The Progressive Era

1. The Progressive Era Phase IV – The World Stage (1875 – 1945) We've got to start to make this world over. (Thomas Edison, 1912)

2. Effects of industrialization • Consumer goods were more affordable • Standard of living rose • Rise of a new middle class • Rise of early suburbs • International markets also grew • Changes US role in world affairs

3. The Impact • Concentration of wealth – 1890’s, the top 10% controlled 90% of the nation’s wealth; created a new class of millionaires (European royalty) • Horatio Alger Myth – sold more than a million copies; every story showed a young man of modest means becoming rich and successful through honesty, hard work , and a little luck • Expanding middle class – increased need for white collar jobs; middle management was needed ; increased the need for other middle class services • Wage earners: 1900, 2/3 of Americans worked for wages; determined by the law of supply and demand large pool of immigrants kept wages low; David Ricardo’ “iron law of wages” ; real wages rose steadily late 19th C; 1890, 11 million families averaged $380 in annual income • Working Women – 1 out of 5 in 1900; young and single; most jobs restricted to those seen as extensions of domestic duties; as demand for clerical workers increased, women moved into formerly male jobs; professions that became feminized lost status and received lower wages • Labor discontent - unstable and mobile, changed jobs every 3 years; absenteeism and quitting was higher than unions

4. Urbanization • Migration to cities • Immigration - Ellis island, melting pot, problems • Nativism and restriction

5. American Cities Change • Compact cities • Before industrialization, cities had no tall buildings and most people lived within walking distance of their work, schools, shops, and churches. In the late 1880s, they ran out of room and started to build up. • Tall buildings and transportation • Steel frames and Elisha Otis’s safety elevator made taller buildings possible. With mass transit, people moved farther away. • Green spaces • Urban planning was used to map out the best use of space in cities. Frederick Law Olmsted designed city parks to provide residents with countryside. New York’s Central Park is his most famous endeavor.

6. Growth of Cities World’s Columbian Exposition Chicago, 1893 • 12 million attended • Represented American progress • City population had grown to over 1 million • Central business district a marvel of steel skyscrapers, dept stores, theaters • Around the hub, a gridiron of worker’s housing, factories, warehouses, beyond were tree lined streets of suburbs • Visitors also experienced a city of pollution, poverty, crime and vice; some complained of confusion; ¾ the city were foreign born or children of

7. Urbanization • Immigrants, migrants, African- Americans • Nature of cities – streetcar cities and mass transportation; skyscrapers, William Jenny built ten story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago, elevators, central heating systems; ethnic neighborhoods; cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis; residential suburbs, escape from cities, abundant land, inexpensive transportation, low cost construction, fondness for grass and privacy

8. Urbanization • Immigrants, migrants, African- Americans • Nature of cities – streetcar cities and mass transportation; skyscrapers, William Jenny built ten story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago, elevators, central heating systems; ethnic neighborhoods; cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis; residential suburbs, escape from cities, abundant land, inexpensive transportation, low cost construction, fondness for grass and privacy

9. Class Differences The wealthy in America inherited fortunes, but they made them from industry and business as well. The newly rich made a point of conspicuously displaying their wealth. Grand city houses and magnificent country estates were commonplace. High-society women read instructional literature detailing proper behavior. The ideal woman was a homemaker who organized and decorated her home; entertained visitors and supervised her staff; and offered moral and social guidance to her family. Some women lent their time and money to social reform efforts.

10. The middle class The urban middle class grew as jobs for accountants, clerks, managers, and salespeople increased. Educated workers like teachers, engineers, lawyers, and doctors were needed. The rise of professionalism required standardized skills and qualifications for certain occupations. Married women managed a home. With time for other activities, some participated in reform work or other activities, expanding their influence to the outside world. The working class Many lived in poverty, with a growing population keeping wages low. Housing shortages led to crowded and unsanitary tenement conditions. Housekeeping was difficult; with no indoor plumbing, water had to be hauled inside from a pump. Clothes were boiled on the stove and hung on lines to dry. Many women also worked low-paying jobs outside the home. Class Differences

