Chapter 20: Progressive Era (1895–1914)

Important Keywords

Social Gospel movement: Movement originating in the Protestant church that aimed to help the urban poor; many Progressives were influenced by this movement.
Muckrakers: Writers who exposed unethical practices in both government and business during this era; newspaper editors discovered that these types of stories increased circulation.
Seventeenth Amendment (1913): U.S. Constitutional amendment that allowed voters instead of state legislatures to elect U.S. senators; this amendment had been championed by Progressives.
Initiative process: This Progressive-supported process allowed any citizen to propose a law. If enough supporters’ signatures could be procured, the proposed law would appear on the next ballot.
Referendum process: This process allowed citizens (instead of legislatures) to vote on proposed laws.
Recall process: This process allowed voters to remove an elected official from office before his or her term expired.
Direct primary: This process allowed party members to vote for prospective candidates; previously most had been chosen by party conventions.
Hull House: Settlement house in Chicago founded by Jane Addams; it became a model for settlement houses around the country.
National American Woman Suffrage Association: Created in 1890 by a merger of two women’s suffrage organizations and led in its early years by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was instrumental in demanding women’s right to vote.
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911): Fire in New York City that killed 146 female factory workers. It was later found that the workers had been locked in the factory; as a result, many factory reforms were enacted.
The Jungle: Novel written by Upton Sinclair that highlighted numerous problems of the meatpacking industry and inspired the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

Key Timeline

1879: Progress and Poverty by Henry George published
1888: Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy published
1889: Formation of National Consumers League
1890: National American Woman Suffrage Association founded
1901: Theodore Roosevelt becomes president after the assassination of William McKinley
- Progressive Robert La Follette elected as governor of Wisconsin
- Progressive Tom Johnson elected as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio
1903: Founding of Women’s Trade Union League
1904: The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens published
1905: IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) established
- Establishment of U.S. Forest Service
1906: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair published Meat Inspection Act enacted
- Pure Food and Drug Act enacted
1908: William Howard Taft elected president
1909: Foundation of the NAACP
1910: Ballinger-Pinchot controversy
1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire
1912: Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party) founded by Theodore Roosevelt Woodrow
- Wilson elected president Establishment of Industrial Relations Committee
1913: Establishment of Federal Reserve System
- Ratification of Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing federal income tax
- Ratification of Seventeenth Amendment, authorizing direct election of senators
1914: Clayton Antitrust Act ratified
- Outbreak of World War I in Europe
- Federal Trade Commission Act ratified
1915: First showing of D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation

Roots of Progressivism

Progressivism was complex. They never united.
- Progressives in both major parties and urban and rural areas disagreed on government's role and the size of American businesses.
- All of them wanted reform.
Late nineteenth-century ideas and social causes shaped progressivism.
- Many Progressives were influenced by books such as Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879) and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888).
- Some Progressives were influenced by Taylorism and "scientific" social organization.
Progressives and Socialists criticized big business.
- Progressives did not want to overthrow capitalism like Socialists.
- Most Progressives believed capitalism had economic benefits and wanted to reform and regulate business and markets to prevent the wealthy from abusing their power.
- Progressive Socialists were important.
- The Jungle (1906) author Upton Sinclair believed Progressive reforms could build democratic socialism.
Progressives were religious.
- Liberal Protestants sought social justice using Christian principles in the Social Gospel movement.
- Church-based reformers helped the working class poor.
- Social Gospel advocates often clashed with their fellow Christians because they prioritized political and economic reform over personal salvation.
- Reformer Jane Addams was religiously motivated.
The new media fueled progressivism.
- Many newspapers and magazines investigated political corruption and business monopolies.
- These exposés were widely read and spread Progressive ideas.
- Theodore Roosevelt called these investigators "muckrakers.”
- Upton Sinclair famously criticized the meatpacking industry.
- The Shame of the Cities (1904) by Lincoln Steffens criticized machine politics.
- How the Other Half Lives (1890) by Jacob Riis exposed urban poverty.
- Progressives responded to these exposés.

