21 - Progressive Era - Jamestown School District

Chapter 21 – The Progressive Era (1877 – 1920)
Section One – The Progressive Movement
Fighting the Political Machines
• Political Machine – a powerful group pf people in a political party who control local politics and
government, sometimes by illegal means
• Political Boss – the head of the political machine, he often provided assistance to people but also was
often dishonest
• Boss Tweed – a great example of a political boss, William Marcy Tweed rang the Tammany Hall political
machine in New York City. His group controlled the police, courts, and even some newspapers.
Tammany Hall was responsible for stealing millions of dollars from the city and demanding bribes for
services.
• Thomas Nast – a political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly magazine, Nast exposed the Tweed Ring’s
actions and Tweed was convicted and imprisoned.
Fighting the Spoils System
• Spoils System – supporters of winning politicians were rewarded with government jobs they were often
unqualified for. This leads to an inefficient government.
• Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) – federal law that requires a test to be hired for a government job.
90% of government employees now are tested before they are hired.
Reining in the Railroads
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887) – concerned about high prices, Congress requires railroads to charge
“reasonable and just” (fair) rates. Later, this law also was used to control the trucking industry.
• Interstate Commerce Commission – group in charge of oversee this law
The New Reformers
• Eugene Debs – a socialist who ran for President six times and lost each time, Debs wanted businesses to
be controlled by government.
• Socialism – government controls businesses. Good news – government would protect workers from low
pay, bad conditions. Bad news – Government is slow to respond to changes in market, owners of
companies would have little control
• Capitalism – owners operate their businesses with little outside (government) supervision. Good News –
owners make profits as a result of their decisions, very efficient. Bad News – Often took advantage of
workers with low pay, long hours, unsafe conditions.
Muckrakers Expose Problems
• Muckrakers – Journalists who seek to show the citizens problems in society by using books, newspapers,
magazines and photographs
• Jacob Riis – took photos of tenements in How the Other Half Lives
• Ida Tarbell – wrote about the oil industry and John D. Rockefeller’s unfair business tactics
• Upton Sinclair – writes The Jungle and exposes horrible conditions in Chicago’s meat packing industry
Seventeenth Amendment –
• Senators are no directly elected by citizens
• Used to be picked by state governors.
Section Two – Women and Progressives

Women’s Roles Change
• Middle class women in urban (city) areas have few children and go to college (40% of college students in
1910 were women)
• Professionals – educated women become professionals. Professionals are occupations that require special
knowledge or training, such as nursing and teaching
• Between 1890 and 1910, the number of women in the workforce increased from 4 million to 7.5 million
(US population of 1900 was about 76 million)
The “New Women”
• “New Woman” – a woman who pursued interests outside of the home
• Jane Addams – sets up Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago to train poor and immigrants
• Many women became writers, public speakers, or social or political reformers
Women’s Clubs
• Women joined clubs in which they shared an interest.
• Some were about painting and music, but others became active in reform movements such as pushing for
women’s rights.
The Fight for Suffrage
• Suffrage – the right to vote.
• 15 th Amendment gave black males the right to vote in 1870, but women were still not permitted to vote.
• Suffragists – people who pushed the idea of women getting the vote
• National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) – created in 1890, this group had 2 million
members by 1917 and was very powerful
• Also sought protection for female workers
• Lobbied government officials, put on marches, and gave speeches on street corners
• By 1919, women could vote in some elections in most of the 48 states.
Opposition to Women’s Suffrage
• Some men, as well as some women, did not like the idea of women voting
• Reasons – thought women voting would lead to an unbalance in the home, leading to divorce and neglect
of children.
Continuing the Fight
• Alice Paul, a Quaker, starts the National Women’s Party in 1916.
• Paul met with President Wilson in 1917, but failed to convince him to support women’s suffrage
• Leads to protests and arrests at the White House
• Some women go on hunger strikes while others are sent to prison
Nineteenth Amendment
• Nineteenth Amendment – in 1920, after passing the House of Reps and Senate and being ratified
(approved) by ¾’s of the states, women were given the right to vote
Temperance Crusade
• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) – created in 1874 to push for prohibition
• Prohibition - abolition of alcohol
• Leaders of the movement were Frances Willard and Carrie Nation (who used radical methods of singing
poorly outside of bars and later attacking them with an axe)
Eighteenth Amendment - Prohibition
• Prohibition – This Amendment was ratified in 1919 and made it illegal to make, transport, or sell alcohol
in the United States

• As we’ll see, the Eighteenth Amendment soon proved to be unpopular and impossible to enforce.
Section Three – Progressive Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt
• Elected as Vice President in 1900, he took over the Presidency when President William McKinley was
assassinated in Buffalo, NY.
• At 42, he was the youngest President in US history
• He brought Progressive ideas into the White House
The “Trustbuster”
· TR supports regulation of big business
· Sought to defeat trusts who violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
· Northern Securities Company – this railroad monopoly was one of TR’s first targets. They fought
his accusations all the way to Supreme Court, but lost in 1904. The Court demanded the trust be
broken apart.
· TR also charged trusts in beef, oil, and tobacco industries.
· “Trustbuster” – this nickname was given to TR
· Didn’t go after all trusts, just ones he thought were acting unfairly towards the public
Coal Miners Strike
· In 1902, 100,000 union coal miners strike in PA for an 8 hour work day and better pay. The strike
went on for months and the company refused to negotiate. As winter drew near, the country needed
more coal.
· TR forced the owners to negotiate with the union, then demanded arbitration
· Arbitration – settling of a dispute by a neutral outsider.
· Mine workers got increased pay and an 8 hour day.
· TR was the first President to support workers over business leaders. However, he did not do this
in every case.
Square Deal
· Square Deal – when TR ran for reelection in 1904, he promised citizens a “square deal” – fair and
equal treatment for all. He easily wins with 57% of vote.
· TR abandons laissez-faire government.
· Laissez-faire government – a government who tries not to get involved in business affairs. This
was a US tradition since Jefferson.
· TR supports Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act which gave government the power
to inspect food products
Conserving Wilderness
· Conservation – protection and preservation of country’s natural resources
· TR creates the National Forest Service and sets aside millions of acres of national forests
William Howard Taft
• TR doesn’t want to break the two term tradition created by George Washington, so he decides to step
down
• Supported his VP, William Howard Taft in1908 election for President, who defeats William Jennings
Bryan easily
• Taft continues anti-trust policies of TR
• Taft supports the Sixteenth Amendment – a federal income tax

