The Progressive Era (1890-1920): A Time of Social, Moral, Economic, and Political Reform

1. American HistoryThe Progressive Era (1890–1920)All photographs courtesy of The Library of Congress & Lewis Hine

2. Historians call the period from about 1890–1920 the Progressive Era.

3. The Origins of Progressivism • Rapid industrialization, immigration, and urbanization in the late 1800s led to national growth and prosperity.

4. The rapid growth also caused poverty, unemployment, horrible working conditions, and political corruption. • Many Progressives believed that political action and reform, not private charities, were the methods to bring about progress in society.

5. Dakota Apartment House, ca. 1905-1915

6. A Monday Afternoon Washing, 107th Street, 1900

7. Family in Attic Home, Drying Their Laundry, ca. 1900-1910

8. The Progressives: Their Goals and Beliefs • Progressives were not a single unified movement. It was a group of lots of people wanting to see change happen. • They fell into four categories: • Social • Moral • Economic • Political

9. Government should be more accountable to its citizens. • Government should curb the power and influence of wealthy interests. • Government should be given expanded powers so that it could become more active in improving the lives of its citizens. • Governments should become more efficient and less corrupt so that they could competently handle an expanded role. Some common basic beliefs were:

10. Igniting Reform: Writers and Their New Ideas • The ideas of many writers and journalists influenced public opinion about how to reform society. • Yellow Journalism- William Hearst • Journalists investigated and publicized conditions in certain industries, slums, tenement houses, and sweat shops.

11. Yellow Journalism • William Hearst’s papers catered to urban working people, many of whom were recent immigrants. His papers favored labor unions, progressive taxation, and municipal ownership of utilities. They featured abundant pictures, advice to the lovelorn columns, and sentimental stories. Favoring Irish and German readers in particular, the • condemned British influence and spread fears about the ‘yellow peril’ of Asian immigration.

12. Theodore Roosevelt called the journalists “muckrakers.” • Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and Ida Tarbell were respected writers and muckrakers.

13. The Labor Movement Employers discouraged union membership. Courts often issuedinjunctions, court orders prohibiting a certain activity, preventing workers from going on strike. Unions continued to fight for better working conditions. Socialists The Progressive Era saw a rise in socialism. American socialists hoped to use the ballot box, not revolution, to end the capitalist system and distribute wealth more equally. Women’s Groups The National Consumers’ League (NCL) investigated how goods were made and sold. They discouraged people from buying from shops that employed child labor. All women’s groups agreed that women’s suffrage was an important cause. Progressive Reform Organizations

14. He called this plan: the New Nationalism • New Nationalism was introduces in a speech inOsawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910. The central issue he argued was government protection of human welfare and property rights, but he also argued that human welfare was more important than property rights.

15. Roosevelt called for: • business regulation • welfare laws • workplace protection for women • Child labor laws • Income minimums • inheritance taxes • voting reform.

16. Taft’s Presidency • Taft was endorsed by Roosevelt and pledged to carry on the progressive program. • However, he did not even appoint any Progressives to his Cabinet. • He campaigned on a platform to lower tariffs, but ended up signing a bill that added some highly protective tariff increases.

17. Progressive Republicans left the Republican Party and formed the Progressive Party, nicknamed the Bull Moose Party. • The Bull Moose platform included tariff reduction, woman’s suffrage, more regulation of business, a child labor ban, an eight-hour workday, and direct election of senators.

18. William Howard Taft Fought to keep the Presidency for the Republican Party Theodore Roosevelt Represented the Progressive Bull Moose Party Eugene V. Debs Made his third of five presidential runs for the Socialist Party Woodrow Wilson Headed the Democratic ticket; with the Republican Party split between Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson won the election. The Election of 1912 A Four-Way Election

19. Wilson’s Policies as President • Wilson’s first major victory was tariff reduction.

20. The Limits of Progressivism • The changes made by Progressives were limited to certain groups in the United States. • Progressives championed municipal reforms, but did little for tenant or migrant farmers. • Progressive Presidents took little action to pursue social justice reforms.

21. Wilson continued • The Jim Crow practice begun under Taft, of separating the races in federal offices. • At the 1912 Progressive Party convention, Roosevelt declined to seat black delegates from the South for fear of alienating white Southern Progressives. • By 1916, the reform spirit had nearly died. • It was replaced by American concerns about World War I.

22. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union • The Woman's Christian Temperance Union(WCTU) was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity. • They fought the passage of the 18th amendment!!!!

