Chapter 21

Were there a number of progressive movements?

Yes

Were some of the progressive movements contradictory?

Yes

What did all progressive movements focus on?

Problems created by a rapidly expanding urban and industrial world.

What did progressives hope to improve?

housing and schools

What did progressives hope to provide?

a better life for the poor and recent immigrants

What were some progressives concerned with in regards to labor?

conditions of work and the rights of labor

Progressivism had roots in the 1890s, when many reformers were shocked by…

the devastation caused by the depression of 1893

Progressivism was influenced by which readings?

Henry George's Progress and Poverty and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward

Progressives were influenced by which movement?

the social gospel movement

Intellectually, the progressives were influenced by which revolution?

the Darwinian revolution

What did progressives rebel against?

the fixed and the formal in every field

William James, in his philosophy of pragmatism, denied…

that there were universal truths; ideas should be judged by their usefulness

Were most of the progressives environmentalists?

Yes.

What did environmentalists believe?

environment was much more important than heredity in forming character

In many ways, progressivism was the first modern…

reform movement

What infected the progressive movement as reformers tried to preserve the handicrafts of a pre-industrial age and to promote small-town and farm values in the city?

elements of nostalgia

Progressive leaders were almost always a member of which class?

middle class

What did progressive leaders try to tie their middle class virtues to?

immigrants and the middle class

Often, the progressives seemed more interested in what rather than reform?

control

The progressives were a part of what kind of generation?

a statistics-minded, realistic generation

How were the progressives statistics-minded and realistic?

They conducted surveys, gathered facts, wrote reports about every conceivable problem, and usually had faith that their reports would lead to change.

What did Lewis Hine do?

record haunting photographs of young workers

What did John Sloan do?

create stark, beautiful city paintings

Theodore Dreiser and William Dean Howells

Create realistic novels

What were the progressives optimistic about?

human nature, believing that change was possible

Muckrakers

A group of writers who exposed corruption and other evils in American society

Were all muckrakers reformers?

No; some merely wanted to profit from scandals

The muckrakers were a product of what revolution of the 1890s?

journalistic revolution

19th century magazines had small, highly educated audiences. How were the new magazines different?

they had slick formats, carried more advertising, and sold more widely

Lincoln Steffens wrote articles for McClure exposing…

the connections between respectable urban businessmen and corrupt politicians

What was Lincoln Steffens's book?

The Shame of the Cities

What did Steffens's account become a battle cry for?

people determined to clean up the graft in the city government

Ida Tarbell published several successful books before turning her attention to…

the Standard Oil Company and John D. Rockefeller

What did Ida Tarbell's work reveal?

Rockefeller's ruthless ways and his unfair business practices

Ray Stannard Baker exposed…

the railroads

David Graham Phillips revealed…

the alliance of politics and business in The Treason of the Senate

Robert Hunter, a young settlement worker, shocked Americans in 1904 with his book…

Poverty

What did Hunter's Poverty set?

the poverty line at $460 for a family of five

What did Robert Hunter find?

10 million people living below the poverty line

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

described the horrors of the Chicago meatpacking industry

Frank Norris's The Octopus

dramatized the railroads' stranglehold on the farmers

Who was one of the most important leaders in the crusade against child labor?

Florence Kelley

Florence Kelley was a member of the first generation of…

college women

Florence Kelley was a member of what political party?

socialist

When Kelley could find no attorney in Chicago to argue child labor cases against some of the prominent corporations, what did she do?

go to law school, pass the bar exam, and argue the cases herself

Although Kelley and the other child labor reformers won a few cases, they quickly recognized the need for what if they were going to have any real influence?

state laws

Why did legislators and government officials argue that it was good for the children's character to work hard and take responsibility?

they remembered their own rural childhoods

What did reformers pressure the Illinois state legislature into doing?

passing an anti-child labor law

What did the Supreme Court rule about Illinois's anti-child labor law?

it was unconstitutional

What was one factor leading reformers to the national level in the first decade of the 20th century?

judicial opposition

National Consumers League

An organization that enlisted consumers in a campaign to lobby elected officials and corporations to ensure that products were produced under safe and sanitary conditions.

Who suggested the formation of the National Child Labor Committee?

Edgar Gardner Murphy, an Alabama clergyman

What did Murphy believe?

the church should reform society as well as souls

What type of minister was Murphy?

a social gospel minister

National Child Labor Committee

Drew up a model state child labor law, encouraged state and city campaigns, and coordinated the movements around the country.

What fraction of states passed some form of child labor law between 1905 and 1907?

