Progressivism: Reform for a Perfect Society

1. Unit #2 HIST 1302: US History IICapitol, Labor, Industrialization, The Gilded Age, and The Progressive Era

2. Papers • No titles, no contractions, no 1st person, no “size” words, tense agreement, no colloquialisms, no long quotes, never use “the readings said…” or “in the reading…”, never start a sentence with “Now,” italicize titles (TAY) • The “summary syndrome”: I do not want description/summary of what the author writes, I’m testing your comprehension (I’ve read it) • Deeper meanings and comparisons, some are pretty generic • Intro/Conclusion Paragraphs: not flowery, direct and related to the essay only, 5 paragraph structure • Be formal and give me a good effort, writing is much different than talking

3. Progressivism: Whose job is societal reform? What does “Progressivism” mean? • Almost uniquely American idea that society could be perfected • Government • Individual • Business • Religion

4. Gilded Age through Progressive Era • Wealth Gap • Transition to “Paleo-Technic society” • Immigration • Growth of the City • Jim Crow • Innovation (Telephone, Power Lines, Radio, Movies, Record Players, Airplanes, Automobiles) • Professionalization (universities, doctors, lawyers, teachers, sports, psychiatry, science) • Expansionism, involvement in foreign affairs • Global War • Women’s Suffrage • Progressive Reform • Blues, Jazz, Negritude

8. New Gilded Age • Wealth Gap: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM • Global Gap: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU • New Gilded Age (4:00): • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/gilded-age-state-of-the-union_n_4647348.html

9. Urban Growth • Cities List: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade

10. Problems of Gilded Age and Reform for Progressive Era • 1. What are the problems of the Gilded Age? • 2. Who is responsible for creating the problems? • 3. What can be done to fix them? • 4. Who is responsible for fixing them?

11. Progressivism: Whose job is societal reform? What does “Progressivism” mean? • Almost uniquely American idea that society could be perfected • Government • Individual • Business • Religion

12. Progressivism • What is Progressivism? • Reform movement • Reaches its height early in the 20th century • 1912 Bull Moose Political Party, elects Teddy Roosevelt as a third party candidate, 1st to support women’s suffrage • Middle class and reformist in nature • A response to modernization, growth of large corporations and railroads, fears of corruption in American politics, the loss of vigorous manhood, and environmental disasters • It established the tone of American politics throughout the first half of the century • Social progressivism: • Government practice adjusted as society evolves • Ideological basis for many American progressives

13. Progressivism • Efforts to outlaw the sale of alcohol • Regulate child labor and sweatshops • Scientifically manage natural resources • Insure pure and wholesome water and milk • Americanize immigrants or restrict immigration • Bust or regulate trusts • Urban, college-educated middle class • Eliminate corruption in government • Regulate business practices • Address health hazards • Improve working conditions • Direct control over government through direct primaries to nominate candidates for public office, direct election of senators, the initiative, referendum, and recall, and women's suffrage • Muckraking journalists • Exploitation of child labor • Corruption in city governments • Lynching • Ruthless business practices employed by businessmen • Suppress red-light districts • Expand high schools, construct playgrounds • Minimum wage laws for women workers, instituted industrial accident insurance, restricted child labor, and improved factory regulation • Federal regulation of the meat-packing, drug, and railroad industries, and strengthened anti-trust laws • Lowered the tariff • Federal control over the banking system • Legislation to improve working conditions • Four constitutional amendments were adopted during the Progressive era including: authorizing an income tax; providing for the direct election of senators; extending the vote to women; and prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages

14. Reform and Ideology • Environmental Determinism: • Environment is to blame • Structuralism: • Structures determine our behaviors in ways we do not often see, society tends to evolve like an organism, the little pats are all becoming more complex creating a more complex whole • Social Darwinism: • Idea that society follows the rules of natural selection, those most fit to procreate will do so (Darwin, 1859, On the Origin of Species) • Who coined “survival of the fittest”? • Herbert Spencer: • Most associated with Social Darwinism, believed that competition is what made humans complex and drove us to advance • Charity through government machinery or of the type that would dissuade people who otherwise could from competing was ruinous, only limited private charity • The fittest would survive, and the struggle to be the fittest is what improved society

15. Reform and Ideology • Lamarkism: • The idea that animals can pass on traits that they have acquired during their lifetimes, “soft” inheritance, smart people would have smart children and vise versa • Reform Darwinism: • Social Darwinism put into practice • Government would act to help “Darwinian” evolution • Based on Malthus and a corruption of natural selection turned “survival of the fittest” • Not only should the poor, the weak, disabled, etc. not receive help, but the government should work to make sure that best, the brightest, the most fit are the ones to procreate to ensure the greatness of a particular society • Malthus: • Humans would inevitably expand beyond sustainable limits and would be kept in check by disaster such as famine, war, or manipulation • Eugenics: • The idea that the gene pool can be improved through manipulation of breeding and application of science and biology

17. Reform and Ideology • Peter Kropotkin: • Response: (1902) Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, the idea that cooperation is just as successful as competition, that competition is not the driving force of human history • Social Darwinism in Pop Culture: • Idiocracy (3:08): • http://www.videobash.com/video_show/idiocracy-intro-245281 • Chomsky on Social Darwinism (2:23): • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjermDZ1qfI • Who are the elite? Who is smart, who is stupid? Chomsky (2:37) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm0YMZE_1QQ • Meritocracy: • The myth of the meritocracy is a crucial component, these ideas only work if we believe there is nothing that impedes a group or privileges a group for success, that if everyone works hard they can be as successful as they want to be

18. Responses: Labor Struggles • Populism: (1890s but extends to all periods) U.S. People’s Party, Agrarian workers • I.W.W.: (1905) Industrial workers, idea of one union, anti-sexist, anti-racist • Can you think of any current labor struggles?

21. Suffrage • 1848: Seneca Falls, 1st Women's Rights Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s "The Declaration of Sentiments" • 1870: 15th Amendment prohibits denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude“ • 1874: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) • 1911, The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS), Mrs. Arthur Dodge, wealthy women, Catholic clergy, distillers and brewers, urban politicians, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists. • 1919Nineteenth Amendment, August 26, 1920 ratification • 1890, Wyoming adopts suffrage • 1893, Colorado adopts suffrage • 1896, Utah joins with suffrage, Idaho adopts suffrage • 1910, Washington State adopts woman suffrage • 1911 California adopts suffrage • 1912 Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona adopt woman suffrage • 1914, Nevada and Montana adopt woman suffrage, • 1917, New York adopts suffrage, Arkansas allows women to vote in primary elections, • 1918, Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma adopt suffrage

22. The Road to WWI and the End of Progressivism • Interventionism • Mexico, Porfiriato: • Porfirio Diaz: 1876 coup to 1911 Mexican Revolution, propped up by British and American investment in rail and mining, haciendas at the expense of the campesinos • Spanish American War: • 1898, 10 weeks, Cuban War of Independence, led to intervention in the Pacific and the Philippines • Treaty of Paris very favorable to the US, control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine islands (had to pay Spain for infrastructure) • Yellow Journalism: • Sensationalized news, photos and drawings, headlines, exaggeration, outright fakes (coined when Pulitzer used yellow ink)

25. 1913: The Establishment of the Federal Reserve • The Fed (3:16): • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTzXTBHpl8 • The Fed (7:13): • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mejOviGyok