APUSH -- Progressivism Quiz

What were Progressive's main goals and members?

• Wanted to tweak capitalism to enable for more competition and regulate some concepts with Socialism: Society needed to be improved by the government

• Mainly middle-class educated members, but Progressives were very diverse and had differing ambitions

What were the two overriding interests of Progressives?

• Bring experts into the government

  • Taylorism

• Expand democracy with more power to electors

  • Direct Senator Election

  • Robert Lafollette

Who were the Progressive presidents?

Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, and Woodrow Wilson

Who were the main Progressive influences?

• Journalism

  • Ida Tarbell on Standard Oil

  • Jacob Riis

  • Upton Sinclair

  • Pulitzer

• Civil Rights

  • W.E.B Dubois

How did Progressives want to reduce government corruption?

• Busted corrupt trusts

  • Northern Securities Company

• Restructured city governments

  • Galveston Flood

• Decreased the power of political machines

  • Secret Ballot

How did Progressives regulate Capitalism?

• Square Deal with Teddy Roosevelt

  • Anthracite Coal Miners strike

• The Pure Food and Drug Act

  • FDA

• The breakup of the Northern Securities Company

• Hepburn Act on railroad rates

What were other areas of reform on the Progressive agenda?

• Suffragettes

  • 19th Amendment

• Jim Crow Laws

  • W.E.B. Dubois

  • NAACP

• Temperance

  • 18th Amendment

How did Progressives want city/local reforms?

• Safety regulations

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

  • Galveston Floods

• City legislature restructuring

  • Electors hold more power over electing councils and mayor

What reforms were wanted at the state level?

• Reform to the state legislature

  • Direct Election of Senators

  • Direct Primaries

  • Robert Lafollette

  • Limiting monopolies

• Reform to work

  • Minimum wages

  • Child labor laws

  • Income tax

Who was Robert LaFollette?

Republican Governor of Wisconsin who established

• Direct primary

• Secret Ballot (Australian Ballot)

• Referendum, Initiative, Recall

Direct Primary

Voters directly elect a political party’s candidate at the Congressional, state, and presidential level.

Direct Election of Senators

Rather than the state legislature choosing the Senators, Senators are directly elected by the voters.

Secret Ballot

Anonymity in elections, leading to less bribery and intimidation to voters by political machines

Suffragettes

Women who demanded voting rights during the Progressive era. Provided by the 19th amendment.

Referendum

A ballot measure requesting voters whether to uphold or repeal an enacted law

Recall

Citizens can repeal or remove an official from office before their term is over.

Initiative

Citizens can propose legislation or state constitution amendments with enough signatures.

Problems with local reform:

Regulation to corporation who extended business over multiple states was not able to happen in singular states; uniform legislation was needed for certain regulations like fire safety and child labor laws.

What reforms were made by Teddy Roosevelt?

• FDA and the Pure Food and Drug Act

• National Forests and Wildlife Reserves

• Square Deal and trust-busting

• Hepburn Act: The ICC can set maximum railroad rates

What reforms did Taft make?

• Lower Tariffs → Fighting with Republican Congress

• 16th Amendment or the Income Tax

• Mann-Elkins Act: Expanded ICC’s control of railroad rates

What reforms were made under Wilson?

• Lowered tariffs with the Revenue Act of 1913

• Federal Reserve Act

• Clayton Anti-Trust Act: heavily advanced rights to Union workers provided in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act

• Federal Farmer Loan Act

• Keating-Owen Act: Child labor legislation

Why was Teddy Roosevelt considered the first modern president?

• Established the executive branch as powerful to check the legislative branch

  • Vetoes

• Switched the government’s relationship with business

  • Hepburn Act

• Advanced with foreign affairs

  • Panama and the Philippines

Why did Wilson win as a Democrat?

• Southern appeal with Jim Crow progressives being undermined

• Had legitimacy and Northern appeal by being the president of Princeton

• Appeals to northerners and southerners

What changed and continued in the 1912 election?

• Change: First Southern elected president since Buchanan, and more socialist policies

• Continuation: Progressivism

Eugene v. Debs

Socialist candidate from 1900-1920 and ran 4 times, candidacy from jail during WWI since he protested the war.

Differences between Populists, Socialists, and Progressives

Populists: Primarily western farmers and south, green-backs and silver-backed currency
Socialists: Did not approve of capitalism and believed the system needed to be fundamentally regulated and changed

Progressives: Capitalism was best but could be adjusted to best increase competition

Why was the Federal Reserve established?

Stabilized the American banking system by issuing national money and prevented inflation and instability by overseeing the supply of currency.

What problems did Progressive reforms solve from the Gilded Age?

• Political Machines and State Legislature corruption

• Regulating business by busting trusts

• Wealth disparity

What did Women’s movements change between the Seneca Falls convention and 1920?

• Separated themselves from Civil Rights movements to tackle one goal

  • NAWSA vs. NAACP

• Limited their goals to strictly voting rights

• More violent and sensational protests

What did the NAACP do differently during the Progressive era?

The NAACP focused on tackling Jim Crow laws as economic freedom could not be reached if free speech was not available to Black people.

Main over-reaching theme of progressives:

They were ultimately capitalists but borrowed from socialism with the Farm Loan act and Wilson’s presidency; did not want to redistribute the wealth.

How was Wilson more socialist?

Policies integrated socialist regulation of wealth and business:

• Federal Farm Loan Act

• The Revenue Act of 1913

• Income Tax

What were the four amendments of the time?

• 16th: Income tax levied by Congress (1909)

• 17th: Direct election of senators (1913)

• 18th: Prohibition (1919)

• 19th: Cannot discriminate polling based on gender (1920)