Progressive Objectives

Progressives were mostly middle class. Upper-class people dominated.
Progressives rarely wanted revolutionary changes in the US due to their social background. Instead of destroying society, they wanted to reform it.
Theodore Roosevelt and other Progressives saw themselves as conservatives fighting potential uprisings by correcting abuses and improving social and political efficiency.
Progressives wanted to help the poor but keep power in the middle and upper classes.
A regulatory state with a highly educated and professional bureaucratic elite would accomplish this.
Progressives increasingly believed a strong government could solve many of America's problems.
Progressivism wasn't for everyone. Progressive reformers and new government agencies' paternalism angered many poor people.
In the name of democracy, Progressives attacked political machines and parties. Still, these machines and parties fostered a vibrant political culture, and voter participation rates began to decline during the Progressive Era.
Historians have struggled to define Progressivism's goal due to its multifaceted nature.
- Progressivism may be an attempt to resist social change in America.
- Progressivism may help Americans adjust to the new urban and industrialized social system, according to some.

Urban Progressivism

Progressive reforms were implemented across American politics.
Progressives challenged political machines in many US cities.
Traditional machines sponsored some reforms to maintain their power.
Cleveland "reform mayor" Tom Johnson received national attention for his efforts to clean up local government and improve city services.
Cleveland assumed municipal utilities to improve efficiency.
Reform mayors established poor relief programs.
Several cities replaced elected mayors with city managers and appointed utility commissioners.
Progressives weakened urban politicians and their working class voters by removing these offices from political contention.
- These supposedly depoliticized positions were filled by middle-class "professionals" like the Progressive reformers.

State-Level Progressivism

Progressive state initiatives were launched. Political parties and state legislatures were limited by progressive governors like Robert La Follette in Wisconsin and Hiram Johnson in California.
Progressive political measures that were adopted in many states included the following:
1. Initiative process: The initiative enabled a citizen to propose a law and get it on the ballot during the next election.
2. Referendum process: A referendum allowed citizens to vote for the adoption of a proposed law during an election.
3. Recall process: The recall made it possible for voters to remove an elected official from office.
4. Direct primary: Traditionally party nominees had been picked at political conventions dominated by the party leadership. The direct primary allowed rank and file party members to pick a nominee through a public vote.
In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment reduced state legislatures' power.
The Seventeenth Amendment moved U.S. senators from state legislatures to direct voter election.

Progressivism and Women

Women shaped the Progressive movement.
- Women had more power in progressive organizations than political parties.
- Florence Kelley founded the National Consumers League, which advocated for workplace and home protections for women and children.
- Kelley's organization, mostly run by women, advocated for child labor and minimum wage laws.
In American slums, women founded settlement houses.
- In 1889, Hull House in Chicago began serving the poor under Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.
- Settlement houses helped immigrants adapt to US life.
- Adult and children's classes were held there.
- Kindergartens were often run by settlement houses to prepare children for school.
- Clubs and recreation were sponsored by settlement houses.
- With child care and family health programs, poor women were prioritized.
Helping the poor was not a single approach for progressive women.
- Some sought to improve working conditions to help families.
- Prostitution and alcoholism were addressed by others.
- As working men spent their paychecks in bars, the Anti-Saloon League claimed that alcoholism caused poverty.
During the Progressive Era, prohibition gained strength.
- Economic and social issues would be better addressed if women could vote.
- Idaho was the first western state to allow women to vote in local elections during the Gilded Age.
- In 1890, two women's suffrage organizations merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
- This influential women's group was founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
- The radical British suffragette movement influenced Alice Paul's 1916 founding of the National Woman's Party.
Feminism, which sought major changes in women's lives, was advocated by some women.
- In 1914, a group of women in New York City coined the term feminism.
- Feminists no longer wanted to be constrained by society.
- In the early 1900s, pregnancy was a possibility for most women.
- Margaret Sanger, a nurse who worked with New York City's poor, promoted birth control.
- Sanger supported eugenics and fewer but better babies.
- Birth control gave women more freedom, she believed.
Working women were protected by Progressive Era laws.
- In Muller vs. Oregon, the Supreme Court authorized this effort.
- States could limit women's work hours under this ruling.
- Women's limited strength was thought to be overtaxed by long hours.
- Long shifts were also thought to interfere with mothers' most important role.

