Unit 6A: Social Reforms

Notes

Background

• The United states entered the progressive Era from 1890 to 1920 when a variety of reformers tried to clean up problems created during the gilded age

  • wealth gap

  • poor working and living conditions

  • overcrowding

• Industrialization led to a rise in urbanization, immigration, poverty, and dangerous working conditions

• City, states and federal government were seen as corrupt

• Corporate monopolies limited competition and workers wages

• Middle class protestant Christians embraced the social gospel movement

Middle Class

• Progressive reform began in American Cities in response to slums, tenements, child labor, alcohol abuse, prostitution, and political corruption

• Urban reformers tried to improve the lives of poor workers and children

  • Jane Addams created the Hull House in Chicago

  • Hull house was the first settlement house which offered baths, cheap food, child care, job training, and healthcare to help the poor

  • YMCA created gyms and libraries to help young men and children

  • Salvation Army created nurseries and soup kitchens

  • Florence Kelley fought to created child labor laws and laws limiting women to a 10 hour work day

Prohibition

• many reformers saw alcohol abuse as a serious problem

• Temperance reformers hoped that ending alcohol would reduce crime, corruption, and assimilate immigrants

• Many Reformers saw alcohol as a serious problem

  • Reformers Frances Willard and Carrie Nation led the Women’s Christian Temperance Union

• Reformers gained prohibition laws in rural areas and states in South and West (Dry Counties)

• Reformers gained prohibition laws in rural areas and states in the south and west

• in 1919, the states ratified the 18th amendment which outlaws alcohol throughout the USA

• how to remember

  • 18th amendment - cant drink at 18

  • 21st amendment - can drink at 21

Muckrakers

• Investigative journalists known as muckrakers exposed corruption, poverty, health hazards, and monopolies

• Jacob Riis wrote: How the Other Half Lives (1890)

  • exposed urban poverty and life in the slums

• Ida Tarbell wrote: The History of Standard Oil (1904)

  • Revealed Rockefeller’s ruthless business practices and called for the break up of large monopolies

• Upton Sinclair wrote: The Jungle (1906)

  • Revealed unsanitary conditions of slaughterhouses and led to government regulation

Womens Rights

• The progressive Era led to demands for equal rights by women

• Women could not vote but black, immigrant, and illiterate men could

• Women were expected to remain at home as wives and mothers

• Women lived independently in cities

• More girls graduated from high school and attended universities

• During the progressive Era, many women took the lead and played important roles as reformers

• Laws were passed that banned prostitution

• the most significant reform for women was the demand for suffrage (voting rights)

• women demanded property and voting rights in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention

• by the early 1900s, most western states allowed women to votes but women in the east could not vote

• in 1920, the states ratified the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote

Black Rights

• The Progressive Era led to demands for equal rights by African Americans

  • Literacy tests and poll taxes limited black voting

  • Jim Crow law segregated

  • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) declared that segregation did not violate the 14th amendment

• Black civil rights leaders were divided on how to address racial problems

• in 1905, Dubois and other black leaders led the Niagara movement

  • They demanded an end to segregation and discrimination and economic and educational equality

  • The meeting led to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP) in 1909 to fight for black equality

    • The NAACP fought voting restrictions and segregation laws by using the 14th amendment to file lawsuits

• Jamaican immigrant Marcus Garvey believed that whites and blacks could not coexist in America

  • In 1907 he founded the Universal Negro Improvment Association to encourage blacks to return to Africa

  • He created a number of businesses to promote Black Nationalism

• While women gained voting rights and labor laws

  • African Americans were unable to end Jim Crow segregation, stop lynching, or gain economic equaluty

  • But Black leaders in the Progressive Era inspired later generations to demand changes

Dates

• 1890-1920 - Progressive Era

• 1919 - 18th Amendment Ratified

• 1890 - Jacob Riis’ writes How the Other Half Lives

• 1904 - Ida Tarbell writes The History of Standard Oil

• 1906 - Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle

• 1848 - Seneca Falls Convention

• 1920 - 19th Amendment Ratified

Vocab

• Dry Counties - Counties in states that restrict the selling of alcohol