THE

PROGRESSIVE
ERA
1890-1920
 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

 What is an “era”?

 What does chronological mean?

 Progressive: encouraging progress, change, or reform in

order to improve something

 Why did people immigrate to certain areas of the United

States?
 What is urbanization?
 WHY PROGRESSIVISM?
• The growth in the U.S. economy led to growth of the middle class
• The gap between rich and poor widened
• Industrialization led to unsafe working conditions and crowded cities
• Progressivism focused on improving urban problems (poor sanitation,
unsafe work, corrupt political machines)
• Members: most native born, middle to upper class, college educated
 POPULIST PARTY
• Started during Gilded Age: Worked For
• 8 hour work day
• Farmers made up party
• End gold standard and replace it with
silver – Free coinage of silver
• Government control of railroads
• No national bank system
• Direct election of senators
• More taxes based on your income (mo
money = mo taxes)
 PEOPLE OF THE
PROGRESSIVE ERA
The Progressive Era: 1890-1920
 WOMEN & PROGRESSIVISM
• Reform work gave college-educated women a role in society when career
options were still limited
• Women promoted social reforms, such as:
• Equal treatment according to law, marriage, divorce
• Property rights
• Reduced drinking
• Safe working conditions, end to child labor
• Suffrage (right to vote)
 JANE ADDAMS & HULL HOUSE
• Jane Addams created “Hull House”
in Chicago, a private relief agency
that helped immigrant women with
education and job skills.
• Hull House earned her the Nobel
Peace Prize —she was the first
woman in history to win!
• Hull House helped immigrants assimilate into American
society through providing education and temporary
housing for immigrants and the less fortunate.
 THE
IMMIGRANTS
• Massive immigration swelled the populations of the cities.
Most came from Eastern Europe and Southern Italy.
• They immigrated to escape poverty,
religious persecution, and
discrimination.
• Immigrants were resented and distrusted by citizens.
Why?
• Tenements (slums) sprang up; with poor conditions,
illness spreads.
 IMMIGRANTS
 What was nativism? What were nativists trying to “protect”?
 Discrimination against minority groups increased(remember the
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882-1943)
 Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grows in power
 “New” immigrants (Eastern Europe, Russia, & Southern Italy) seen as
potential threats
 Laborers feared communism and anarchism growing
 “Old” immigrants were better b/c they adapted faster

 National Origins Quota Act (1921) set a yearly limit on the number
of immigrants based on their ethnicity (Chinese excluded)
 Was it fair to base immigration on ethnicity?
 AMENDMENTS DURING THE
PROGRESSIVE ERA
 16th: Creation of Income Tax (raised money for the
government, less reliance on tariffs; taxes on imports)

 17th: Citizens vote for Senators in a direct

election (Senators used to be elected by state
governments.)

 18th: Prohibition (made alcohol illegal)

 19th: Women’s suffrage (women’s right to vote)

 AFRICAN AMERICANS &
PROGRESSIVISM
• W.E.B DuBois – first African American to receive
Ph.D. from Harvard.
• Believed the “Talented Tenth” (elite African Americans) should
work to advance the causes of all blacks
• Published Souls of Black Folks – called for immediate extension
of right to vote, educational opportunities,
and use of public facilities
• Helped organize NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People)
• Promoted litigation to achieve
immediate equality
• Frequently disagreed with Booker T.
Washington and his methods.
 AFRICAN AMERICANS &
PROGRESSIVISM
• Booker T. Washington – former slave, author of Up From Slavery, became
a major spokesperson for African Americans
• Respected by Teddy Roosevelt
• Worked to raise educational
standards for blacks

• Believed in more gradual

push for equality for African
Americans– led to many
disagreements with DuBois
 UPTON SINCLAIR
• Muckraker who wrote The Jungle - exposed corruption and unsafe
conditions in the meat-packing industry
• Exposed potentially unhealthy conditions of meat
• Led to reforms in packaged food, medicines, and meat packing
• Contributed to:
• Meat Inspection Act
• Pure Food and Drug Act-promoted greater safety enforcement in the area of
food and drugs (medicine)
 EXCERPT FROM “THE JUNGLE”
• There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor,
in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped
and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There
would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the
water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands
of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these
storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand
over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the
dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the
packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they
would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into
the hoppers together.
 POLITICS IN THE
PROGRESSIVE ERA
The Progressive Era (1890-1920)
 POLITICAL CHANGES
• Democracy: right to assemble and vote, and participate
in government
• Initiative: citizens can introduce or propose new
legislation (laws)
• Referendum: citizens vote on new laws or measures
• Recall: citizens can vote to remove elected officials
• Lobbying: to try to persuade lawmakers (legislators) to
vote for or against certain issues.