2/3

What was the issue with many of the child labor laws passed?

many had loopholes that exempted a large number of children

What did the National Child Labor Committee support?

a national bill introduced in Congress by Indiana senator Albert Beveridge

What did the bill created by Beveridge prevent?

the employment of children in factories and mines

Did Beveridge's bill pass?

no

What did the child labor reformers convince Congress in 1912 to establish?

a Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor

What did more to reduce the number of students who worked than federal laws?

compulsory school attendance laws

Were compulsory attendance laws difficult to pass and enforce?

yes

What were reformers worried about? (law)

young people who got in trouble with the law, often for pranks that in rural areas would have seemed harmless

What did reformers in Denver and Chicago organize?

juvenile courts, where judges had the authority to put delinquent youths on probation, take them from their families and make them wards of the state, or assign them to an institution

What did the juvenile court often prevent?

young delinquents from adopting a way of crime

Juvenile offenders were often deprived of…

due process

Supreme Court ruling in 1967

children were entitled to procedural rights when accused of a crime

Who led the campaign to limit the hours of women's work?

Florence Kelley and the National Consumers League

What was argued against women's working hours?

It was foolish and unpatriotic to allow mothers of future generations to work long hours.

Why was the battle against child labor only partly successful?

Too many businessmen were profiting from employing children at low wages.

Why were politicians and judges reluctant to regulate child labor?

They viewed work as an individual and personal matter.

Why did some parents oppose reforms against child labor?

They desperately needed the money their children earned in factories.

What actions did some parents take regarding child labor laws?

They broke the law to allow their children to work.

Who represented Oregon in Muller v. Oregon?

Louis Brandeis

What was the significance of Muller v. Oregon (1908)?

The Supreme Court upheld the Oregon ten-hour law.

What argument did Josephine Goldmark present in Muller v. Oregon?

She used sociological arguments detailing the dangers and diseases faced by factory women.

Brandeis opposed laissez-faire legal concepts, arguing that the government had…

a special interest in protecting the health of its citizens

Did most states fall into line with the Supreme Court decision?

Yes, they passed protective legislation for women, though many companies found ways to circumvent the laws

How did the reformers win some protection for women workers?

by contending that "women are fundamentally weaker than men"

How would the reformers' misogynistic argument eventually backfire?

it would be used to reinforce gender segregation of the workforce for the next half century

In addition to working for protective legislation for working women, the social justice progressives also campaigned for…

woman's suffrage

Unlike some supporters who argued that middle-class women would offset the ignorant and corrupt votes of immigrant men, these social reformers supported votes from…

all women

Addams argued that urban women not only could vote intelligently, but also needed to vote to…

protect, clothe, and feed their families

Through the suffrage, women would ensure that elected officials provided…

adequate services (e.g. pure water, uncontaminated food, proper sanitation, and police protection)

The progressive insistence that all women need the vote helped to push women's suffrage towards…

the victory that would come during WW1

Comstock Law (1873)

Made it illegal to promote or even write about contraceptive devices

Many advanced progressives could not imagine themselves teaching immigrant women how to…

prevent conception, especially because of the Comstock Law of 1873

Margaret Sanger was a nurse who had watched…

poor women suffer from too many births and even die from dangerous illegal abortions

What was Margaret Sanger one of the founders of?

the modern American birth control movement

Middle class Americans had limited family in the 19th century through…

abstinence, withdrawal, and abortion, as well as primitive birth control devices

Did much ignorance and misinformation remain around sex?

yes

Sanger obtained the latest medical and scientific European studies and in 1914 explained in her magazine, The Woman Rebel, and in the pamphlet, Family Limitation, that women could…

separate sex from procreation

What happened promptly after Sanger explained that women could separate sex from procreation?

She was promptly indicted for violation of the postal code and fled to Europe to avoid arrest

Sanger helped to bring the topic of sexuality and contraception…

out into the open

When Sanger returned to the US in 1921, what did she found?

the American Birth Control League, which became the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942

Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives (1890)

Documented the overcrowded tenements, the damp, dark alleys, and the sickness and despair that affected people who lived in New York slums

How did reformers try to improve housing for the poor?

Construction of model tenements and housing projects and had sent "friendly visitors" to the residents to collect rent and teach them how to live like the middle class

Riis labored to replace New York's worst slums with what?

parks and playgrounds

How did progressives take a new approach toward the housing problem in the 1st decade of the 20th century?

collecting statistics, conducting surveys, organizing committees, and constructing exhibits to demonstrate the effect of urban overcrowding