The Progressive Era

1. Section 3: The Progressive Era Georgia Performance Standards: SSUSH13a-f

2. SSUSH13 The student will identify major efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era. a. Explain Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and federal oversight of the meatpacking industry. b. Identify Jane Addams and Hull House and describe the role of women in reform movements. c. Describe the rise of Jim Crow, Plessy v. Ferguson, and the emergence of the NAACP. d. Explain Ida Tarbell’s role as a muckraker. e. Describe the significance of progressive reforms such as the initiative, recall, and referendum; direct election of senators; reform of labor laws; and efforts to improve living conditions for the poor in cities. f. Describe the conservation movement and the development of national parks and forests; include the role of Theodore Roosevelt.

6. Progressive Movement • Widespread, popular movement that focused on improving life for all by working on social issues • Flourished from the 1890’s-1920’s • Examples of Progressive principles in action: • Ending child labor • Direct election on Senators • Prohibition

7. Progressivism and Labor • Reform of labor laws • Progressivism will move towards: • 8 hour work day • End of child labor • Safer and more sanitary working conditions • More protections for workers / less for companies

9. The Muckrakers • The Muckrakers had a strong influence on the Progressive Movement. • A muckrake is a rake or pitchfork used to clean poo and hay out of stables. • Teddy Roosevelt used the term muckraker to refer to journalists who raked filth into the public eye. • Many of these writers wrote stories exposing abuse in government and big business.

10. muckraker:writer who focused on exposing corruption & inadequate social conditions in the U. S. Ida Tarbell (1857-1944) • “Muckraker” • Father had been put out of business by John D. Rockefeller

11. History of Standard Oil Company (1904) • Written by Ida Tarbell • Smear campaign – turned public against trusts • Led to breakup of Standard Oil Company DID YOU KNOW: History of Standard Oil Company was originally published in 19 separate parts, each in an issue of McClure’s Magazine, a popular magazine of the early 20th century

13. Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) • Trusts / monopolies illegal • Rarely used until T. Roosevelt & after Standard Oil breakup

14. Tarbell on Rockefeller With Mr. Rockefeller’s genius for detail there went a sense of the big and vital factors in the oil business and a daring in laying hold of them which was very like military genius. He saw strategic points like a Napoleon and he swooped on them with the suddenness of a Napoleon. Mr. Rockefeller’s capture of the Cleveland refineries in 1872 was as dazzling an achievement as it was a hateful one. The campaign … viewed simply as a piece of brigandage, was admirable. The man saw what was necessary to his purpose and he never hesitated before it. His courage was steady--and his faith in his ideas unwavering. He simply knew what was the thing to do, and he went ahead with the serenity of the man who knows.

15. Tarbell on Rockefeller His instinct for the money opportunity in things was amazing, his perception of the value of seizing this or that particular invention, plant, market, was unerring. He was like a general who, besieging a city surrounded by fortified hills, views from a balloon the whole great field, and see how, this point taken, that must fall; this hill reached, that fort is commanded. And nothing was too small: the corner grocery in Browntown, the humble refining still on Oil Creek, the shortest private pipe line. Nothing, for little things grow.

17. Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) • Socialist writer • Most famous work: The Jungle, 1906 • Attempts to change immigrant working conditions, serves to radically change food processing industry

18. The Jungle (1906) • Novel about the horrors of the meatpacking industry in Chicago • Details unsanitary conditions of meat • Helped lead to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

19. Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) • Required: • Federal government inspection of meat products • Labels on addictive materials (alcohol, etc.) • A doctor’s prescription for certain drugs • Gave the Food and Drug Administration oversight on protecting food and drug production and consumption in the U.S.

20. Child Labor • Movement attempted to end child labor • Progressive ideals • Leads to Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) • Minimum Wage The photographs that follow are from Lewis W. Hine, a photographer and sociologist for the National Child Labor Committee, a group that was organized with the goal of ending child labor. He took this photos between 1908 and 1912.

21. The Mill: A moment's glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year. Rhodes Mfg. Co. Lincolnton, North Carolina.

22. The Mill: One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were ten children about her size. Whitnel, North Carolina.

23. Miners: View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pennsylvania Coal Co. The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience. South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

24. The Factory: 9 p.m. in an Indiana Glass Works.

25. Seafood Workers: Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All but the very smallest babies work. Began work at 3:30 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The little girl in the center was working. Her mother said she is "a real help to me." Dunbar, Louisiana.

