Brinkley, Chapter 20 Notes Brinkley Progressives Target a Variety of Problems Political Reform Government regulations to help consumers Chapter 20 Women's Suffrage Meat Packing The Progressives Reduce income gap between the rich and poor Honest Government "Trust Busting" Social Welfare Laws to help children Harsh working and living conditions Belief in Progress Progressive Governors Take Charge Progressives believed in Progress - that society was capable of improvement and that continued growth and advancement were the nation's destiny. The most celebrated state-level reformer was Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Elected in 1900 Muckrakers were crusading journalists who directed public attention toward social, economic, and political injustices. They Under his leadership, Wisconsin progressives won approval of direct exposed scandal, corruption, and injustice. primaries, initiatives, and referendums. Muckraker Written Work Focus RRs and utilities were regulated and had to pay higher corporate Ida Tarbell The History of Standard Oil Trusts income taxes Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor Treatment of Indians Passed laws to regulate the Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives New York City's tenements workplace and provide Upton Sinclair The Jungle Conditions of meat packing factories compensation for laborers injured on the job. Lincoln Steffans The Shame of the Cities Corruption of city governments Instituted graduated taxes inherited fortunes Ida B. Wells Southern Horrors: Lynch Jim Crow, Chesapeake & Ohio Railroads Laws in all its Phases Improved public education Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Statehouse Progressivism In the early 1900s, the United States had the highest rate of industrial accidents in the world. Reformers began looking for ways to circumvent the boss controlled legislatures by increasing the power of the electorate. Two of the most important changes were innovations In March, 1911 a terrible fire swept through the Triangle first proposed by Populists in the 1890s: the initiative and the referendum. Shirtwaist Company in New York. Initiative - new legislation is submitted directly to the voters in general elections to vote on 146 workers, mostly women women, died. Outraged Progressives intensified their calls for reform. Referendum - provided a method by which actions of the legislature could be returned to the electorate for approval. The electorate may uphold or reverse the legislature's decision. The direct primary and the recall were other efforts to limit the power of party and improve A state commission studied the background of the fire and the the quality of elected officials. general conditions of the industrial workplace. By 1914, the commission issued a series of reports calling for major reforms Recall - Voters can remove a public official from office at a special election, which could be in working conditions. called after a sufficient number of citizens had signed a petition. The report itself was a progressive document - based on the The primary election removed the selection of candidates from the bosses to the people. In testimony of experts and filled with statistics and technical data. the South, it was also an effort to limit black voting - since primary voting, many white When its recommendations reached the Pushed through a series of labor laws imposing strict southerners believed, would be easier to control than general elections. NY legislature, its most effective regulations on factory owners and established effective By 1915, every state in the nation instituted primary elections for some offices. supporters were Tammany Hall mechanisms for enforcement. Many states set up Democrats: Robert Wagner and Al Smith. workers' compensation laws. 1 Brinkley, Chapter 20 Notes The Social Gospel Settlement House Movement Growing outrage at social and economic injustice committed many Urban reformers believed the home environment influenced reformers to the pursuit of social reform. That helped create the rise of the individual development. "Social Gospel", the effort to make Christianity the basis of social reform. Progressives established Settlement Houses to help immigrant families Walter Rauschenbush - "Father of the Social Gospel" adapt to the language and customs of America. Women from the educated middle class staffed Settlement Homes. His book, Christianity and the Social Crisis outlined the Social Gospel. He believed people could make society "the kingdom of God." Christian The most famous was Hull principles must be translated into actions that promote compassion, House in Chicago led by Settlement houses justice, and social change. Jane Addams. provided college women with an environment and a The Social Gospel movement was chiefly concerned with redeeming the nation's cities. role that society considered The Social Gospel was never the dominant element in the movement for urban reform but "appropriate" for unmarried the engagement of religion with reform helped bring to Progressivism a powerful moral women. The settlement commitment to redeem the lives of the poor. houses helped spawn the profession of social work. The Salvation Army was one example of fusing religion with reform. The "New Woman" African Americans and Reform The phenomenon of the "new woman" was a product of social and The question of race was relatively non existent to White Americans, but African Americans economic changes in both the private and public spheres: benefitted from the Progressive movement. African Americans faced greater obstacles than Almost all income-producing activity moved out of the home and into any other group in challenging their own oppressed status and seeking reform. the factory or the office. Many embraced the message of Booker T. Washington to work for immediate self-improvement Women were having fewer children and children were beginning school rather than long range social change. at earlier ages. Argued that African Americans needed to accommodate themselves to For wives and mothers who did not work for wages, the home was segregation. They should not work to overturn Jim Crow laws but establish less of an all-consuming place. More women began to look for themselves as honorable and hard-working citizens. activities outside the home. Women's clubs began largely as cultural organizations to provide middle and upper class women with an outlet for their intellectual Worked hard to make the Tuskegee Institute well known for energies. Non-controversial activities: planted trees, supported schools, and worked in providing an "industrial settlement houses. (vocational) education." He believed this would help prepare Clubwomen won passage of laws regulating working conditions of women and African Americans for citizenship. children, regulating the food and drug industries, reformed policies towards Indian tribes, applied new standards to urban housing, and Prohibition. Most clubs excluded blacks and so African Americans formed clubs of their own. W.E.B. du Bois NAACP Founded, 1909 Born in Massachusetts and earned a Ph.D from Harvard. 4 years after the launching of the Niagara Movement, members joined with sympathetic whites and formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk - a powerful challenge to The new organization led the drive for equal rights. Among the many Washington. Du Bois accused Washington of encouraging white efforts to issues that engaged the NAACP and other African American impose segregation and of limiting the aspirations of his race. organizations was lynching in the South. The most effective crusader was journalist Ida Rather then content themselves with education at the trade and agricultural B. Wells Barnett. Wells was born a slave in MS. schools, Du Bois advocated, talented blacks should aspire to the professions. They should, above all, fight for their civil rights and demand Moved to Memphis, TN and worked as a them immediately. school teacher. Bought a newspaper and renamed it Free Speech and wrote many stories about the mistreatment of blacks. In 1905, Du Bois and a group of his supporters met Eventually, Wells was run out of town by local at Niagara Falls and launched the Niagara whites. She spent the rest of her life educating Movement. the world of what she called "legalized murder" 2 Brinkley, Chapter 20 Notes Roosevelt Becomes President Roosevelt and Labor After McKinley's assassination in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president. Roosevelt Roosevelt's view of government as an impartial regulatory mechanism shaped Roosevelt's was the first Progressive President (Taft, then Wilson). policy toward labor. Roosevelt became a champion of cautious, moderate When a bitter 1902 by the United Mine change. Reform was a vehicle for protecting American Workers endangered coal supplies for the society against more radical challenges, not for coming winter, Roosevelt asked both the remaking society. operators and the miners to accept impartial Roosevelt allied himself with progressives who federal arbitration. urged regulation (but not destruction) of trusts. At the heart of his policy was a desire to win for When the mine owners balked, Roosevelt Roosevelt was not a trustbuster government the power to investigate the activities of threatened to send federal troops to seize at heart. He had no serious corporations and publicize the results. the mines. The operators finally relented. commitment to reverse the In 1902, he ordered the Justice Department to invoke the prevailing trend toward Sherman Antitrust Act