Workplace Reform

In the early 1900s, industrial accidents killed or injured many workers.
Many Progressives believed workplace safety regulations were necessary after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, which killed 146 workers in a poorly maintained factory.
Between 1910 and 1917, workers' accident insurance was another Progressive goal. Many states passed legislation to aid the families of workplace or mining accident victims.
Union members worried about Progressive interference in the workplace.
Progressive immigration restrictions were supported by unions.
- It shows the complexity of Progressivism that many middle-class reformers distrusted Southern and Eastern European immigrants who were "unlike ourselves" and voted for machine politicians.
- Because recent immigrants avoided unions and drove down wages, unionists wanted to reduce immigration.
- Progressives laid the groundwork for 1920s immigration restrictions.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal

After William McKinley's 1901 assassination, Roosevelt became president.
Despite his unexpected rise to power, Roosevelt aggressively used his office's powers.
- He excelled at public relations.
- He was a celebrity in America due to this and his exuberance.
- Roosevelt believed the government should reform society.
- Roosevelt's presidential activism set a new standard for future presidents.
In 1902, Roosevelt brokered a deal between mine operators and the striking United Mine Workers union.
- The contract was a "Square Deal" for management and workers, he said.
- This term was later used to describe Roosevelt's policy of using the government to protect everyone's interests.
In 1904, Roosevelt defeated Democratic candidate Judge Alton B. Parker.
- After winning, he pushed Congress for Progressive legislation.
- The Interstate Commerce Commission had more railroad regulation power after the Hepburn Act.
- Upton Sinclair's The Jungle raised concerns about food and medicine regulation, which the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act addressed.
The Sherman Antitrust Act was revived by Roosevelt.
- Though passed in 1890, the law had not been used to break up illegal trusts or monopolistic holding companies.
- Big business's growing power drove the Progressive movement.
- Roosevelt wanted to show that the people's government was still in charge.
- He ordered the Justice Department to sue the Northern Securities Company, a holding company that controlled most northwest railroads, under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
- Justice Department's suit was upheld by the Supreme Court.
- The Justice Department sued to break up 45 corporations, including Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company, under Roosevelt.
- Roosevelt was not an anti-business "trustbuster."
- Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act against corporations he believed had exploited consumers.
Roosevelt promoted resource conservation as a Progressive cause.
- He created 200 million acres of national forests and expanded the national park system.
- To protect the nation's forests, he founded the U.S. Forest Service in 1905.

Taft and Progressivism

Roosevelt's chosen successor was William Howard Taft.
- He was a judge and Roosevelt's cabinet member.
In 1908, Taft defeated Bryan for the third time as the Democratic presidential candidate.
Taft tried to emulate Roosevelt's Progressive policies, even going further.
In four years, Taft sued 95 corporations.
Taft didn't have Roosevelt's political and PR skills.
- He was more respectful of Congress.
- This led him to support the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909, which angered many Progressives because it kept tariffs on many products too high, hurting consumers.
- Taft couldn't unite Republican conservatives and progressives.
In the Ballinger-Pinchot Affair, Taft clashed with Progressives.
- Richard A. Ballinger was Taft's interior secretary.
Businesses were allowed to buy a million acres of Alaskan public land.
Gifford Pinchot, Forest Service chief, was furious; he publicly accused Ballinger for corruption.
Many Progressives believed Pinchot's accusations that Taft was undermining conservation, which alienated Taft from them.
The Republican "Old Guard" supported Taft by 1910.
- He opposed some Progressive critics in the 1910 primaries.
- Theodore Roosevelt returned from a safari in Africa to the US.
- He actively supported some Progressives Taft opposed.
Roosevelt proposed an ambitious set of reforms to protect workers and consumers that would be implemented by a stronger federal government as he barnstormed the country.
"New Nationalism" was Roosevelt's plan.
The Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed the federal government to collect income taxes, followed.
- This was supported by President Taft and a wide range of the public as a way to raise revenue and offset tariff cuts.
- Income taxes were initially thought to be paid by the wealthy.
- Because it allowed Congress to fund more government and programs, this amendment was significant.