26. Seafood Workers: Manuel the young shrimp picker, age 5, and a mountain of child labor oyster shells behind him. He worked last year. Understands not a word of English. Biloxi, Mississippi.

27. Struggling Families: A family working in the Tifton Cotton Mill. Four smallest children not working yet. The mother said she earns $4.50 a week and all the children earn $4.50 a week. Husband died and left her with 11 children. Two of them went off and got married. The family left the farm two years ago to work in the mill. Tifton, Georgia.

30. Progressive Reforms • Efforts to improve life for poor in cities • Jacob Riis, Jane Addams

31. Jacob Riis (1849-1914) • Muckraker & Journalist • Attempted to improve quality of life for poor tenement residents • Writer of How the Other Half Lives (1890) • Photo-essay that let many learn about poverty in NY tenements

34. Jane Addams (1860-1935) • Feminist and social worker • Sought to help poor in inner-city Chicago • Won 1931 Nobel Peace Prize

35. Hull House • “Settlement House” founded by Jane Addams in Chicago (1889) • Mostly women worked at Hull House • Settlement House: • Center for community service • Middle and upper class people volunteered to live in lower class areas of town and offer classes and lectures, cultural events and basic skills training • Goal: Improve the surrounding community

36. Hull House

38. “Social Gospel” • Belief that applying Christianity’s ethics to the world would solve problems • Examples: • Poverty • Crime • Racial issues • Child labor

39. Progressivism and Elections • Corruption • Widespread • “Spoils System” • In decline nationally – Pendleton Act (1883) • Tammany Hall • Democratic political machine in NYC • Immigrant support • Provided extra money & political support in exchange for votes

40. Electoral Progressive Reforms • Initiative • Petition signed by a certain number of citizens will lead to a referendum on an issue • Recall • Voters can remove an elected official through a yes/no vote • Referendum • A legislature asks the people to vote yes or no on a certain bill or law Not allowed in GA Allowed in GA Allowed in GA

41. Progressive Reforms • Direct election of senators • Previously, had been elected by state legislatures • Provided for by the 17th Amendment (1913) • Primaries • Voters of a certain party choose candidates for major office • Begin as a result of the corruption of political bosses / machines

42. Women & Reform Movements • Jane Addams & Hull House • Women were central to Hull House’s services

44. Rise of Jim Crow • Jim Crow Laws: • Laws that legally separated black and white Americans • From the late 1870’s to the 1960’s • Most were passed under the guise of Plessy v. Ferguson • i.e. Separate but equal “Jim Crow” was a character introduced to America in 1832. He was the personification of negative stereotypes of African Americans.

45. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Held “separate but equal” doctrine constitutional • Could have separate facilities for black and white Americans, as long as they were equal • Legalized segregation

46. Jim Crow Laws • Examples in Georgia: (passed by state legislature) • Separate railcars, streetcars, parks, churches, water fountains, restaurants • Poll taxes (1877) • White primary (1900) • Literacy tests (1908) • Lynching • Killing, by a mob, of a person accused of breaking Jim Crow laws / segregation DID YOU KNOW: Between 1882 and 1930, 458 people were lynched in Georgia, second only to Mississippi’s 538. 95% of the victims were black, and 97% of lynchings were conducted by all white mobs.

47. Eli Cooper – One Lynching in GA “One night in late summer 1919, a gang of fifteen or twenty white men abducted [Eli] Cooper, a black man, from his home in Cadwell in Laurens County and transported him to Petway's Gift Church in Dodge County, a few miles away. The gang shot Cooper, set the church on fire, and pitched his body into the flames. Cooper's transgression, as reported by the Atlanta Constitution on August 29, 1919, had been "talking considerably of late in a manner offensive to the white people." Furthermore, the paper reported, "The white residents were informed that an uprising of negroes was set" for late September and "Cooper's own remarks, it is alleged, were . . . that the negroes had been 'run over for fifty years, but this will all change in thirty days.'" Apparently, many whites in Cooper's community were concerned about the possibility of an "uprising," which could threaten the social order.”-New GA Encyclopedia, “Lynching”

49. Black Reactions to Jim Crow • Formation of NAACP • W.E.B. Du Bois • Booker T. Washington • “Atlanta Compromise”

50. Rise of the NAACP • Stands for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Organized in 1909 to fight for civil rights, support African Americans in fight against Jim Crow