The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era Shannon Riley, Lindsey Greer and Ethan Williams

Goal #1 Protecting Social Welfare (On separate PowerPoint, by Prichard)

Goal #2: Promoting Moral Improvement

Personal Reform Groups • Woman’s Christian Temperance Union – one of the largest women’s organizations in history – fought against alcohol and tobacco, worked towards charity • Prohibitionists – fought against alcohol • Anti-Saloon League – fought against saloons • On occasion, these groups clashed with immigrant views

Carrie Nation! • A major prohibitionist in the WCTU • Married an alcoholic at age 21. Divorced shortly after. • Sometime in the 1900’s, began breaking into bars to lecture those inside, while breaking all alcoholic merchandise in sight • Arrested 30 times between 1900 and 1910 • Paid jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets • “I want all hellions to quit puffing that hell fume in God’s clean air.” (She was also against smoking)

Food and Drug Regulation • Pure Food And Drug Act of 1906 put restrictions on product labels • Was later modified to ensure that marketed products were safe to be consumed • Creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) • FDA now regulates how products are processed, how they are marketed, decides what is safe to be consumed by the general buyer, etc.

Food and Drug Regulation • Meat Inspection Act of 1906 - Tightened regulations on meat processing • Was inspired by “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, a muckraker, which exposed highly unsanitary factory conditions • Teddy Roosevelt backed all these movements in support of the muckrakers and for common peoples’ well-being • The 18th Amendment - Prohibitedmaking, selling, or transporting alcohol. (Was later repealed.)

Goal #3: Creating Economic Reform

Muckraking • Interviewers and news people would interview politics and other people • They would change what they said and it would create lots of muck. The people started to call them “muckrakers”. • They were a lot of times the causes for problems.

Taxation • Taxation was one of the biggest problems America had. • CEO would start to purchase more and more property and buy out other businesses and create a monopoly • When the owners had more stuff they would raise prices in everything they could.

Monopolies • Monopolies were when business men would buy out like an entire type of product. • Ex- computer, calculators, cars ect. • By doing this they eventually almost had more power than the government.

Goal #4:Fostering Efficiency and Government Reform

Worker Efficiency

Worker Efficiency • Many factory owners began relying on scientific data to increase the efficiency of their factories and workers • The Assembly line became a standard operation in most factories of that time • The work day also saw changes, workers were only made to work 10 hour work days in better conditions than they had before • There were problems with the assembly line, however, because it required workers to work like machines • This caused a worker turnover because of the injuries caused by fatigue of the workers • Henry Ford remedied this problem in his factory by reducing the work day to 8 hours and raising pay to $5, he was quoted saying this about the raise “ I want my workers to be able to afford my product.”

Worker Safety

Worker Safety • Worker Safety reforms in the progressive era included Women’s working rights, Shorter work days, and Child labor laws • The awareness for Worker safety was spurred in 1911 by the triangle shirtwaste fire that killed 146 women. • The work days were changed from every day to 5 days a week and from around 12 hours to 10 hours • Women were allowed to work in factories and many women pushed for a shorter work day. • In 1916 the Keating-Owen act was declared unconstitutional, would have required no children under 18 could work in hazardous work places and that children could not work anytime but outside of school hours in businesses that had interstate commerce • In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson approved the law "Tax on Employment of Child Labor,” placing a 10% tax on businesses that employed children under age fourteen or made them work more than eight hours a day, six days a week.

Election Reform

Election Reform • Major voices in the reform of the elections were La Follette, Bryan, Wilson, and, of course, Theodore Roosevelt • The progressive’s attacked government from the local level all the way to the White House; taking on the invisible government and involving the government in affairs like schooling, public welfare, healthcare, sanitation and others. • One of the reforms that the elections faced was stated in the 17th amendment, which opened the senate seats up to more independent candidates that were truly chosen by the people for the people. • Women also worked hard to have their voices heard in politics. The American Women’s Suffrage Association gained women the right to own land, work, and in 1919 they got the 19th amendment. • The processes of Initiative, referendum, and recall were introduced. • Their biggest success came in the form of three amendments: the 16th, 17th, and 18th

Conservation

Conservation • President Roosevelt was responsible for a great deal of the conservation during the Progressive era • He set aside extensive timberlands for preservation • He also increased the land set aside for National parks by millions of acres • His goal was to stop what he called “the wasteful exploitation of natural resources in our country” • He brought about the government claiming unused lands for public use • Put in order a system for the prevention of forest fires • Put programs together to plant new trees where the loggers had stripped the forests.

Sources • http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/lec.prog.html • The Americans~History Text Book • http://www.suite101.com/content/progressive-era-reforms • http://www.academicamerican.com/progressive/topics/progressive.html • http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=1672 • http://www.jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=1050 • The movie that Bruns apparently made in a couple hours • The Progressive Era: The Great Age of Reform

The Progressive Era