Transcript The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era
1900-1920
The Progressive Era
• Greatest period of political reform in American history
• Wanted government to be more responsive to the people
• Embraced many, but not all of the goals of the Populists
• Emphasized government REGULATION NOT nationalization
• Led by the emerging urban middle class
• Motivated by intellectuals and Muckrakers
• First reforms began at the local and state level
The Progressive Era
• Local Reforms
• City Mayor and City Manager systems
• Public utilities
• Example: Sam “Golden Rule” Jones ~ Mayor of Toledo, Ohio
• State Government Reforms
• Business regulations
• Laws to protect workers and consumers
• Example: Wisconsin’s (Robert) La Follette plan
• Example: California Worker’s Compensation ~ Gov. Hiram Johnson
The Progressive era
• Political Reforms (Making government more responsive)
• Initiatives (Voter proposed legislation)
• Referendum (Legislation “referred” to the people for a vote)
• Recall (The ability to remove an elected official with a special vote)
• Primary Elections
• Federal Amendments
• 16th ~ Federal Income Tax (1913)
• 17th ~ Direct Election of Senators (1913)
• 18th ~ Prohibition of Alcohol (1919)
• 19th ~ Women’s Suffrage (1920)
The progressive era
• Social Reform Movements
• Muckrakers (Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, many more . . . )
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Women’s Christian Temperance Union & Anti-Saloon League
Women’s Suffragists & Black Suffragists (Ida B. Wells)
Niagara Movement & NAACP
International Workers of the World (IWW ~ Big Bill Haywood)
• National Consumer’s League
• Florence Kelley led against child labor and to improve working
conditions for women. Largely motivated by the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
and the Muller v. Oregon ruling
The Progressive Era
• Influential Muckrakers
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Henry Demarest Lloyd, Wealth Against the Commonwealth
(about Standard Oil)
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Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
(about the meat packing industry, immigrants and tenements)
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Jacob Riis, (New York Times) “How the Other Half Lives”
(series of articles about the tenements of New York City – led to their elimination)
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McClure’s Magazine
• Lincoln Steffens, “The Shame of the Cities”
• Ida Tarbell, “Mother of Trusts” (Expose’ on Standard Oil)
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Cosmopolitan
• David Phillips, “The Treason of the Senate”
The Progressive era
• “Progressive” Presidents
• Three main areas of reform were addressed to some extent
• Regulating business
• Protecting consumers
• Improving working conditions
• Theodore Roosevelt (“TR”) Republican 1901 - 1909
• William H. Taft Republican 1909 - 1913
• Woodrow Wilson Democrat 1913 - 1921