Transcript The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era
1890-1920
Urbanization
• After the civil war, the urban population of the
United States grew from 10 million in 1870 to 30
million in 1900
• Most of the immigrants settling into this country
ended up in cities
• Rural Americans began moving into the cities
because urban life offered more and betterpaying jobs, bright lights, running water, and
modern plumbing
• Skyscrapers  tall, steel framed buildings
– Louis Sullivan  Chicago architect
• Mass transit systems began to develop to move
people around the city
– Horsecars, cable cars, subways
Separation by Class
• High Society
– Built grand homes in the style of
European manors
– Increasing demand for servants to
maintain house and lifestyle
• Middle-class Gentility
– Included doctors, lawyers, engineers,
merchants, teachers, etc
– Moved out of the central city to
“streetcar suburbs” to buy bigger
homes and have a servant
• Working Class
– Lived in tenements (poorly
constructed apartments)
– If they could, they would rent space
to a boarder to supplement their
income
Urban Problems
• Crime & Pollution
– Pollution became a major problem in the
cities due to the large number of factories
– Minor criminals (pickpockets, swindlers,
thieves) thrived in the crowded cities
– Between 1880-1900, murder rate jumped
from 25 per million people to more than 100
per mill. People
– Alcohol contributed to crime
• Machine Politics
– A political machine was an informal political
group designed to gain and keep power
– Party bosses  ran the machines eagerly
and provided necessities to people who
would vote for the machine
• Ex: Boss William Tweed and Tammany Hall
– Graft  obtaining money through illegal
methods
Gilded Age
• Gilded  something is covered in gold on the
outside but is made of cheap material on the
inside
• “Gilded Age”  Term coined by Mark Twain
that describes this era as a time with the
appearance of glamour and glitz, but is really a
time of corruption and a widening gap between
the rich and the poor
• Individualism  no matter how humble your
origins, you could rise in society by your talents
and commitment
• Social Darwinism  survival of the fittest within
society
Changing Culture
• Realism  Artists and writers tried to
portray the world realistically
• Saloon  Offered drinks, free toilets,
water for horses, and newspapers
• Amusement Parks/Sports  Coney
Island was a popular amusement park
in NYC
– Baseball became a popular pastime
• Vaudeville  stage entertainment
consisting of various acts (as
performing animals, comedians, or
singers)
• Ragtime  music characterized by a
syncopated melodic line and regularly
accented accompaniment
Politics in Washington
• Interstate Commerce
Commission  Resulted from
Wabash v. Illinois (states could not
regulate railroad rates for traffic
between states
– First federal law to regulate interstate
commerce
• McKinley Tariff  Cut tobacco
taxes and tariff rates on raw sugar,
but greatly increased rates on
other goods
• Sherman Antitrust Act 
Prohibited any “combination… or
conspiracy in restraint of trade or
commerce among the several
states
Helping the Urban Poor
• Social Gospel  worked to better
conditions in cities according to the
biblical ideals of charity and justice
– Washington Gladden popularized the
movement in Applied Christianity (1887)
– Inspired churches to build gyms and provide
social programs and child care
• Salvation Army
– Provided assistance and religious
counseling to the urban poor
• YMCA
– Young Men’s Christian Association
– Tried to help industrial workers and the
urban poor by organizing Bible studies,
citizen training, and group activities
– Offered libraries, gymnasiums, auditoriums,
and low-cost hotel rooms
Helping the Urban Poor
• Settlement House Movement
– Community center that offered aid from
medical care and English classes to
kindergartens and recreational programs
– Jane Addams opened Hull House in Chicago in
1889
– Lillian Ward established Henry Street
Settlement House in New York City
• Public Education
– Number of children in public school increased
from 6.5 million in 1870 to 17.3 million in 1900
– Immigrant children were taught English,
American history and culture 
Americanization
– Schools instilled discipline and a strong work
ethic
– Children in rural areas often would not receive
a strong education and freedmen children did
not have equal opportunities
• Booker T. Washington established Tuskegee
Institute in 1881
Imposing Segregation
• Poll Tax  Required all
citizens eligible to vote to pay
a tax of up to $2
• Literacy test  to be able to
vote, you had to be able to
read
• “Grandfather Clause” 
allowed any man to vote if he
had an ancestor who could
vote in 1867
– Allowed poor, illiterate whites
to vote
Imposing Segregation
• Jim Crow Laws  laws passed
that enforced segregation and
discrimination in the south
• Supreme Court overturned the