• Taft goes against TR by supporting high tariffs to support businesses and supporting business over
conservation
Roosevelt Challenges Taft
• In 1912, TR decides to run against his former friend, Taft for President, claiming Taft “twisted his
policies.”
• Primaries – these elections decide who will be a candidate for a political party
• TR defeats Taft in all Republican primaries, but Taft was supported by party leaders and businesses, so
Republicans selected him as their candidate for President.
• TR is enraged and starts the Progressive Party. A reporter asked him about his health and he responded by
saying “I’m as strong as a bull moose!” The nickname stuck and the Progressives became known as the
Bull Moose Party
Election of 1912
• TR and Taft split the Republican vote, allowing the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson to win.
• Wilson was a progressive, governor of New Jersey and former president of Princeton University.
• Wilson gets 42% of popular vote, TR gets 27%, Taft 23% but Wilson gt 435 of the 531 electoral votes.
Wilson in the White House
• Tariff Reform – lower tariffs on imports, hoping foreign competition would force US businesses to
improve products and lower prices.
• Tax money lost on tariffs would be replaced by the new income tax (16 th Amendment)
• Federal Reserve Act (1913) – goal was to regulate banking by creating 12 regional banks controlled by a
central bank in Washington, DC. The Federal Reserve acts to help the country stay out of financial
trouble by controlling borrowing and loans (doesn’t always work)
• Federal Trade Commision (1914) – the FTC investigates corporations for unfair trade practices
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) – Strengthens Sherman Anti-trust Act and helps Wilson fight trusts
Section Four – Excluded from Reform
Discrimination
• Discrimination – many in US faced unequal treatment because of their race, religion, ethnic background,
or place of birth
Anti-Catholicism
• American Protective Association (APA) - founded in Iowa. Members vowed not to hire Catholics
because of their religion. The APA claimed over 2 million members
Anti-Semitism
• Many Jewish people came to the US to escape discrimination in their homelands only to find same
attitudes in America
Anti-Asian Policies
• Whites claimed Chinese immigrants work for lower wages and take jobs from them
• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) – makes it illegal for Chinese immigrants to come to US
• Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907) - TR authorizes this, which restricts Japanese immigration.
Discrimination Against African Americans
• Although officially free and equal as a result of the Reconstruction Amendments, blacks were continually
refused basic rights held by whites.
• 4/5’s of blacks lived in the South as sharecroppers or worked in low paying urban jobs

• Because of Jim Crow laws, whites and blacks were separated
• Plessy vs. Ferguson (1894) – Supreme Court legalizes segregation as long as there are “separate but equal”
facilities
Ku Klux Klan
• Ku Klux Klan (KKK) - this group, dormant since the end of Reconstruction, was reborn in Georgia in
1915.
• This group wanted to restore white, Protestant America
• Klan attacks minorities such as Jews, Catholics, immigrants and blacks
• Klan gains support in some areas of the North
Racial Violence
• Due to economic depressions in 1893 and 1907, many lose their jobs.
• Frustrated and angry, whites unleash anger on blacks and immigrants
• Scapegoat – a person or group who is unfairly blamed for problems
• More than 2600 African Americans were lynched (illegally hanged) between 1886 and 1916.
• Lynching also used to terrorize Chinese in the west
Progressivism and Prejudice
• Most reformers were from upper or middle classes
• Many of their reforms discriminated against one group or another
• Some unions did not allow African Americans, women, or immigrants to join.
• The temperance movement was partly an attempt to control Irish Catholic immigrants
• Civil Service tests required an education, which largely eliminated immigrants and blacks from
consideration for government jobs. When whites got the jobs, discrimination continued whether purposely
or not.
Struggle for Equality
• Booker T. Washington –
◦ Starts the Tuskegee Institute to educate fellow blacks.
◦ Advised African Americans to work patiently for equality
• W.E.B. Dubois –
◦ First African American to receive a doctorate degree from Harvard
◦ Argued that the right to vote was the way to stop lynchings and discrimination
◦ Insisted on an end to legalized segregation
◦ More aggressive than Washington
◦ Starts the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (1910) – this
groups fights for civil rights throughout the 20 th century
• Back-to-Africa movements – some blacks thought they would be better off going back to Africa. These
groups were never very popular as almost no blacks in America were born in Africa.
African American Women Take Action
• Ida B. Wells – crusades against lynching and publishes names of people involved in lynching. Number of
lynchings drop dramatically after Wells calls attention to them
Natives Seek Justice
• Attempted assimilation of Native Americans threatened the Indian culture
• Society of American Indians – founded in 1911, they seek to teach whites about native cultures.
Mexican Americans Work Together
• After moving to the Southern US, many Mexican immigrants faced violence and discrimination as well

• Mutualistas – Mexican self-defense groups who provided members with insurance and legal help because
few Americans would permit Mexicans from joining reform groups or unions.
• Barrios – Mexican neighborhoods in the US, similar to immigrant ghettos of other nationalities