• All of these changes in the Progressive Era led to more

power for citizens.
 POLITICAL PARTIES
• America’s political history has usually been a powerful 2-party
system

• Sometimes third (3rd) parties pop up, as challengers. What are some
3rd parties today?

• In the late 1890’s the Populist Party started and

lasted a few years. It was supported by poor
farmers in the South and people that opposed
the elite, upper class.
• William Jennings Bryan was the Populist Party’s most popular candidate.
 SOCIAL DARWINISM
• Charles Darwin was a scientist who developed a theory
on evolution.
• Survival of the fittest

• “Social Darwinism” is the idea that society grows

through competition. The "fittest" will rise to power and
wealth. The "unfit" will fail.

• Social Darwinists believed the government should not

pass laws to help unfit people.
 EUGENICS

• Eugenics is the study of human

improvement through genetics
• Negatives: It discriminates against those that are
not seen as “perfect”
▪ Negative examples: genocide, ethnic cleansing
▪ (Hitler, Mao Ze-Dong, Joseph Kony, Stalin, Saddam Husein)
 WORKING
CONDITIONS

 The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

brought working conditions into the national
spotlight.
 Many women were killed in a fire in New York City when they
could not escape the building

 The reform idea of “Social Gospel” encouraged people to apply

Christian principles to social problems. (Working conditions,
temperance, etc)
• Temperance: The movement to outlaw alcohol.
 Labor unions grow in power and influence.
THE TRUST BUSTERS
• The Interstate Commerce Act (1887) was the first US Federal law that
regulated private industry.

• Interstate: connecting or between states

• Railroads were charging unfair rates across the country.
• Does this fit with the idea of Laissez-Faire and free
enterprise?
 THE TRUST BUSTERS
• What is a trust?
• Some trusts sold inferior products, and corrupted public
officials.
• The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
• Outlawed trusts and monopolies. The law was vague and difficult to
enforce, so most businesses ignored it.

• The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) clearly stated

what corporations could and could not do.

• Teddy Roosevelt’s administration filed 44 antitrust

lawsuits.
 THE
ENVIRONMENT
• Natural resources are limited.
• Businesses cause waste, and
exploitation of the environment.
• John Muir persuaded Teddy
Roosevelt to create The National
Park Service in 1916. It reserved
148 million acres for parks and
wildlife refuges.
 THE PROGRESSIVE
PARTY
• The Republican Party split in 1912, and part of it
became the Progressive Party, also called the
Bull Moose Party
• Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt became the first
Progressive Party President.
• He campaigned on his “Square Deal” (fair and honest)
platform.
• Teddy was one of the first presidents to strictly enforce
antitrust and business laws.
 ECONOMIC ISSUES
• President Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy encouraged investment in
foreign countries and promised military protection to
countries that invested in America.

• The Federal Reserve Act (1913) created a central banking

system and allows the issuance of money (legal tender).
 TECHNOLOGY AND
TRANSPORTATION
• Telephones, newspapers, and radios bring widespread and fast
information.
• Transportation
• Auto manufacturing creates many jobs
• Electric cable cars and subways in big cities give more
transportation options to people that cannot afford a car.
 PROHIBITION
• Alcohol abuse rose steadily. Some used it as an escape
from terrible living and working conditions.
• Family life suffered.
• Temperance workers campaigned for an end to alcohol
consumption in America.

• Francis Willard was a leader in the temperance and suffrage

movements.

• The Eighteenth (18th) Amendment was passed in 1919, outlawing

alcohol sales and consumption.
• It was repealed (nullified) with the 21st Amendment in 1933.
▪ How many years was alcohol illegal?
 ADVOCATES OF THE
PROGRESSIVE ERA

• W.E.B. Dubois and Ida Wells worked for

African American’s rights; anti-lynching
efforts, promotion of education, and
creation of the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People)

• Booker T. Washington encouraged African

Americans to resist Jim Crow laws (black
codes) by getting an education and becoming
financially independent.
 BACK TO WOMEN IN
THE PROGRESSIVE
ERA, 1890-1920
Unequal working conditions
Could not vote until 1920
Unions devoted to women’s labor started
Progressive suffrage leaders:
1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
2. Susan B. Anthony
3. Carrie Chapman Catt

The Nineteenth (19th) Amendment was passed in 1920, granting

women the right to vote.
• More women began working outside of the home and
started having a voice in politics.