Progressives

1. Progressives By Rachel Pauley and Dena Baughman

2. How Was Worker’s Safety and Conditions Changed From the Progressives? • Reformers worked on improving conditions for women and children. • In 1893, the Illinois Factory Act prohibited child labor and limited women’s working hours. • In 1904, reformers and the National Child Labor Committee improved working ages. • In 1907, after LaFollette left from governor, laws prohibited children under 16, in dangerous jobs to work no more than 10 hours or work nights.

3. In 1911, the legislature helped education for children by setting school attendance requirements. • In 1916, The Supreme Court passed the first Child Labor Bill which was called Keating-Owen Act which set ages for work. • Jane Adams provided a place for children to go to get away from their life.

4. Women’s Working Laws • A minimum wage law said that women and children are to be paid a wage that they could live on. • In 1908, an argument called Mueller vs. Oregon, Louis Brandeis, assisted by Florence Kelley, argued and soon passed a law limiting women to a ten hour workday. • In 1913, legislature prohibited women from working at all in dangerous conditions. • In 1917, Bunting vs. Oregon is a similar Brandeis brief to the 1908 law, except this law is for men to only work ten hour days.

5. How Have Elections Been Improved? • William S. U’Ren had Oregon adopt the secret ballot, which is initiative, referendum, and the recall. • In 1899, Minnesota passed the Primary System. • This enabled voters to choose candidates. • The Primary System led into the Seventeenth Amendment. In 1912, this amendment is for popular election of senators.

6. Susan B. Anthony founded the National Women Suffrage Association. • Along with food and drug regulations, the liquor industries were nervous that women would vote for prohibition. • Textile industries were also nervous that women would vote for child labor laws.

7. What About Food and Drug Regulations? • President Roosevelt had experts investigate the meat packing industry. • Because of the results, the Meat Inspection Act was passed in 1906. • The Pure Food and Drug Act was also passed that year. This act stopped the sale of contaminated foods and medicines. • The only part of the act that changed completely was the truth on the label. • Knowing what is in the food made people make wise decisions about what they bought.

8. The Morals of People • People believed that people’s morals needed to be changed. • Alcohol was said to be ruining American morals, so prohibition was started. • Women’s Christian Temperance Union would try to convince businesses to stop selling alcohol

9. How Has Segregation Gotten Better? • In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People aimed for equality. • African Americans and white reformers united and tried to make this happen. • Since the Progressive Movement focused on middle-class whites, there was no support for this group.

10. Conservation of Natural Resources • Before Roosevelt, federal government paid little attention to the nations natural resources. • Though they established the U.S. Forest Bureau in 1887 and withdrew 45 million acres of timberlands for a national forest reserve, they did little to impede on the shrinking of the wilderness.

11. Pioneer farmers leveled the forests and plowed up prairies. • Ranchers allowed cattle to overgraze the Great Plains. • Coal companies littered the land with waste from mines. • Lumber companies failed to replace trees they cut down. • Cities dumped untreated sewage and industrial wastes into rivers, which poisoned the streams and created health hazards.

12. President Roosevelt made everyone aware that our resources are in fact NOT endless, he made conservation a large concern. • John Muir and Gifford Pinchot both fought to make forest reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, and national parks. • Views of Muir were to completely preserve the wilderness, while Roosevelt and Pinchot thought only some wilderness areas would be preserved and others would be developed for the common good. John Muir and Gifford Pinchot both fought to make forest reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, and national parks.

13. Taxation • Underwood Act of 1913- substantially reduced tariff rates for the first time since the Civil War. • With lower rates, the federal government had to find a new way to produce revenue. • 16th Amendment- 1913, legalized a graduated income tax, which provided revenue by taxing individual earnings and corporate profits. • By 1917, government was receiving more money than ever from taxes, and they are still the main source of the government’s revenue today.

14. Banking • Our nation needed a way to strengthen the ways in which banks were run, and a way to quickly adjust the amount of money in circulation. • Credit availability and money supply had to keep pace with the economy. • Wilson’s solution was to establish a decentralized banking system under federal control.

15. Federal Reserve Act of 1913- divided nation into 12 districts and established a regional central bank in each district, called “banker’s banks”. (served other banks within a district) • Federal Reserve Banks issued new paper currency to be used in emergency situations, member banks made loans to customer with this and they could transfer funds in order to protect the customers’ savings. • By 1923, 70% of the nation’s banking resources were part of the Federal Reserve System.

16. Monopolies • Roosevelt began by launching a campaign to tackle monopolistic trusts that hurt consumers. • In 1902, under the support of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, he filed a lawsuit against James J. Hill’s and J. P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Railroad Company. • In 1904, the Supreme Court upheld Roosevelt’s suit in the Northern Securities decision, forcing the giant railroad company to disband. • Roosevelt subsequently filed similar suits against dozens of other trusts, including the beef trust, the sugar trust, and the harvester trust.

17. Elkins Act of 1903- punished railroad companies that issued uncompetitive rebates and the merchants who accepted them. • Hepburn act of 1906- strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission and gave it more power to control the railroads. • Taft made trust-busting his main priority- filed 90 lawsuits in 4 years. • Sherman Anti-Trust Act- John D. Rockefeller

18. Aid Organizations • Settlement houses-Jane Addams and others established group homes in city slums to aid poor urban residents. • Promoted public health reform in cities, chlorinating water and tightening sanitary regulations • Developed education and craft programs for residents. • Created neighborhood health clinics and dispensaries.

19. Sources • The Americans by McDougal Littell • http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/ushisgov/themes/reform/progressive.htm • http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/gildedage/section10.rhtml • http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1061.html • http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/about.htm • http://www.academia.org/progressive-segregation/

20. How nick is super cool • Is fluent in 3 languages • Can make his belly look like hughjackman • Owns many small trinkets • Can count to 3 • Knows his fruit • Can spell supercalifragilisticexpealidocious • PWND