Transcript Slide 1

American Stories:
A History of the United States
Second Edition
Chapter
22
The Progressive Era
1895–1917
American Stories: A History of the United States, Second Edition
Brands • Breen • Williams • Gross
The Muckrakers At the beginning of the
twentieth century magazines enjoyed increasing
popularity. McClure’s Magazine pioneered
investigative journalism. The November 1902
edition featured the first installment of Ida Tarbell’s
two-year series on Standard Oil that exposed the
corrupt practices and deals that had helped create
the company.
The Progressive Era
1895–1917
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The Changing Face of Industrialism
Society’s Masses
Conflict in the Workplace
A New Urban Culture
Muckrakers Call For Reform
• Journalistic voice of progressivism
• Reflected worry about society, the
effects of industrialization and
urbanization, social disorder, political
corruption
• Thousands set out to cure ills of society
The Changing Face of
Industrialism
The Changing
Face of Industrialism
• Industrial growth meant more goods at
lower prices
• Residue of social problems from 1890s
• New century began on optimistic note
The Innovative Model T
• Henry Ford transformed auto industry
with mass production
• Small profit on each unit, gross of huge
profit on high volume of sales
• 1908: Model T introduced
• 1916: Federal government began
highway subsidies
Rise of Mass Production Henry Ford built his
first car in 1896, then produced improved models,
each designated by a letter of the alphabet. Shown
here are Henry Ford and a friend in a 1905 Model
N, Ford’s best-selling model before the Model T
debuted in 1908. The “Tin Lizzie” was Ford’s
“motorcar for the multitudes,” affordably priced so
that every family could own one. The automobile
changed American life and the American landscape
as it spawned the development of paved roads,
traffic lights, and numerous auto-related
businesses.
The Burgeoning Trusts
• The trend toward bigness in industry
accelerated after 1900
• Bankers provided integrated control
through interlocking directorates
• Trusts controversial
 Often denounced as threats to equality
 Some defended as more efficient
Figure 22.1
Business Consolidations (Mergers),
1895–1905
Managing the Machines
• Frederick Taylor advocated “Scientific
Management” to increase efficiency
• Worker welfare, morale suffered
 Better paychecks
 Increased danger, tedium
• 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire
demonstrated risks of factory work
Tragedy at the Triangle Company Fire nets
were of no avail to the workers at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company who jumped from the upper
stories to escape the flames. Speaking to a mass
meeting after the fire, labor organizer Rose
Schneiderman inveighed against a system that
treated human beings as expendable commodities.
Tragedy at the Triangle Company (continued)
Fire nets were of no avail to the workers at the
Triangle Shirtwaist Company who jumped from the
upper stories to escape the flames. Speaking to a
mass meeting after the fire, labor organizer Rose
Schneiderman inveighed against a system that
treated human beings as expendable commodities.
Society ’ s Masses
Society’s Masses
• Employment expanded rapidly to
increase production
• Women, immigrants, blacks, Mexican
Americans entered work force
Better Times on the Farm
• Isolation reduced by mail and parcel
post deliveries to farms
• Tenant farmers remained impoverished
• Western farmers benefited from vast
irrigation projects
Women and Children at Work
• Women resisted ideals of domesticity to
enter work force
• Women's labor unions defended rights
of women, child laborers
• Sheppard-Towner Act 1921: Protected
health of pregnant workers and their
infants
Child Labor Breaker boys, who picked out pieces
of slate from the coal as it rushed past, often
became bent-backed and suffered respiratory
diseases such as bronchitis and tuberculosis after
years of working 14 hours a day in the coal mines.
Accidents—and deaths—were common in the
mines.
