Transcript The Origins of Progressivism

Which period in United States history
best completes the time line?
a. Antebellum era
b. Civil Rights era
c. Gilded Age
d. Revolutionary period
TEKS
• 5 (A) evaluate the impact of
Progressive Era reforms,
including initiative,
referendum, recall, and the
passage of the 16th, 17th,
18th, and 19th amendments;
The Origins of
Progressivism
Progressivism
• The Progressive
Movement—aimed to
restore economic
opportunities and correct
injustices in American life
Four Goals of Progressivism
• Protecting Social Welfare
• Young Men’s Christian Association--The first
YMCA in the United States opened on December
29, 1851, in Boston, Massachusetts
• Facilities offered libraries, classes, and sports
• Salvation Army—fed poor in soup kitchens, cared
for children in nurseries, and taught temperance
classes to immigrants
• Florence Kelley—advocated improving the lives of
women and children—helped to win passage of
the Illinois Factory Act of 1893
Four Goals of Progressivism
• Promoting Moral Improvement
• Many people felt that to improve people’s lives,
changes had to be made in their morality
• Prohibition—banning of alcoholic beverages
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union—founded
in Cleveland in 1874—spearheaded the
movement against “demon alcohol”
• Anti-Saloon League—founded in 1895, it
concentrated on getting legislation passed to
outlaw alcohol. It quickly rose to become the
most powerful prohibition lobby in America.
Four Goals of Progressivism
Frances Willard helped to
expand the WCTU to
almost 250,000 members
by 1911
Cary Nation entered saloons
and chastised the customers
while she used her hatchet to
destroy bottles of liquor
Four Goals of Progressivism
• Creating Economic Reform
• Many reformers felt business had become too
powerful
• Muckrakers—Journalists who wrote about the
corrupt side of business and government in mass
circulation magazines during the early 20th century
• Lincoln Steffens-specialized in investigating
government and political corruption, he hoped to
"shame" Americans by showing examples of
corrupt governments throughout urban America in
The Shame of the Cities
David Graham
Phillips
Ida Tarbell
Upton Sinclair
Samuel Hopkins
Adams
The Treason of
the Senate:
Aldrich, the
Head of it All,
published in
1906,
described
corruption in
the U.S.
Senate.
The History of
The Standard
Oil Company:
the Oil War of
1872 stirred up
public
sentiment
against
Rockefeller
The Jungle in
1906, which
revealed
conditions in
the meat
packing
industry , led
to creation of
the FDA
The Great
American
Fraud revealed
fraudulent
claims and
endorsements
of patent
medicines in
America
Lewis Hine
• Following in the
tradition of Jacob Riis,
photographer Lewis
Hine used his camera as
a tool for social reform.
His photographs were
instrumental in
changing the child labor
laws in the United
States.
Four Goals of Progressivism
• Fostering Efficiency
• Other reformers felt they could make
the lives of workers better by making
the workplace more efficient.
• Frederick Winslow Taylor studied
worker movements to break tasks
into simpler parts
• Soon this came to be called
Taylorism or scientific management
Cleaning Up Local Government
• In many cities, political bosses controlled the
government and corruption was rampant. Reformers
began to look for ways to clean up city government.
• Commission System of Government began in 1900 In
Galveston following the devastating hurricane. Under
this system each commissioner is responsible for a
city department. By 1917, 500 cities had adopted this
system
• Council-Manager Form of Government was tried in
Dayton, Ohio after a flood destroyed much of the city.
The city council appoints a manager to run the city’s
departments. By 1925 250 US cities had adopted this
plan.
Reform Mayors
• Hazen Pingree Mayor of Detroit
exposed and ended corruption in city
paving contracts, sewer contracts, and
the school board. He even forced
utility companies and local streetcars
to lower their rates.
• Tom Johnson Mayor of Cleveland
advanced a program of lower streetcar
fares, public baths, milk and meat
inspection standards, and an expanded
park system.
Reform at the State Level
Robert
La Follette
• Spurred by success at the local level,
reformers then went on to fix
problems at the state level. They
were often assisted by pro-reform
governors.
• Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette
Wisconsin governor who took on the
railroads in his state. He set up
commissions to regulate their rates,
taxed their property at full value, and
even refused free rail passes for state
officials.
• James S “Big Jim” Hogg Texas
governor who took on the railroads
and insurance companies.
James Hogg
Reform at the State Level
• In effort to end corruption in all levels of government,
reformers realized they would have to reform the
governmental process
• One such citizen was William Simon U'Ren--a progressive
who was instrumental in getting initiative, recall and
referendum included in Oregon's government.
• The Initiative which allowed citizens to petition to place a bill
on the ballot. They could then hold a referendum or vote to
approve or reject the bill
• Whenever public officials were not doing what the voters
wanted, reformers said they should be able to Recall or
remove public officials by a vote
• Seventeenth Amendment 1913 called for the direct election
of Senators by the states voters
• Other changes included the Secret Ballot and the Direct
Primary, which allows citizens to vote directly for a candidate
Reform at the State Level
• Keating Owen Act of 1916—prohibited the
transportation across state lines of goods
produced with child labor
• Using the courts, reformers were able to limit
working hours for men and women to 10
hours a day
Eugenics
• Charles Davenport, an American scientist, helped
to develop the new “science” of eugenics, which
taught it would be possible to improve the human
species by such means as discouraging
reproduction by persons having genetic defects or
encouraging reproduction by persons presumed
to have inheritable desirable traits
• Some organizations like the Immigration
Restriction League sought to bar what it
considered dysgenic members of certain races
from entering America
• Many noted scientists lint their name to this research which
showed many immigrants were inferior biologically and mentally
to Americans.
• At its height of popularity in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries , many state laws were written to prohibit marriage and
force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the
"passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws
were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927.
• This cartoon shows Carry Nation inside a
saloon she has attacked. Do you think the
cartoonist had a favorable or unfavorable
opinion of this prohibitionist?