The Progressive Movement 1897-1920

1. The Progressive Movement1897-1920 Reform in America

2. Effects of Industrialization & Urbanization • Negative Effects • Poor living & working conditions • Low wages & long hours • Child Labor • Government Corruption • Gap between rich & poor • Pollution • Positive Effects • Economic growth • New technologies & goods • Larger middle-class • Increase population • Urban development

4. Progressivism • Social & political movement • Middle-class, women • Fix problems in America • Goals • End corruption • Improve urban areas • Improve work place • Reform government • Reform business

5. Muckrakers • Progressive journalists • Wrote about society’s problems & evils • Expose corruption, working & living conditions, racial injustice • Bring problems to the public’s attention

6. Ida Tarbell • History of the Standard Oil Company (1902) • Writes articles about Rockefeller’s monopoly • 19 article series over 2 years • Expose his business practices

7. About Rockefeller • “the open disregard of decent ethical business practices by capitalists." • "It takes time and caution to perfect anything which must be concealed. It takes time to crush men who are pursuing legitimate trade. But one of Mr. Rockefeller’s most impressive characteristics is patience. There never was a more patient man, or one who could dare more while he waited. … He was like a general who, besieging a city surrounded by fortified hills, views from a balloon the whole great field, and sees how, this point taken, that must fall; this hill reached, that fort is commanded. And nothing was too small: the corner grocery in Browntown, the humble refining still on Oil Creek, the shortest private pipe line. Nothing, for little things grow."

8. On the Man • "the oldest man in the world -- a living mummy," • "money-mad" and "a hypocrite." • "Our national life is on every side distinctly poorer, uglier, meaner, for the kind of influence he exercises," • “…never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me.“ • “There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair. Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice…Business played in this way loses all its sportsmanlike qualities. It is fit only for tricksters”

10. Monopoly

11. Muckraking Monopolies • Muckrakers attacked big business & government • Monopoly: when one business controls an entire industry • Unfair to small business owners & consumers • Laissez-faire Capitalism: when government does not interfere with business, “hands-off” • Progressives want government to be hands-on • Regulate (control) business, make monopolies illegal

12. Ray Stannard Baker • Following the Color Line (1908) • Traveled the South • Expose racism, • Jim Crow Laws, segregation, lynching, poll taxes, discrimination

13. “A few years ago no hotel or restaurant in Boston refused Negro guests; now several hotels, restaurants, and especially confectionary stores, will not serve Negroes, even the best of them. The discrimination is not made openly, but a Negro who goes to such places is informed that there are no accommodations, or he is overlooked and otherwise slighted, so that he does not come again. A strong prejudice exists against renting flats and houses in many white neighbourhoods to coloured people. The Negro in Boston, as in other cities, is building up "quarters," which he occupies to the increasing exclusion of other classes of people.” • “In the sixteen years from 1884 to 1900 the number of persons lynched in the United States was 2,516. Of these 2,080 were in the Southern states and 436 in the North; 1,678 were Negroes and 801 were white men; 2,465 were men and 51 were women. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia - the black belt states - are thus seen to have the worst records.”

14. Child Labor • Progressives want to stop child labor • Limit hours children worked • 39 states passed child labor laws • Florence Kelley • National Child Labor Committee

15. Florence Kelly • Limit working hours for women & children • Oregon: 10 hour workday • Improve wages • 1/3 workers in poverty • 1912: Massachusetts passes minimum wage • No national minimum wage until 1938 (25 cents/hour)

16. Lewis Hine • Photographer • Worked for N.C.L.C. • Photographed child laborers • Show people the truth • Camera a powerful weapon • "the work Hine did for this reform was more responsible than all other efforts in bringing the need to public attention."

17. “Whether it be a painting or photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality. In fact, it is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and conflicting interests have been eliminated.” Leo, age 8, Tennessee textile factory, 1910

18. Children in the Factory John Dempsey (11), Rhode Island, 1909

22. Children in the Mines

26. Work at Home • “Mrs. Battaglia with Tessie, age 12, and Tony, age 7. Mrs. Battaglia works in a garment shop except on Saturdays, when the children sew with her at home. Get 2 or 3 cents a pair finishing men's pants. Said they earn $1 to $1.50 on Saturday. Father disabled and can earn very little.” New York City

27. 1916: Congress passes Keating-Owen Act • Regulate child labor • Supreme Court rules unconstitutional • Businesses do not follow child labor laws • Government does not enforce laws • Children continue to work

28. Jacob Riis • Immigrant from Denmark • Police reporter for newspaper • See living conditions, slums, ghettoes • Poverty = crime & other problems • Need to improve living conditions

29. How the Other Half Lives • Published in 1890 • Uses photographs to support observations • Brings attention to urban living conditions • "Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate, of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat."

30. On either side of the narrow entrance to Bandits' Roost is "the Bend". Abuse is the normal condition of "the Bend," murder is everyday crop, with the tenants not always the criminals. In this block between Bayard, Park, Mulberry, and Baxter Streets, "the Bend" proper, the late Tenement House Commission counted 155 deaths of children in a specimen year (1882). Their percentage of the total mortality in the block was 68.28, while for the whole city the proportion was only 46.20. In No. 59 next to Bandits' Roost, fourteen persons died that year, and eleven of them were children; in No. 61 eleven, and eight of them not yet five years old.

31. Home of an Italian Ragpicker (1888)

32. Mullen’s Alley (1888)

33. Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street (1889)

34. Room in a Tenement Flat (1910)

35. Blind Beggar (1890)

36. A Downtown "Morgue" (unlicensed saloon) (1890)

37. Women's Lodging Room in the West 47th Street Station(1892)

38. Men's Lodging Room in the West 47th Street Station(1892)

39. Children Sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890)

40. Homeless Children (1890)

41. Cityscape (1890)

42. Election Reforms • Direct Primary: voters choose who will run from a party for a certain office • Initiative: allows people to create legislation (laws) 5-15% • Referendum: voters sign in order to get legislation on the ballot • Recall: allows voters to remove elected officials with a new election • 17th Amendment: direct election of state Senators • More democracy will fix a democracy