The Election of 1912

Many factors caused President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt's relations brokedown.
- Taft's antitrust suit against U.S. Steel over an acquisition Roosevelt had approved in 1907 infuriated Roosevelt because it made him look like he had colluded in a crime.
- Roosevelt also wanted to return to the presidency.
- In 1912, he entered the race. Roosevelt won most primaries in states where they were held, but Taft controlled the party machinery and was supported by most delegates from nonprimary states in the Republican presidential nomination race.
- Roosevelt lost the Republican nomination to Taft.
Roosevelt's delegates left the Republican convention, believing he had been robbed.
- The Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party, was founded by Roosevelt and his supporters.
- Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson were the Progressives' presidential and vice presidential nominees.
- The new party advocated for women's suffrage, the eight-hour day, and the end of child labor.
- Many women were Bull Moose activists.
- Because Roosevelt wanted Southern support, the Progressives avoided supporting African Americans.
The Republican split gave Democrats an electoral advantage.
Woodrow Wilson, New Jersey's first-term governor, was the Democrats' choice.
- Wilson, a Progressive governor, had enacted many reforms.
- Wilson's New Freedom policy reflected Democrats' longstanding distrust of a strong federal government.
- Roosevelt was more business-friendly than Wilson.
- Instead of government regulation, he advocated for the dismantling of monopolistic corporations.
- Wilson won the election with only 42% of the popular vote after Taft and Roosevelt split the GOP.
- Given the candidates' records, 1912 was the Progressive Era's electoral peak.

Wilson and Progressivism

President Wilson immediately enacted the New Freedom into law.
As active as Roosevelt, he worked hard to rally Congress.
The new income tax made up for the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913's largest tariff cuts since the Civil War.
The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 outlawed price discrimination and other corporate abuses.
- Organized labor won when the Clayton Act legalized strikes.
Wilson moved from New Freedom to New Nationalism in office.
- He decided to regulate government-big business relations.
The 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
- The bipartisan FTC worked closely with businesses to help them avoid illegal activities.
- Business and government would grow closer in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In 1913, Wilson created the Federal Reserve System to solve currency supply and financial panics.
- Twelve regional banks could lend to local commercial banks.
- The current Federal Reserve notes were issued by a Washington-based Federal Reserve Board.
By creating a decentralized bank support system and a stable, flexible currency, the Federal Reserve Act was intended to boost the American economy.

Assessing Progressivism

A flood of legislation sought to improve government efficiency and conditions for the disadvantaged at all levels.
In the name of democracy, the Progressives attacked political machines and weakened political parties, giving more power to unelected bureaucrats and administrators.
Antitrust laws against some corporations symbolized the people's power to regulate big business.
Progressivism ended Gilded Age laxity.
Progressives focused on urban issues and ignored rural poverty.
- Most Progressives—mostly middle class—did not actively promote social equality. Many mistrusted newcomers.
- Few wanted to help the Blacks.
Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to a White House meal, but Southerners criticized him so much he never did it again.
In 1913, Wilson allowed his cabinet to resegregate their departments after the Democrats took over the executive branch.
Birth of a Nation was an epic Civil War and Reconstruction film by D. W. Griffith.
- Griffith's film, a technical and artistic milestone, celebrated the Ku Klux Klan's suppression of freedmen and reflected a Southern view of Reconstruction that had become dominant among historians.
- The film referenced Woodrow Wilson's history, which he called "truthful."
- The Progressive movement did not advance African Americans.
- Thus, African Americans self-organized.
African American and white reformers founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 to fight racism and promote equal rights.
American intervention in WWI ended the Progressive Era.
- The war saw victories for women's suffrage and prohibition advocates.
- The war would focus many leaders on foreign affairs.
- The war's conduct would wear out many reformers' patience.