history study progressive

Progressivism

Reform movement to return control of government to the people, restore economic opportunity, and correct injustices (1890-1920)

Four Progressive goals

Political (curb machines, expand democracy); Economic (antitrust, consumer/worker protection); Social (settlement houses, child labor, education); Moral (temperance, Prohibition)

Gilded Age

Era that looked prosperous on the surface but hid inequality, poverty, and corruption

Tenement

Crowded, unsafe apartment building with little light, air, or running water; common in immigrant city neighborhoods

Political machine

Group that traded jobs and favors for votes (e.g., Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed)

Trust / monopoly

Huge combination of companies that crushes competition (Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel); workers had little voice

Old Immigrants

Came before 1880 from N/W Europe (Britain, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia); mostly Protestant

New Immigrants

Came 1880-1924 from S/E Europe (Italy, Poland, Russia) and Asia; many Catholic, Jewish, or Orthodox; faced more nativism

Push factors

Reasons to leave home (war, crop failure, heavy taxes)

Pull factors

Reasons to come to the U.S. (jobs, steady wages)

Nativism

Hostility toward immigrants by people already living in a country

Ellis Island

NY immigration gateway; mostly Europeans; hours to days; about 2% turned away

Angel Island

San Francisco gateway; mostly Asians; weeks to months of detention and harsh questioning; shaped by laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act

Assimilation

Adopting U.S. language, customs, and civic norms

Hull House vs. Carlisle

Both pushed assimilation: Hull House was chosen by adults; Carlisle Indian Industrial School forced Native children to attend

American Dream

Belief that work and education lead to upward mobility; Progressives used the gap between dream and reality to justify reform

Muckrakers

Journalists who exposed social, economic, and political problems; shaped public opinion and laws

Jacob Riis

Wrote How the Other Half Lives; photographs exposed tenement life

Upton Sinclair

Wrote The Jungle about meatpacking; aimed at worker suffering but readers focused on food safety

Sinclair quote

"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Ida Tarbell

Wrote History of the Standard Oil Company; exposed Rockefeller's monopoly

Lincoln Steffens

Wrote The Shame of the Cities (1904); exposed political corruption and machine-business bribery

Ida B. Wells

Anti-lynching crusader; documented lynchings and exposed racial violence most white reformers ignored

Lewis Hine

Photographer whose images of child laborers exposed mines, mills, and canneries

Homestead Strike (1892)

Carnegie Steel workers vs. Pinkerton guards

Pullman Strike (1894)

Major strike ended when federal troops stepped in; government usually sided with owners

Employers' tools against labor

Lockouts, blacklists, strikebreakers

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)

NYC garment factory fire killed 146 workers (mostly young immigrant women) due to locked exits; led to fire drills and workplace safety laws

Initiative

Citizens propose a law themselves

Referendum

Voters approve or reject a law already passed

Recall

Voters remove an elected official before the term ends

Direct primary

Voters, not party bosses, choose party nominees

16th Amendment (1913)

Federal income tax

17th Amendment (1913)

Direct election of senators by voters instead of state legislatures

18th Amendment (1919)

Prohibition of alcohol; pushed by the WCTU; repealed by the 21st Amendment (1933)

19th Amendment (1920)

Guaranteed women the right to vote nationwide

WCTU

Women's Christian Temperance Union; blamed alcohol for poverty and family violence; drove Prohibition

Jane Addams

Founded Hull House (Chicago, 1889), a settlement house offering childcare, English classes, and job training

Florence Kelley

Hull House resident who fought for labor rights and child labor laws

Settlement house

Community center in poor neighborhoods offering services to immigrants and workers (e.g., Hull House)

Susan B. Anthony

Early leader of the women's suffrage movement

Carrie Chapman Catt / NAWSA

Moderate suffrage strategy: state-by-state campaigns and lobbying

Alice Paul / NWP

National Woman's Party; militant tactics: White House pickets and hunger strikes

Night of Terror (Nov. 1917)

Jailed suffragists were brutalized and force-fed; public outrage and sympathy helped the cause

Why did WWI help suffrage?

Women's wartime service added momentum toward the 19th Amendment

Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt's program: fairness for business, workers, and consumers, with government as referee

1902 Coal Strike

TR pushed owners and miners into arbitration instead of siding with owners

Good vs. bad trusts

TR prosecuted trusts that abused the public and allowed efficient ones

Northern Securities

Railroad trust sued by TR in 1902 and broken up in 1904

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

Banned restraint of trade and monopolies

Hepburn Act (1906)

Gave the ICC power to set maximum railroad rates

Meat Inspection Act & Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

Federal inspection and truthful labeling; passed after the outcry over The Jungle

TR and conservation

National Reclamation Act (1902), Forest Service (1905), Antiquities Act (1906); about 230 million acres protected

Gifford Pinchot

Head of U.S. Forest Service; 'wise use' of natural resources

John Muir

Preservationist; wanted Hetch Hetchy kept as wilderness

Hetch Hetchy debate

Muir (preserve) vs. Pinchot (use for San Francisco's water); Congress approved the dam in 1913

National Park Service (1916)

Created to preserve land 'unimpaired' for future generations

William Howard Taft

President 1909-1913; broke more trusts than TR and created Dept. of Labor, but alienated Progressives

Payne-Aldrich Tariff

Taft signed it with only modest cuts, keeping many rates high; Progressives felt betrayed

Why did the Republican Party split?

Taft alienated Progressives (tariff, conservation dispute/firing Pinchot), leading TR to run as a Progressive

Election of 1912

Wilson (D) won with about 42% because Taft (R) and TR (Bull Moose Progressive) split the Republican vote; Debs (Socialist) got about 6%

Bull Moose Party

TR's Progressive Party in the 1912 election

New Nationalism (TR)

Strong federal government that regulates big business

New Freedom (Wilson)

Break up trusts and restore competition

Federal Reserve Act (1913)

Wilson law that stabilized the banking system

Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)

Strengthened the Sherman Act and protected unions

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

Agency that polices unfair business practices

Wilson's limits

Progressive on economics, not race: segregated and demoted Black federal workers; slow to back women's suffrage

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court ruling allowing segregation as 'separate but equal'; cemented Jim Crow

Booker T. Washington

Atlanta Compromise: vocational training and economic progress first, rights later (gradualism)

W.E.B. Du Bois

Demanded immediate equality and higher education (Talented Tenth); wrote The Souls of Black Folk

Niagara Movement (1905)

Du Bois-led group demanding full civil rights immediately; precursor to the NAACP

NAACP (1909)

Founded largely by Niagara Movement members; fought segregation through legal challenges

Thurgood Marshall

NAACP lawyer who won Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Washington vs. Du Bois

Both wanted Black advancement; Washington was gradual and economic-first, Du Bois demanded immediate full rights

Who was left out of Progressive reform?

African Americans (Jim Crow), immigrants (nativism, restrictions), Native Americans (no full citizenship until 1924)

Legacy of Progressivism

Bigger government role in economy and society; empowered citizens (initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators); limits: racial inequality, segregation, immigration restrictions

Wilson 1917 quote

'The world must be made safe for democracy' (WWI; raises the question: whose democracy?)

Unit 2 big question

Who gets to decide what it means to be American, and what did different groups want from America?

Justice Henry Billings Brown (honors)

Wrote the Plessy opinion (1896) and lead opinion in Downes v. Bidwell (1901, Insular Case); links Unit 2 racial policy to Unit 1 empire