The Rise of Progressivism: Reform Movements and Social Change in Early 20th Century America

1. Chapter 28 The best slide show ever, courtesy of Kendra Crawford.

2. Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt 1901-1912

3. “Fourteen Years of Peace” • 1900 population of America nearly 76 million • 1 in 7 was foreign born • New crusaders or “progressives” waged war against monopoly, corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice • Progressive army large and diverse • “Strengthen the State”

4. Progressive Roots

5. Groundswell of new reformist wave took from the Greenback Labor Party of the 1870’s and the Populist Party of the 1890’s • Individualism outworn in the modern machine age • Progressive theorists say society could no longer afford laissez faire or “let-alone” policy

6. Progressive Attack • 1894 – Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth Against Commonwealth • Charged into the Standard Oil Company

7. 1899 – Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class • Attack on “predatory wealth” & “conspicuous consumption” • Wasteful “business” - making money for money’s sake rather than making goods to satisfy needs

8. Jacob A. Riis – Danish reporter for New York Sun • How the Other Half Lives – dirt, disease, vice & misery of New York slums • Influenced future New York City commissioner Theodore Roosevelt

9. Theodore Dreiser – novelist • The Financier (1912)and The Titan (1914) • Battered promoters and profiteers

10. Other Forms of Progressivism • High-minded messengers promoted brand of progressivism based on Christian teachings • Demanded better housing and living conditions for urban poor using religious doctrine • Feminists added social justice to suffrage • Jane Addams • Lillian Wald

11. Raking Muck with the Muckrakers

12. Exposing Evil • Aggressive 10-15% magazines • McClure’s, Cosmopolitan, Collier’s, Everybody’s • Editors and young reporters branded as “muckrakers” because of their pugnacious writing • Some scandalous exposures published as best-selling books

13. 1902 - Lincoln Steffens launched series of articles in McClure’s “The Shame of the Cities” • Unmasked alliance between big business & municipal government • Followed by pioneering journalist Ida M. Tarbell • Published exposé of the Standard Oil Company

14. Thomas W. Lawson – made $50 million on the stock market • Wrote series of articles “Frenzied Finance” 1905-1906 • Rocketed the circulation of Everybody’s • Died a poor man

15. David G. Phillips wrote series in Cosmopolitan “The Treason of the Senate” 1906 • Charged that 75 out of 90 senators only represented railroads and trusts • Impressed Roosevelt • Fatally shot in 1911

16. Social Evils • “White slave” traffic in women • Rickety slums • Industrial Accidents • Subjugation of blacks – Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line 1908 • Child labor – John Spargo’sThe Bitter Cry of the Children 1906

17. Potent Patent Medicines • Vendors spiked medicine heavily with alcohol • Adulterated and habit-forming drugs • Attacks in Collier’s ably reinforced by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley – chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture • Performed experiments on self

18. Political Progressivism

19. Progressives sought two goals: • 1) to use state power to curb trusts • 2) stem the socialist threat by generally improving the common person’s living & labor conditions • Less a minority movement, more a majority mood

20. Objectives • Pushed for direct primary elections to undercut power-hungry bosses • Agitated for the “referendum” • Placed laws on the ballot for final approval by the people • Rooted out graft • Limited amount of money candidates could spend for election • Direct election of US senators • The Seventeenth Amendment • Approved 1913 • Established direct election of US senators

21. Women’s Suffrage • Received powerful support from the progressives in the early 1900’s • Women’s votes would elevate political tone • Foes of the saloon could count on enfranchised females • “Votes for Women” & “Equal Suffrage for Men and Women” • Suffragists protested “Taxation Without Representation”

22. Progressivism in the Cities and States

23. Reforms • Appointed expert-staffed commissions to manage urban affairs • Designed to take politics out of municipal administration • Valued efficiency more highly than democracy • Attacked “slumlords,” juvenile delinquency & prostitution • Tried to halt sale of franchises for public utilities

24. Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette • Crusader who emerged as one of the most militant progressive Republican leaders • Became governor of Wisconsin 1901 • Wrested considerable control from corporations and returned it to the people

25. Hiram W. Johnson • Elected Republican governor of California 1910 • Helped break grip of Southern Pacific Railroad

26. Charles Evans Hughes • Reformist Republican governor of New York • Gained national fame as an investigator of malpractices

27. Progressive Women

28. The settlement house movement • exposed middle class women to poverty, political corruption, & intolerable working/living conditions • The women’s club movement • Literary clubs for women to improve themselves

29. “Separate Spheres” • Woman’s place in the home • New activities included moral and maternal issues • Women’s Trade Union League, National Consumers League, Children’s Bureau, Women’s Bureau • Wedges in federal bureaucracy gave women stage for social investigation & advocacy

