Chapter 20

How did the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire highlight the need for labor reforms due to unsafe working conditions?

146 female laborers died due to locked exits and inadequate safety measures, underscoring the larger need for labor reform.

How did the muckrakers help push Americans towards reform?

They exposed business practices, poverty, and corruption, arousing public demands for reform.

How did the work of Jacob Riis shape public perceptions of Gilded Age injustice?

His book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), led to housing reform in New York and other cities and helped instill the idea that society bore at least some responsibility for alleviating poverty.

How did the work of Upton Sinclair shape public perceptions of Gilded Age injustice?

His book, The Jungle (1906), revealed the brutal exploitation of labor in the meatpacking industry, and led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act (1906) and Pure Food and Drug Act (1906).

How did the work of Edward Bellamy shape public perceptions of Gilded Age injustice?

His book, Looking Backward (1888), enthralled readers, inspired hundreds of Bellamy clubs, and pushed many young readers onto the road to reform.

How did the work of Reverend Charles Sheldon shape public perceptions of Gilded Age injustice?

His book, In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? (1896), connected the Progressive Era to the new movement transforming American religion: the social gospel.

Define how the social gospel movement meant for Christians to be concerned for the salvation of society, and not simply individual souls?

Instead of just caring for family or fellow church members, social gospel advocates encouraged Christians to engage society; challenge social, political, and economic structures; and help those less fortunate than themselves.

How did Walter Rauschenbusch advocate for the social gospel, like Charles Sheldon’s Reverend Maxwell?

Rauschenbusch believed that every Christian, whether they were a businessperson, a politician, or a stay-at-home parent, should ask themselves what they could do to enact the kingdom of God on Earth.

What were some of the “blind spots” within the social gospel movement?

Ignored the plight of women (most refused to support women’s suffrage); silent on the plight of African Americans, Native Americans, and other oppressed minority groups.

The social gospel movement helped fuel progressive reform, and also inspired future activists, such as _____________, who envisioned a “beloved community” that resembled Rauschenbusch’s “Kingdom of God.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The energy for women’s reform came from “female clubs,” what are they?

Social organizations devoted to various purposes. Some focused on intellectual development; others emphasized philanthropic activities. Increasingly, these organizations looked outward, to their communities and to the place of women in the larger political sphere.

These women’s clubs began to form national federations in the 1890s, which became significant in campaigns for suffrage and women’s rights. Name the 2 most significant.

General Federation of Women’s Clubs (1890) and the National Association of Colored Women (1896)

Name 2 black women that produced vibrant organizations that could promise racial uplift and civil rights for all Black Americans as well as equal rights for all women.

Mary Jane Richardson Jones, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell.

Tell me the story of Carrie Nation’s “moral vigilantism.”

In Wichita, Kansas, on December 27, 1900, Nation took a hatchet and broke bottles and bars at the luxurious Carey Hotel. Arrested and charged with causing $3,000 in damages, Nation spent a month in jail before the county dismissed the charges on account of “a delusion to such an extent as to be practically irresponsible.” But Nation’s “hatchetation” drew national attention. Describing herself as “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” she continued her assaults, and days later she smashed two more Wichita bars.

What group was originally founded as a modest temperance organization devoted to combating the evils of drunkenness, but transformed it into a national political organization, embracing a “do everything” policy that adopted any and all reasonable reforms that would improve social welfare and advance women’s rights?

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

The WCTU’s goals shifted towards what kinds of reform?

Alleviate urban poverty, pursued prison reform, championed the eight-hour workday, pushed for child labor laws, advocated “home protection,” and fought for numerous other progressive causes.

Temperance reformers associated alcohol with cities and what three groups of people in their crusade against liquor?

Immigrants, Catholics, working classes

Jane Addams sought to make the world a better place by opening what kind of social work organization?

Settlement house

Define that term.

Settlement house: a kind of prototype for social work in which philanthropists embedded themselves among communities and offered services to disadvantaged populations.

Jane Addams opened the Hull House with her partner Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, what kind of services were provided?

Running a nursery and a kindergarten, administering classes for parents and clubs for children, and organizing social and cultural events for the community.

Hull House began to get involved in what kinds of social reform?

Exposing conditions in local sweatshops and advocated for the organization of workers. She called the conditions caused by urban poverty and industrialization a “social crime.” Also petitioned legislators to pass anti sweatshop legislation that limited the hours of work for women and children to eight per day.