Civil Rights Act of 1875
• Plessey v. Ferguson  Homer
Plessey challenged a
Louisiana law that forced him
to ride in a separate railroad
car from whites
– In 1896, the Supreme Court
upheld the Louisiana law and
established the doctrine of
“separate but equal” which meant
that states could segregate as
long as they established equal
facilities for both races
African American Response
• Ida B. Wells  with lynchings
(illegal hangings) increasing in
the late 1800s, Wells launched a
crusade against violence
– 1895, published a book denouncing
mob violence and demanding a
“fair trial by law for those accused
of crime and punishment by law
after honest conviction”
• Mary Church Terrell  Friend of
a lynching victim who
campaigned against it
– Founded the National Association
of Colored Women and the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP)
– Led a boycott against department
stores in Washington, DC that
refused to serve blacks
African American Response
• Booker T. Washington  Proposed
that African Americans concentrate on
achieving economic goals rather than
political ones
– 1895 – Washington gave a speech, the
Atlanta Compromise, that urged African
Americans to postpone the fight for civil
rights and instead focus on preparing
themselves educationally and vocationally
for equality
• W.E.B. Du Bois  Opposed the ideas
of Washington
– Saw no advantage of in giving up civil
rights
– Concerned with protecting and exercising
voting rights
Muckrakers
• Group of crusading journalists
who investigated social
conditions and political
corruption
• President Roosevelt nicknamed
these journalists “muckrakers”
in reference to a character from
a book who single-mindedly
scraped up the filth on the
ground, ignoring everything else
• Uncovered corruption in
government and big business
• Focused on unfair social and
work conditions
Reforming Government
• Progressives proposed many ideas to reform local
government
– Commission Plan  divided city government into several
departments, each one under an expert commissioner’s
control
– Council-manager System  city council would hire a city
manager to run the city instead of the mayor
• Lo Follette’s Laboratory of Democracy
– Direct primary  all party member could vote for a candidate
to run in the general election
– Initiative  permitted a group of citizens to introduce
legislation
– Referendum  allowed citizens to vote on proposed directly
without going to the legislature
– Recall  voters had an option to demand a special election
to remove an elected official from office before his or her
time had expired
Reforming Government
• Direct Election of Senators
– Originally, the federal constitution
directed each state legislature to
elect two senators
– Political machines and business
interests often influenced these
elections
– 1912  Congress passed a
direct-election amendment
– 1913  17th Amendment became
official and the people directly
elected senators
Child Labor
• Mines and factories presented
very dangerous work
environments to children
• John Spargo’s 1906 Book,
The Bitter Cry of Children, told
how 9 & 10 year olds would
pick slag out of coal, paying
them 60 cents for a 10-hour
day
• Children often became
crippled from the work
• Reports like this convinced
states to pass laws that set a
minimum age of employment
and maximum hours
Health & Safety Codes
• Workers were often injured
or killed in unsafe work
conditions and families
would not receive
compensation
• Led to worker’s
compensation laws 
established insurance funds
that employers financed
• Laws were created to limit
the amount of hours of work
in a day
Upton Sinclair
• Upton Sinclair, a famous muckraker,
wrote the book, The Jungle, which
revealed the unsafe and unsanitary
conditions of the meat-packing
industry
• Lead to the Pure Food Act (1906)
and the Meat Inspection Act (1906)
and established the Bureau of
Chemistry, which would become the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Claimed that he became famous
“not because the public cared
anything about the workers, but
simply because the public did not
want to eat tubercular beef” and that
he “aimed at the public's heart, and
by accident [he] hit it in the stomach”
Prohibition Movement
• Many progressives believed that
alcohol caused many of society’s
problems
• Employer’s believed that drinking
hurt workers’ efficiency
• Temperance movement
advocated that people stop, or at
least moderate, their alcohol
consumption
• Women’s Christian Temperance
Union  pressured the
government to institute complete
prohibition of alcohol
Progressives v. Big Business
• Pushed for government to
regulate big companies and
prevent them from abusing their
power
• Some progressives advocated
socialism  the idea that the
government should own and
operate industry for the
community
– Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs
won 400,000 votes in 1904 and
nearly a million in 1912 as
presidential candidate