30. Reform • Sweatshops – factories where workers toiled long hours for low wages • Florence Kelley – former resident of Jane Addams’s Hull House • Became first chief factory inspector of Illinois & advocate for improved factory conditions • 1889 – took control of National Consumer’s League

31. Muller v. Oregon • 1908 • Louis D. Brandeis persuaded Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of laws protecting women workers by presenting evidence of harmful effects on weaker bodies • Progressive triumph over existing legal doctrine

32. Lochner v. New York • 1905 • Invalidated a New York law establishing a ten-hour day for bakers • 1917 – Supreme Court upheld ten-hour law for factory workers

33. Enforcing Factory Laws • 1911 – Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York • Violations of the fire code turned factory into death trap • Killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women • New York legislature passed stronger laws regulating hours and conditions • 1917 – 30 states had workers’ compensation laws

34. Demon Rum • Alcohol intimately connected with prostitution • 1900 – cities like New York had 1 saloon for every 200 people • Some states passed “dry” laws which controlled, restricted, or abolished alcohol • About to be floored by Eighteenth Amendment 1919

35. Anti-liquor Efforts • Antiliquor campaigners received support from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union • Founder Frances E. Willard mobilized nearly 1 million women to “make the world homelike” • Allied with the Anti-Saloon League

36. TR’s Square Deal for Labor

37. “Square Deal” • For capital, labor & the public • Embraced three C’s: • Control of the corporations • Consumer protection • Conservation of natural resources

38. 1902 – strike broke out in coal mines of Pennsylvania • 140,000 workers demanded improvements, 20% increase & reduction of working day from 10 to 9 hours • George F. Baer – reflected high-and-mighty attitude of employers • Roosevelt threatened to operate mines with federal troops • Owners grudgingly consented • 10% increase • 9 hour work day

39. Department of Commerce and Labor • 1903 • Urged by Roosevelt due to antagonisms between capital and labor • The Bureau of Corporations authorized to probe business engaged in interstate commerce • Helped break stronghold of monopoly

40. TR Corrals the Corporations

41. The Railroad Octopus • Interstate Commerce Commission (1887) proved inadequate • Extended to reach express companies, sleeping car companies & pipelines • Given authority to nullify existing rates & stipulate maximum rates • Elkins Act of 1903 • Heavy fines could now be imposed on railroads that gave rebates and shippers that accepted them • Hepburn Act of 1906 • Free passes were severely restricted

42. Antitrust Bludgeon • “Good” trusts with public consciences • “Bad” trusts lusted greedily for power • 1902 – Roosevelt attacked Northern Securities Company, organized by J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill • 1904 – Supreme Court upheld Roosevelt’s antitrust suit and dissolved Northern Securities Company • Angered big business, enhanced Roosevelt’s reputation

43. Caring for the Consumer

44. Foreign governments threatening to ban all American meat imports • American consumers hungered for safer canned products • Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle 1906 • Described filth, disease & putrefaction in Chicago’s slaughterhouses

45. Roosevelt induced Congress to pass Meat Inspection Act of 1906 • Decreed that preparation of meat would be subject to federal inspection • Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 • Designed to prevent adulteration and mislabeling

46. Earth Control

47. Feeble Conservation • The Desert Land Act of 1877 • Federal government sold arid land on the condition that the purchaser irrigate within 3 years • The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 • Authorized the president to set aside forests as national parks • Rescued 46 million acres • The Carey Act of 1894 • Distributed federal land to the states on the condition that it be irrigated and settled

48. Roosevelt Takes Charge • Gifford Pinchot – head of the federal Division of Forestry • Roosevelt seized leadership • The Newlands Act of 1902 • Washington was authorized to collect money from the sale of lands in western states and use the funds for development of irrigation projects • The Roosevelt Dam • Constructed on Arizona’s Salt River, dedicated 1911 • Dozens of dams thrown across every major western river • Set aside 125 million acres of forestry, millions of acres of coal & water • 1902 – banned Christmas trees from White House

49. National Concern • Concern about disappearance of frontier as a national characteristic of individualism and democracy • Too much civilization not good for the national soul • Jack London’s Call of the Wild1903 • Brought up by worried city dwellers • Boy Scouts of America • Largest youth organization • The Sierra Club 1892 • Dedicated to preserving wilderness

50. 1913 – federal government allowed San Francisco to build dam in HetchHetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park • Deep division among conservationists • Offended preservationists, including famed naturalist John Muir • Pinchot and Roosevelt battle against greedy commercial interests and romantic preservationists • “Multiple-use resource management” • Sought to combine recreation, sustained-yield logging, watershed protection, & summer stock grazing with federal land