Jane Addams’ advocacy grew beyond domestic concerns, becoming a voice against imperialism. Why would Jane Addams be anti-imperialist?

Addams increasingly began to see militarism as a drain on resources better spent on social reform.

What movement marked the full emergence of women in American public life?

Suffrage

Why would a white supremacist support women’s suffrage?

White women could cancel out the African American voters

What was the dual strategy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association?

1. Passage of state voting rights laws and 2. Ratification of an amendment to the US Constitution

How did the National Woman’s Party, led by Alice Paul, mobilize thousands of women for the suffrage movement?

Took to the streets; organized marches and protests; including picketing the White House in 1917, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of over 150 women

President Woodrow Wilson declared his support for the women’s suffrage amendment in January 1918, and two years later, it became a reality with what constitutional amendment?

19th Amendment (1920)

What date was the 19th Amendment ratified?

August 18, 1920

Define “trust.”

A monopoly or cartel who entered into agreements—legal or otherwise—or consolidations to exercise exclusive control over a specific product or industry under the control of a single entity.

What kinds of monopolies are protected by the Constitution?

Intellectual property; copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets

What governmental “attitude” helped make the Second Industrial Revolution possible?

The laissez-faire, or “hands-off,” economic policy

How did Carnegie use vertical integration to build his Carnegie Steel trust?

By controlling every phase of business (raw materials, transportation, manufacturing, distribution).

How did Rockefeller use horizontal integration to build his Standard Oil trust?

By buying out competing refineries.

Why would Carnegie and Rockefeller go through all this trouble of integrating businesses?

Once dominant in a market, critics alleged, the trusts could artificially inflate prices, bully rivals, and bribe politicians

Before the Civil War, most businesses operated within a single state, but these corporations engaged in __________, business crossing state lines.

Interstate commerce

What allowed for these corporations to cross state lines easier?

Railroads

How did citizens and state governments in the Midwest fight and check the power of these vast corporations?

Farmers formed a network of organizations that were part political pressure group, part social club, and part mutual aid society. Together they pushed for so-called Granger laws that regulated railroads and other new companies.

What SCOTUS case upheld many of these Granger laws?

Munn v. Illinois (1877)

What SCOTUS case overturned many of these Granger laws because the railroads crossed state lines?

Wabash v. Illinois (1886)

What legislation was passed the following year to stop discriminatory and predatory pricing practices on the railroad companies?

Interstate Commerce Act (1887)

What legislation was passed to limit anticompetitive practices, such as monopolies?

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

How were corporations able to get around Sherman?

The Sherman Antitrust Act declared that not all monopolies were illegal, only those that “unreasonably” stifled free trade. The courts seized on the law’s vague language, however, and the act was turned against itself, manipulated and used, for instance, to limit the growing power of labor unions.

How did Congress close these loopholes?

Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)

Who became POTUS after the assassination of McKinley, and became the ultimate “trust-buster,” being the first President to go after the trusts?

Teddy Roosevelt

How did holding trusts circumvent Sherman?

By controlling the majority of shares, rather than the principal, holding trusts tried to claim that it was not a monopoly.

How did Roosevelt’s strategy with trusts differ from his successor, William Howard Taft?

Teddy was more interested in regulating corporations, while Taft used the courts to break them up

What happened in the election of 1912?

Teddy has served as POTUS from 1901-1908, with Taft serving from 1908 and is now the incumbent. Teddy wants to return for a third term, so he challenges Taft for the Republican nomination. Taft earns it, Teddy splits off and runs as a third party candidate, of the “Bull-Moose” Party. Teddy and Taft split the Republican/conservative vote, which hands the election to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

What are the two competing strategies that dueled for supremacy among environmental reformers?

Preservation (advocated setting aside pristine lands for their aesthetic and spiritual value) and Conservation (a kind of environmental utilitarianism that emphasized the efficient use of available resources, through planning and control and “the prevention of waste.”)

These 2 debates crystalized in the debate over the Hetch Hetchy Valley in California. What did the conservationists, such as Gifford Pinchot, want to do with the Hetch Hetchy Valley?

Dam the Tuolumne River and flood the valley to create a reservoir, to get more water to San Francisco.

What was the conservationist argument?

Gifford Pinchot emphasized the purpose of conservation: “to take every part of the land and its resources and put it to that use in which it will serve the most people.”

