The Progressive Era

1900 - 1920

Middle Class Movement Middle class emerged in late 1800s – product of

industrialization• Professionals, managers, “white collar” workers• Increasingly segregated from working class

Primarily concerned with urban, industrial problems• Rapid growth of cities exacerbated problems• Concerned about crime, alcoholism, prostitution, and

unsanitary & unsafe living & working conditions Progress entailed both efficiency & justice

• Elitist & democratic simultaneously• Linked to industrialists, who provided money for new

research universities & social research efforts

Scientific Social Reform Settlement Houses

Jane Addams est. Hull House in Chicago (1889)

Secular missionaries – lived in foreign neighborhoods & tried to “uplift” working class

Charity Organization Societies pooled & coordinated resources

John Dewey advocated educational reform to create better citizens

Immigration Restriction Immigration

Restriction League Led by Prescott F. Hall &

Robert D. Ward Advocated literacy test to

keep out “un-desirable” southern & eastern European immigrants

Eugenics Charles Davenport founded

Eugenics Record Office on Long Island

Advocated sterilization of criminals & mentally disabledHarry Laughlin &

Charles Davenport

NAACP (1910)& Urban League (1911)

Founded by whites & blacks Whites like Oswald Garrison

Villard were grandchildren of abolitionists

Blacks like W.E.B. DuBois were frustrated middle-class professionals

NAACP challenged Jim Crow laws in court

Urban League promoted economic developmentW.E.B. DuBois

The Role of Women Cult of “true womanhood”

women as moral guardians of family & society

Used to demand voting rights Upper & middle-class women

led many reform groups Women’s Christian Temperance

Union Children’s Aid Society Settlement houses

Women’sSuffrage

Taking on the Party Machines

Opposed machines as both antidemocratic & inefficient

City gov’t reforms were antidemocratic: Expert Commissions to replace elected city

councils Professional City Managers to administer affairs

Other reforms were more democratic: Direct Primaries took control of nominations

away from party leaders Initiative & Referendum allowed voters to

bypass legislature & enact laws directly Recall elections allowed removal of unpopular

officials before term expired

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

Added 150 million acres to forest preserves

Dept. of Commerce & Labor created (1903)

Pure Food & Drug Act & Meat Inspection Act (1906) regulated food industry

Hepburn Act (1906) gave ICC authority to set maximum railroad rates

Broke up Northern Securities Trust (1904)

Mediated United Mine Workers’ strike (1902)

Pres. William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Busted more trusts than T.R., but had pro-business reputation

Added to forest preserves, but angered conservationists by firing Gifford Pinchot

Mann Act (1910) outlawed “white slave trade”

Mann-Elkins Act (1910) strengthened ICC further

16th & 17th Amendments passed by Congress in 1913

The 1912 Election Roosevelt unsuccessfuly

challenged Taft for the G.O.P. nomination

Roosevelt then formed Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party

Woodrow Wilson won Democratic nomination & election

Pres. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Federal Reserve Act (1913) created modern monetary system

Underwood Tariff (1913) lowered rates & est. graduated income tax

Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) outlawed price discrimination, tying agreements & interlocking directorates

Federal Trade Commission (1914) created to regulate

Wilson (cont.) Federal Farm Loan Act (1916) created 12

banks to make low-interest loans to farmers (part of Subtreasury Plan)

Adamson Act (1916) mandated 8-hour day & time and a half for overtime for railroad workers

Keating-Owen Act (1916) banned goods made by child labor from interstate commerce, but overturned by Supreme Court

18th & 19th Amendments (1918, 1919) added to Constitution

The Progressive Amendments

16th Amendment (1913) allowed for a graduated income tax

17th Amendment (1913) mandated direct election of U.S. Senators

18th Amendment (1919) permitted prohibition of alcohol

19th Amendment (1920) granted right to vote to women