Progressivism

Problems leading to Progressivism

• populism → progressivism

• Gilded age problems - disparities in wealth, poverty, questions of imperialism, urban squalor, capital vs. labor, unsanitary food production, immigration, environmental problems

  • Populism: farmers and urban workers united - want for reform

• Progressives

  • end political corruption, civil rights, women’s suffrage

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 1911

    • factory doors chained to prevent unauthorized breaks, fire escape broke

    • no punishment for factory owners

  • Journalists called muckrakers

    • reported on corruption and ill-gotten financial gains

    • led to Meat Inspection Act and Food and Drug Act, 1906

• The Social Gospel

  • Religion must confront and combat society’s ills

    • particularly concerned with urban poor

    • from individuality to society

      • but focused more on poverty, not women or civil rights

Women’s Movement

• Suffrage

  • women first gathered in clubs but became increasingly political

  • Black women also gathered, but these groups did not always act together

    • an unfortunate case was made to keep white supremacy by excluding Black females

  • Women’s Christian Temperance Union

    • sought to limit or eliminate alcohol

      • blamed for domestic abuse, poverty, crime, disease

        • associated with cities and immigrants

• WWI

  • interrupted suffrage

  • was granted in 1918 with 19th amendment

Trusts and Monopolies