23. Suffrage at Last! • American women activists first demanded the right to vote in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. • The convention was held to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Fredrick Douglas

24. The movement eventually split into two groups: • The National Woman Suffrage Association fought for a constitutional amendment for suffrage. • The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869 in New York City. The National Association was created in response to a split in the American Equal Rights Association over whether the woman's movement should support the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

25. The American Woman Suffrage Association worked to win voting rights on the state level. The American Woman Suffrage Association(AWSA) was formed in November 1869 in response to a split in the American Equal Rights Association over the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Its founders, who supported the Fifteenth Amendment, included Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe. Co-founder- Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth C. Santon

26. Preparing the Way for Suffrage • In 1890, Wyoming entered the union and became the first state to grant women the right to vote. • In 1872, in an act of civil disobedience, a suffrage leader, Susan B. Anthony, insisted on voting in Rochester, New York. • She was arrested for this act.

27. Suffragist Strategies Constitutional Amendment • Winning suffrage by a constitutional amendment • The first federal amendment was introduced in Congress in 1868 and stalled. • In 1878, suffragists introduced a new amendment. • Stalled again, the bill was not debated again until 1887. • It was defeated by the Senate. • The bill was not debated again until 1913.

28. Suffragist Strategies Individual State Suffrage • Winning suffrage state by state. • State suffrage seemed more successful than a constitutional amendment. • Survival on the frontier required the combined efforts of men and women and encouraged a greater sense of equality. • Western states were more likely to allow women the right to vote.

29. A New Generation • Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, leaders of the suffrage movement, died without seeing the victory of women’s suffrage. • At the turn of the century, Carrie Chapman Catt became the leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). • She led the movement from 1900 to 1904 and again after 1915.

30. In March 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Barns organized a parade of 5,000 women in Washington, D.C. • After the success of the rally, Paul transformed her committee into a new organization called the Congressional Union.

31. Victory for Suffrage • In 1918, Congress formally proposed the suffrage amendment. • After the amendment was proposed the ratification battle began. • In August 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state necessary to ratify the suffrage amendment. • The Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote, was the last major reform of the Progressive Era.

32. Triangle Factory Fire NEAR CLOSING TIME ON MARCH 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Factory in New York City. Within 18 minutes, the fire engulfs the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, occupied by the Triangle Waist Company, causing the death of 146 workers. The call to fire stations goes out at 4:45pm. Firemen rush to the scene but are unable to save workers trapped by locked doors or unable to negotiate doors opening inward. Many jump to their deaths or perish inside the burning building. The firemen's ladders do not reach above the 6th floor, nor do the water hoses. The nets are insufficient to blunt the workers' fall. Others perish in the collapse of the fire escape ladder, which does not reach the ground. The public outcry over the tragedy mounts, fueled by rumors that the doors were locked and by a sense that owners' greed prevented the adoption of basic fire and safety measures.

33. Because of the Fire • The new legislation brings sweeping changes in the organization of the Department of Labor, now invested with legislative and enforcement powers. • It establishes harsher punishment for violations of the labor law and the industrial code, and focuses on the very conditions that led to the great loss of life at Triangle. • Provisions are made for fireproof stairways, doorways width, amount of lighting, fireproof nature of building material, safe construction of fire escapes, and the inspection of older multi-storied buildings. • More bills protect working children and women.

34. NAACP • The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and W. E. B. Du Bois. • Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”.

35. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair • This book had a significant impact on society.  Instead of helping out the working class, the book made the public aware that the plants were filthy and dangerous, posing a threat to the public.  Therefore, this made it possible for the federal government to intervene and regulate the food industry with the passing of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Even though these acts were passed, change did not occur instantaneously.  As a result, each state and local government passed its own set of rules and health codes to supplement.  In Maryland, most health codes were not passed until 1910 when the legislature expanded the scope of power of the State Board of Health by creating the State Food and Drug Commissioner.

36. Why the Progressive Era Was So Important: Every American Right to Vote Department of Labor Safety Regulations Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Child Labor was banned! Lewis Hine, the celebrated photographer & dedicated social reformer, captured the sad faces of the children in the following photos. Captions and quotes are from Hine’s published works.

38. Faces of Lost Youth

41. A moment’s glimpse of the outer world. 11 year-old girl. Said she has been working for over a year.

42. Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins.

43. One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same."

44. Jo Bodeon, a back-roper in the mule room at Chace Cotton Mill. Burlington, Vt.

45. Furman Owens, 12 years old. Can’t read, doesn’t know his ABC’s.Said, “Yes, I want to learn, but can’t when I work all the time.”

50. The Newsies