could afford.

10. Robert M. La Follette • “Fighting Bob” • Regulated big business • Reform governor for 3 terms then entered U.S. Senate. • Targeted railroads – regulated rates

11. Initiative, Referendum, Recall • Initiative- A bill originated by the people (not law makers). • Referendum- A vote on the initiative. Citizen can accept or reject the initiative. • Recall- Voters can remove public officials from elected positions by forcing them to face another election before the end of their term

12. Seventeenth Amendment • Allowed voters to nominate senators in direct primaries. • The people vote, instead of state legislatures choosing • This gave Americans more of a voice.

13. Women in the work place

14. Women in the work force • Farm labor • Domestic work • Industry work • Once business expanded, so did opportunities for women • Offices • Stores • Classrooms

15. Women and reform • Suffrage • The right to vote • Susan B Anthony • A leader in the suffrage movement • Aggressive • Campaigned across the country to get women the right to vote • http://www.history.com/shows/the-people-speak/videos/the-people-speak-3#the-people-speak-3

16. Strategy for Suffrage Three-pronged strategy • Tried convincing state legislatures to grant women the right to vote. • Women tested the Fourteenth Amendment in courts. • “Aren’t women citizens, too?” • Women pushed for a national constitutional amendment to grant women the vote. • Overall, the campaign for women achieved very little success.

17. To Sum it up… • 4 goals (or platforms) of Progressive reformers– Moral, Social, Political, Economic. • Suffrage movement not making much leeway, but gained a little. • Some gains in treatment of workers and child labor. • Many reforms movements still to come!