11. Living conditions • Working conditions – child labor • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory – fire 1911 • use of sweatshops • urban slums, tenements • Urban lifestyle– suburbs, trolley cars • Entertainment – saloons, dance halls, cabarets, amusement parks, vaudeville shows, city parks, moving picture industry, spectator sports

12. Chicago, 1871 Chicago, 1916

14. Immigration 1861-1930

15. A Nation of Immigrants • US population increased from 23.2 million (1850) to 76.2 million (1900) • Growth was sparked by the arrival of 16.3 million immigrants/ additional 8.8 million (1901-1910) • Growth of Immigration – poverty of displaced farm workers, overcrowding of European cities, religious persecution; US reputation for religious freedom, political freedom, economic opp.; new steamships • Old Immigrants, New Immigrants – old immigrants were “protestant”, English speaking, high level of literacy and occupational skills; new immigrants, southern and eastern Europe (Italians, Greeks, Slovaks, Poles, Russians), poor and illiterate, largely Catholic, crowd into poor ethnic neighborhoods; 25% were birds of passage

16. The old immigrants 10 million immigrants came between 1800 and 1900. Known as the old immigrants, they came from Northern and Western Europe. Most were Protestant Christians, and their cultures were similar to the original settlers. They came to have a voice in their government, to escape political turmoil, for religious freedom, or fleeing poverty and starvation. Most immigrants came for economic opportunity, attracted to the open farm land in the United States. Chinese immigrants had been lured by the gold rush and jobs building railroads. The new immigrants From 1880 to 1910, a new wave brought 18 million people to America. Most came from Southern and Eastern Europe. They were Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews. Arabs, Armenians, and French Canadians came as well. Smaller numbers came from East Asia. Severe immigration laws reduced Chinese immigration, but 90,000 people of Chinese descent lived in the U.S. by 1900. Japanese immigrants arrived by way of Hawaii. The makeup of the American population had changed. By 1910 about 1 in 12 Americans were foreign-born. Changing Patterns of Immigration

17. Coming to America • Desire for a better life • Most immigrants were seeking a new life, but they left their homelands for many reasons, including religious persecution, poverty, and little economic opportunity. If you were willing to work hard in America, prosperity was possible. • The journey to America • The decision to come involved the entire family. Usually the father went first and sent for the rest of the family later. Travelers made their way to a port city by train, wagon, or foot to wait for a departing ship. They had to pass an inspection to board, and prove they had some money. Most traveled cheaply, in steerage, and they still had to make it through the immigration station. • Ellis Island • Opening in 1892 as an immigration station, 112 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island. Immigrants had to pass inspection before they were allowed to enter.

18. Restricting Immigration • 1876, few restrictions, 1886 several new restrictions were in place • Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 • Restrictions on undesirable • 1885, prohibited contracted labor to protect American labor • 1892, Ellis Island as a reception center • Supported by labor unions, nativists (American Protective Assoc.), social Darwinists • Statue of Liberty (1886)

19. Activity Part A: • Immigrants were more likely to come from northern and western Europe • Immigrants came in larger numbers • Immigrants were more likely to speak English • The best employment opportunities were in mining, construction, and manufacturing • The larger percentage of women arrived during this period. Part B: • Immigrants were more likely to settle in cities. • Immigrants were more likely to be Protestant than Catholic, Jew, or Eastern Orthodox • Immigrants were more likely to come in family groups than as individuals • Immigrants were more likely to settle in ethnic groups of their own nationality • Immigrants were more likely to look like native born American whites

21. Where do you live?

22. Popular Culture • Press – William Hearst / McClure • Amusements – reduction in hours, transportation, billboards, decline of restrictive Puritan and Victorian morals; vaudeville, circus “Greatest Show on Earth”, wild west shows (Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley • Spectator Sports –baseball; boxing (John Sullivan); Pres. Taft ; basketball (1891) intercollegiate football (1869) between Rutgers and Princeton; bachelor subculture; amateur sports

23. For your entertainment

24. I survived!!!

25. Literature and the Arts • Realism and naturalism; Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Red Badge of Courage; Jack London, Call of the Wild • Architecture – Henry Richardson (stone walls and rounded arches), Louis Sullivan (steel framed); Frank Lloyd Wright (organic style, prairie house), Frederick Olmstead (city planning, Central Park) • Music – symphony, orchestra, oprea houses; African-Americans in New Orleans, “jelly Roll” Morton and Buddy Bolden intro jazz; Scott Joplin, sold a million copies of “Maple Leaf Rag”; jazz, ragtime, blues St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Chicago

26. Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives (1890)

27. 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. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance.