The Niagara Movement
and the NAACP
• Most African Americans were poor
sharecroppers, segregated by Jim Crow
Laws and at mercy of violent white
mobs
• Black workers gained least from
prosperity
• 1905: W.E.B. DuBois, others rejected
accommodation to racist society
The Niagara Movement
and the NAACP (cont’d)
• "Niagara Movement" demands
immediate respect for equal rights of all
• NAACP, Urban League, advocate
African American rights
Immigrants in the Labor Force
• 1901–1920: Fresh influx of Europeans,
Mexicans, Asians to labor force
• Non-English speakers considered a
social problem
Figure 22.2 Immigration to the United States,
1900–1920 (by area of origin) Note: For purposes
of classification, “Northern and Western Europe”
includes Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland,
France, and Germany. “Southern and Eastern
Europe” includes Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia
and the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, European
Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. “Asia,
Africa, and America” includes Asian Turkey, China,
Japan, India, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin
America, and all of Africa. Source: U.S. Bureau of
the Census, Historical Statistics of the United
States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial
Edition, Washington, DC, 1975.
Immigrants in the Labor Force
(cont’d)
• Programs to "Americanize" them
• Immigration limitations
 Chinese immigration banned in 1902
 Literacy tests used against other
immigrant groups
Figure 22.3
Mexican Immigration to the United
States, 1900–1920
Immigrants from Asia Japanese immigrants
wait with a Methodist deaconess in the
administration building of the immigration station
at Angel Island, near San Francisco. Quota systems
and exclusionary laws limited Asian immigration,
while other laws placed restrictions on the
immigrants, curtailing their right to own or even
rent agricultural land. Some Asian immigrants,
after months of detention at Angel Island, were
refused permission to enter the United States and
were forced to return to their homelands. (Source:
Courtesy of the California Historical Society, FN18240.)
Conflict in the Workplace
Conflict in the Workplace
• Low wages combined with demands for
increased productivity led to increase in
labor unrest in early 1900s
• Industrial productivity fell
• Union membership soared
Figure 22.4 Labor Union Membership, 1897–
1920 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical
Abstract of the United States: 1982–1983, 103rd
ed., Washington, DC, 1982.
Organizing Labor
• A.F.L., led by Samuel Gompers was the
largest union
• 1903: Women excluded from A.F.L.
form Women's Trade Union League:
Triangle Shirtwaist Co, Fire—1911
• Hart, Schaffner Agreement: first
successful collective bargaining
• 1905: Industrial Workers of the World—
unskilled, foreign-born workers
A Radical Union Holding signs and banners that
proudly display their union allegiance, including a
sign with the slogan, “An injury to one is an injury
to all,” women of the IWW participate in a strike at
the Oliver Iron and Steel Company in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, in 1913. The Clayton Act in 1914
legalized picketing and other union activity.
Organizing Labor (cont’d)
• Led major strikes
• Fears of class warfare increase
• Employers improved working conditions
to avoid trouble
• Henry Ford doubled wages, reduced
workday
• Plant production increased
• Union activity ended
A New Urban Culture
A New Urban Culture
• Mass production required mass
consumption
• Growing middle class consumed new
inventions and entertainment
Production and Consumption
• 1900–1920: New advertising
techniques created demand for goods
• Goods increased U.S. standard of living
• Wealth increasingly concentrated
Living and Dying
in an Urban Nation
• By 1920, the average life span
increased substantially, infant mortality
still high
• Booming cities took on modern form
• Zoning regulations, first in Los Angeles,
separated industrial, commercial,
residential areas
Popular Pastimes
• Ordinary people achieved leisure for
first time in American history
• Spectator pastimes included baseball,
football, movies, concerts
• Popular music: Sousa marches,
ragtime, blues, jazz, vaudeville
• Light reading included romance,
detective, science-fiction novels
Experimentation in the Arts
• Dance: Isadora Duncan
• Painting: Ashcan School, postImpressionists
• Poetry: T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
Conclusion: A Ferment
of Discovery and Reform
Conclusion: A Ferment of
Discovery and Reform
• Racism, labor conflict remained
• Solid social and economic gains made
• Optimism that social experiments can
succeed
Timeline
Timeline (continued)