Progressivism in its Various Forms (1900 to 1916)

Urbanization (settlement houses) 

Rapid growth of cities and concentration of populations in urban areas, driven by the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

• Fostered increase in immigrant populations, now a global phenomenon

Progressivism: Goal

• Get rid of political corruption: Politicians offering immigrants gifts in exchange for votes, right that they never get

• Decrease the power of trusts = monopolies (corporation that have a lock on the industries, doesn’t offer consumer freedom)

• Destroy normal vices: Gambling, prostitution, and drinking 

Progressivism: First Shown

Due to municipal politics (crooked mayor, local gas, and street monopolies) there was a need of an activist govt. to right political, social, and economic wrongs 

Rockefeller Oil Monopoly

Created through aggressive tactics (secret deals with railroads for shipping rebates and eliminated competitors through pricing and buying them out 

Emergence of Periodical Culture (Serial Publication)

Newspaper are cheaper because it is massed produced due to the main focus being sensationalism. Journalism is now looked at to be a profession.

Realism

The emergence of periodic made readers more skeptic about the reality around them, showing them what reality was like outside of their own. 

• “Self-made” theory no longer works 

Settlement houses: Hull House (1884)

Main goal was to help the poor, immigrant populations. Mainly was helped by educated, middle class women who were descendants of abolitionists. 

• Provided: Nurseries, penny savings bank, employment bureau, baby clinic , and playground 

• Culturally: Lectures, orchestra, reading groups, and classes on philosophy 

Clubwomen 

Women who are in organization, specifically interested in the rebuilding of society 

• 1860 to 1870: Women sharpen their minds and strengthen their domestic and morality

• Building libraries and improving schools, vocational training, fire and sanitation codes

• African American women and black suffrage, holding office, and juries

• Shaping legislation about prostitution and alcohol

Department of social research

The first time social work is becoming professionalized, there is now a range of different ways they can provide

• Building upon already established social work 

Liberalism Pushing for Conservatism in Progressive reform

Disproved working class entertainment (jukejoints and alcohol). Prohibition and impact on ethnic communities (attacking white ethnic groups, like Irish people).

• Approved working class entertainment: Church, reading, appropriate knowledge 

Mann Act (1910)

Progressive era law aimed at preventing sex trafficking by prohibiting the interstates transport of women and girl

• Product of “white slavery panic”: Public fear that immigrant men (specifically Asian men) were kidnapping American women and putting them into prostitution

Time and Motion studies

Idea that we can study someone that is working in the assembly line and create a determination about it can be more efficient to reach a quota, increase productivity 

Soldiering

The idea that workers group together and defy the rules that the company expects of the workers

Jacob August Riis

Photographed the poor living condition in New York City slums showing the public how the working class lived. Advocating for housing and urban reforms by motivating others to help the change. 

The Jungle

Create Upton Sinclair focused on the fictional life of the immigrant who came here to work and get a better life: showing how getting a “better life” is limited due to the lack of welfare that helped people get out of the slums. 

Socialism

Transfer of ownership of power to the laboring masses (mostly through government)

Triangle Waste Factory

Locked stairway, inadequate exists, and a collapsed fire escape caused immigrant women and girls die in a tragic fire, killing 146 workers.