What was the preservationist argument?

John Muir took a wider view of what the people needed, writing that “everybody needs beauty as well as bread.”

Who won out in this case?

Conservationists; the dam was built.

Preservation is meant as an escape from the urbanized and industrialized way of life. Conservation was more closely aligned with what broader trend in American society?

Greatest good for the greatest number of people; hoping to benefit the nation’s financial interests.

How did urban poor reformers address environmental issues?

Settlement house workers like Jane Addams and Florence Kelley focused on questions of health and sanitation, while activists concerned with working conditions, most notably Dr. Alice Hamilton, investigated both worksite hazards and occupational and bodily harm. More coordination and oversight in matters of public health, waste management, and even playgrounds and city parks. Their work focused on the intersection of communities and their material environments, highlighting the urgency of urban environmental concerns.

What environmental reform movements targeted rural communities?

The Country Life movement, spearheaded by Liberty Hyde Bailey, sought to support agrarian families and encourage young people to stay in their communities and run family farms.

What were some of the obstacles for Black involvement in Southern politics during the Progressive Era?

Electoral politics remained a parade of electoral fraud, voter intimidation, and race-baiting.

The region’s culture of racial violence, especially the practice of _________ as a mass public spectacle, rose.

Lynching

Because white Democratic leadership in the South feared Black political participation, southern Democrats turned to what 2 practices, calling them “progressive electoral and social reform”?

Disenfranchisement and segregation.

The nation had taken up the “white man’s burden” to uplift the world’s racially inferior peoples, and leaders in both the North and South embraced the ideals of white supremacy. Who was following the other’s example?

The North followed the South

How did southern state governments accomplish disenfranchisement, getting around the Fifteenth Amendment?

A series of hurdles with the explicit purpose of excluding black voters from participating in the electoral process.

What were the hurdles?

Poll tax, pay to vote; strip suffrage from those convicted of petty crimes most common amongst the AA community; literacy tests, with an “understanding clause” that allowed for local voting officials to disqualify black voters but qualify illiterate black voters. All in all, electoral conflict was moved from the ballot box to the voting registrar.

Some states even added a grandfather clause which…

Bestowed suffrage on anyone whose grandfather was eligible to vote in 1867.

How were these state governments adding these disenfranchisement laws?

Rewriting state constitutions.

According to James Kimble Vardaman, later governor of Mississippi, in his own words, what was the purpose of disenfranchisement laws?

“there is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi’s constitutional convention was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the [African American] from politics; not the ignorant—but the [African American].”

Which Constitutional amendment was directly violated by segregation?

Fourteenth Amendment

How did the Supreme Court intervene in Civil Rights Cases (1883)?

The Fourteenth Amendment only prevented discrimination directly BY states, not by individuals, businesses, or other entities.

How did the Supreme Court legitimize the segregation of railroad cars in the court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?

The court ruled against Plessy and, in the process, established the legal principle of separate but equal. Racially segregated facilities were legal provided they were equivalent.

The South was built upon what segregationist phrase?

Separate but equal

How did many Black Americans of the Progressive Era fight back against segregation and disenfranchisement?

Activists such as Ida B. Wells worked against southern lynching; Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois vied for leadership among AA activists, leading to rivalry and debate over strategies to uplift Black Americans.

How did Booker T. Washington contribute to Black life?

Through industrial education and vocational training. He believed that such skills would help African Americans accomplish economic independence while developing a sense of self-worth and pride of accomplishment, even while living within the putrid confines of Jim Crow.

What controversial figure financially assisted Booker T. Washington in his educational ventures?

Andrew Carnegie

What was Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” (1895)?

Encouraged Black Americans to “cast your bucket down” to improve your life and lot under segregation; was considered an “accommodationist” to America’s unjust racial hierarchy.

How did Du Bois disagree with Washington?

Claimed Booker abandoned all political and social rights by accommodating white supremacy.

How did W.E.B. Du Bois contribute to Black life?

Validated Black personhood and attacked the inhumanity of white supremacy.

What two movements did Du Bois help organize politically?

Niagara Movement and the NAACP.

How did Du Bois and Washington’s philosophies differ?

Du Bois boldly confronted white supremacy, using social science to arrest the reach of it; Washington advocated incremental change for long-term gain, contending that economic self-sufficiency would pay off at a future date.