The Progressive Era

Progressive - what does it mean, how it did play out w/ different politicians, what did they want?

• Goal: “to strengthen the state” and to “use government as an agency of welfare”

• Fought against monopolies, corruption, inefficiency & social injustice

• They Wanted

  • Initiative: to propose legislation directly

  • Referendum: direct democracy ballot measures

  • Recall: the ability to remove legislators by a vote

  • Australian/secret ballots: counteracted the boss rule, made bribery less feasible when bribers could not tell if they were getting their money’s worth from the bribed

  • Direct election of senators

  • Women’s suffrage

Role of muckrakers

• Journalists who exposed wrongdoing in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Collier’s, & McClure’s dug for dirt & were mudslingers

• Indicted big business corruption, political wrongdoing & social injustice

16th Amendment

• Gave Congress the power to collect income taxes without apportioning them among the states based on population

• Before this amendment, the federal government primarily raised revenue through tariffs and excise taxes, which disproportionately affected lower-income individuals.

• passed to allow Congress to tax individual incomes directly, helping fund government programs and reduce reliance on tariffs

17th Amendment

• Established the direct election of U.S. Senators by popular vote, replacing the previous system where state legislatures chose them

• When chosen by state legislatures, this led to corruption as they were often influenced by the wealthy

• This allowed for senators to be more responsive to public needs when chosen by the people

18th Amendment

• Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages (Prohibition). This was later repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933

• Groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League highly influenced this being ratified

• Argued that alcohol led to social problems such as crime, domestic violence, and poverty

• Passed to prevent these issues

Suffrage & 19th Amendment

• Individual States, starting with the West, grant women the right to vote

• NAWSA followed by NWP held parades, marches, and protests (including picketing outside of the White House), culminating with the arrests and subsequent hunger strike of suffragettes like Alice Paul

• Many women were worried about protesting this during a war, but others argued this was a war that they had been fighting for a while

• The 19th Amendment was fully ratified in 1920, giving all women the right to vote

Importance of settlement houses and women’s clubs

• Settlement Houses

  • Helped immigrants and low-income families assimilate into American society by offering education, childcare, healthcare, and employment assistance

  • Helped shape public policy on labor laws, sanitation, education, and housing, leading to Progressive Era reforms

• Women’s clubs

  • Advocated for reforms in education, public health, child labor, and women’s rights

  • Pushed for libraries, school improvements, and public sanitation

  • National Association of Colored Women (NACW): Led by Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, fought for racial justice and education

  •  Women’s clubs influenced local and national policies, laying the groundwork for the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) and other Progressive reforms

Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency & influence afterwards - Bull Moose Party, bully pulpit, Square Deal, consumer protection, trustbusting, conservation

• Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency in 1901 after William McKinley’s death

• expanded the power of the federal government and pushed for reforms in business, labor, and the environment

• The Square Deal included

  • Control of Corporations – Regulated big businesses and fought monopolies

    • Roosevelt was known as a "trustbuster," using the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up monopolies that harmed competition.

    • He dissolved J.P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Company in 1904 and regulated industries like railroads.

    • He distinguished between "good trusts" (those that benefited the public) and "bad trusts" (those that exploited consumers)

  • Consumer Protection – Ensured safe food and medicine for Americans

  • Conservation – Preserved natural resources and created national parks

    • Roosevelt was the first president to prioritize conservation on a national scale.

    • Created five national parks and over 230 million acres of protected public land.

    • Established the U.S. Forest Service and worked with Gifford Pinchot to manage forests and prevent overuse of resources.

• Post-presidency

  • After leaving office, he was disappointed with Taft’s policies

  • He ran for a 3rd non-consecutive term, arguing that it would not break the tradition

  • Ran on the Bull-Moose ticket

  • This split the Republican party, and Taft managed to win the nomination

  • The divided Republican party allowed for Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency

William Howard Taft’s presidency, Dollar Diplomacy

• Defeated William Jennings Bryan in 1908

• Secured a “trustbuster” reputation

• Encouraged American businesses to invest in foreign countries (especially Latin America and Asia) to create economic stability.

• The goal was to expand U.S. influence while benefiting American companies.

• Unlike Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” approach, Taft wanted to avoid military force and use economic power instead.

Meat Inspection Act/The Jungle

• This act was passed in 1906, and it decreed that meat that was being shipped over state lines was subject to federal inspection from corral to can. Many saw this as a way to drive out small competitors

• Set cleanliness standards for slaughterhouses and factories

• Created government oversight to prevent contamination

• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the horrific working conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking plants, such as

  • Workers falling into vats and being processed into lard.

  • Meat covered in rats, filth, and chemicals being sold.

  • Diseased cows being butchered and packaged for sale

Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, Triple Wall of Privilege

• Triple Wall of Privilege

  • Tariff: pushed through the Underwood tariff Bill, greatly reduced import fees

  • Banks: set up the Federal Reserve Board, allowed the government to control interest rates and money supply, making the economy more stable

  • Trusts: Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (Strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act, banning unfair business practices) & Clayton Anti-Trust act of 1914 (Government agency to regulate businesses and stop unfair practices)

• Foreign Policy

  • Anti-imperialistic

  • Put the Philippines on a gradual path to independence

  • Forced to intervene in Haiti & the Dominican Republic, as well as purchasing the US Virgin Islands in order to have more influence in the Caribbean

  • Brief involvement in the Mexican turmoil before WWI

Jane Addams and Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 nomination

• Jane Addams

  • leading social reformer, activist, and founder of Hull House 

  • focused on poverty, labor rights, women’s suffrage, and child welfare

  • a strong supporter of Roosevelt’s progressive platform, especially women’s suffrage and labor reforms

  • first woman to publicly support a presidential candidate at a major party convention.

• Roosevelt broke away from the Republican Party as Taft won the nomination

• He was forced to run as a third-party candidate on the Bull-Moose ticket

• The Progressive party platform included

  • Women’s suffrage

  • Social justice reforms (minimum wage, labor laws)

  • Trust regulation

• The divided Republican Party allowed for Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency

Eugene V Debs, a socialist in jail, ran for president

• He ran against William Howard Taft in 1908

• Ran as a socialist

• Ran for president multiple times

• Ran from jail

American isolationism at the start of WWI

• Wilson asked for neutrality so that both sides could appeal to the US

• Most Americans were anti-German but wanted to stay out of the war

Lusitania sinking

• British blockaded ships so that the US & Germany couldn’t trade with each other

• Germans practiced unrestricted submarine warfare

• They sank Lusitania, a British passenger liner with Americans on board, which pushed the US closer to war