America Becomes a World Power

Part 1: Progressive Movement

Warm up - Issues of the Gilded Age

What are some of the issues people experienced during the Gilded Age? (In Cities, In Rural Areas, with government, with work?)

Corruption

Poverty

Poor working conditions

Overcrowded cities

Lack of Regulation

Social Issues (e.g, alcoholism)

The “Progressive Movement” is a response to the issues of the Gilded Age.

What was Progressivism?

• Time period from 1900-1920
• Primary goal of movement → to correct the political & economic injustices that had resulted from industrialization during the Gilded Age
• Believed government had been corrupted by Big Business and “political bosses”
• Wanted to use government to correct evils
• Movement took its name from the belief in American “progress”
• Members of movement were mainly middle-class city dwellers
• Writers
• Lawyers
• Ministers
• College Professors

Roots of Progressivism

• Social Gospel Movement
• Spearheaded by Protestant ministers
• Called for social reforms - abolition of child labor and safer working conditions
• Salvation Army was created by Christians to help those who were less fortunate
• Also supported the Temperance Movement that was aimed to ban A L C O H O L
• Socialism
• Abuses of industrial society led some critics to demand an end to the free enterprise system (capitalism)
• Believed government should take over basic industries
• Progressives rejected theory of socialism but argued that some reforms were necessary
• Muckrakers
• Investigate reporters, writers, and social scientists who exposed the abuses of industrial society & government corruption
• Phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt because these people raked up all the muck (dirt) of American life
• Considered to be the first Progressives

Social Reform

Women’s Suffrage Movement

• Main focus was to gain suffrage (the right to vote)
• Main leader of Movement → Susan B. Anthony
• Wyoming was the 1st state to allow women the right to vote (1869)
• New Jersey allowed women to vote between 1797-1809, but rescinded this right afterwards.
• To promote a national movement, organizations like the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association were formed
• During World War I, women stepped up to meet the challenges of war so it became hard to deny them suffrage
• 19th Amendment (1920) → no state could deny a citizen the right to vote based on their sex

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Social Reform

• Centered around attempts to help solve the problems that faced American society
• Reformers
• Jane Addams - founder of Hull House in Chicago; helped immigrants & needy find a place to live, obtain jobs, or get an education
• W.E.B. DuBois - founder of the NAACP; felt African Americans should achieve immediate racial equality
• Booker T. Washington - African American leader who felt African Americans should gain equality by focusing on job training
• Ida B. Wells - started an anti-lynching campaign & helped create the NAACP

Addams

DuBois

Washington

Wells

Political Reform

What is the role of the Local, State and Federal governments during the Gilded Age?

Political Reform

• Centered around solving problems of political corruption (“political machines”) & influence of Big Business
• Methods in which people were given more of a direct say in government
• Secret Ballots - used to keep people from being intimidated to vote in a certain way
• Initiatives - voters could introduce bills in state legislatures
• Referendums - voters could force legislators to place a bill on the ballot to be voted on
• Recalls - elected officials could be removed from offices by voters in a special election
• 17th Amendment (1913) - allowed for the Direct Election of Senators instead of by state legislatures***
• Pendleton Act (1883)
• Created the Civil Service Commission
• Gave people the opportunity to take exams to acquire government jobs based on merit, not on who you knew (“spoils system”)
• Helped to rid government of corruption & made it more efficient

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Economic Reform

• Centered around limiting Big Business & improving conditions for workers
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
• Prohibited railroads for charging more for short hauls than long hauls over the same route
• Created the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce the law; 1st federal government agency to regulate unfair business practices
• Department of Labor (1913) - created to study the problems of labor & to “promote the welfare of working people & improve their working conditions
• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) - made monopolies illegal in the U.S.
• Child Labor Act (1916) - prohibited sale of goods made by child labor
• Overturned by the Supreme Court

Muckrakers & Their Influence on Society

• Jacob Riis
• Exposed the poverty, living conditions, and disease of the urban poor in How the Other Half Lives
• Led NYC to pass building codes & to promote safety/health

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• Ida Tarbell
• Exposed Standard Oil Company’s ruthless business tactics of forcing others out of business & thereby creating a monopoly in The History of the Standard Oil Company
• Led the government to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act which outlawed monopolies

Muckrakers & Their Influence on Society

• Upton Sinclair
• Exposed dangerous working conditions & unsanitary practices in the meat-packing industry in his book The Jungle
• Led government to pass:
• Meat Inspection Act - law that set standards of cleanliness & required federal inspection of meat plants
• Pure Food & Drug Act - law that required foods to be pure & labeled

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• Lincoln Steffens
• Writer who exposed corruption in city & state governments in his book The Shame of the Cities

Progressive Presidents

Theodore Roosevelt

Woodrow Wilson

William Howard Taft

Progressive Presidents

Theodore Roosevelt

• Served from 1901-1909 (Republican)
• Became President after McKinley’s assassination
• Square Deal → Economic Agenda
• New laws passed to protect consumer health & prevent false advertising
• Meat Inspection Act
• Pure Food & Drug Act
• Limited the operation of laissez-faire economy by increasing power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to also now regulate telephones & the telegraph
• Conservation Reform
• Believed that conservation of natural resources was important
• Stopped the practice of selling public lands for development & added millions of acres to the national parks & forests

Progressive Presidents

William Howard Taft

• Served from 1909-1913 (Republican)
• Hand picked by Roosevelt to be his successor
• Continued many of Roosevelt’s policies (for a while)
• Couldn’t get tariff lowered
• Returned to public sale of some federal lands
• Once Taft started to do things that went against the Progressive agenda, Roosevelt decided to run for a 3rd term against Taft in 1912
• Republican Party chose Taft as their candidate so Roosevelt started his own political party, the Bull Moose Party
• Split Republican Party in 2 allowing the Democrats to win the election

Progressive Presidents

Woodrow Wilson

• Served from 1913-1921 (Democrat)
• Believed in a lot of the same things Roosevelt did
• New Freedom → Economic Agenda
• Revenue Act of 1913 (Underwood Tariff) - lowered tariff rates from 40% to 25%
• 16th Amendment (1913) - gave Congress the power to tax a person’s income (Income Tax)
• Federal Reserve Act (1913)
• Created a centralized banking system where banks can borrow money
• Controls interest rates & amount of money in circulation
• Clayton Antitrust Act
• Federal Trade Commission - protected consumers against unfair business practices by corporations
• Signed in 1916 a law that created the National Park Service to further conservation efforts