28. Mulberry Street Bend, 1889

29. 5-Cent Lodgings

30. Men’s Lodgings

31. Women’s Lodgings

32. Immigrant Family Lodgings

33. Dumbbell Tenement Plan Tenement House Act of 1879, NYC

34. 1890s ”Morgue” – Basement Saloon

35. ”Bandits’ Roost”

36. Mullen’s Alley ”Gang”

37. The Street Was Their Playground

38. A Struggling Immigrant Family

39. Child Labor

40. Explain some of the conditions described in this excerpt from How the Other Half Lives. • What point do you think Riis was trying to make when he chose the title for his book? • How effective is Riis's message? • Why did the poor agree to live in such conditions? • Why did city government officials allow these conditions to continue? • Do similar conditions exist today? Why or why not? Questions to Consider

41. Farmers’ hardships Crop prices were falling, and farmers had to repay loans. Railroads were charging high fees for transport Merchants made money from farm equipment. Everyone made money but the farmer doing the work Outraged farmers organized to help themselves. Local groups formed to aid farmers The National Grange First major farmers’ organization Campaigned to unite farmers from all over As membership grew, pushed for political reform and targeted railroad rates Munn v. Illinois gave state legislatures the right to regulate businesses that involved the public interest. Wabash v. Illinois—federal government could regulate railroad traffic. The Populist Movement

42. Farmers • Agricultural mechanization • Overproduction • Supported regulation of railroads • Provide subsidies • Bimetallism (greenbacks) • The Grange a farmer’s cooperative – 1874, 14,000 grange associations • Northwestern Alliance, Southern Farmer’s Alliance, Colored Farmer’s National Alliance

43. Written by a Farmer at the End of the 19c When the banker says he's brokeAnd the merchant’s up in smoke,They forget that it's the farmer who feeds them all.It would put them to the testIf the farmer took a rest;Then they'd know that it's the farmer feeds them all.

44. The Alliance Movement and money supply The Farmers’ Alliance helped with practical needs such as buying equipment or marketing farm products. They also lobbied for banking reform and railroad rate regulation. In the South, the Colored Farmers’ Alliance formed. With more than 1 million members, the Alliance advocated hard work and sacrifice as keys to gaining equality in society. The Alliances felt that an expanded money supply would help farmers by inflating prices, with inflation easing farmers’ debt burden. Money was tied to the gold standard, and farmers wanted it to be backed by silver as well. Now politically active, candidates supported by the Alliance won more than 40 seats in Congress and four governorships.

45. Bi-Metallism Issue

46. Populism – the people’s party • Concerns of farmers • Supported: bimetallism, circulation of greenbacks, govt. regulation,8 hour work day, graduated income tax, election reforms • 1892, formed People’s Party in Omaha, Nebraska and adopted the Omaha Platform • Populism appealed to “common man” • Praised agriculture, favored working classes • Sought to break down racial barriers in farming • Overcome the oppression of “big business” and corrupt politicians

48. National Politics • After 1877, government slipped into a passive stalemate • Belief in limited government – the idea of a “do little” govt.; the courts • Campaign strategy – parties avoided taking controversial stands; divided govt.; 80% turnout • Party patronage –gaining political office through patronage

49. National Politics Presidential Politics • Hayes -1876, ended Reconstruction; reestablish honest govt.; supported temperance • Garfield – besieged by thousands seeking federal jobs, 1881 assassinated • Arthur – reformed civil service; development of modern navy; question high tariffs

50. Pendleton Act (1883) • Civil Service Act. • The “Magna Carta” of civil service reform. • 1883  14,000 out of117,000 federal govt.jobs became civilservice exam positions. • 1900  100,000 out of 200,000 civil service federal govt. jobs.