Progressive Era

Woodrow wilson

• clear racist

Investigate, educate, legislate

• a progressive motto

The reformer is always right about what is wrong, but not about what is right

• G.K. Chesterson

Progressive Movement

• generally urban as a movement

• efficiency and making laws rational

  • rational city planning, making better roads

• very Science or Research-based

  • doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, ‘politicians’ contributed more

    • all contributed to civil and public issues

  • credentialization

    • doctors, lawyers, etc. now how certification standards and procedures

    • standardized competition and stop quackery

• leaned into a lot of social science and logical thinking

  • also led to eugenics and other large pseudo-sciences

• Muckrakers

  • people who wrote books exposing ploys behind corrupt industries

  • in general were more subtle than people these days, but also more effectives

big issues;

• child labor laws, discrimination, lack of public health, (write rest down from recording)

motives

• some sincere

• some probably more self-centered

• brought balance between economic class and ‘higher’ class

• women had more of a role

  • split into 2 focuses: wanting better conditions and wanting political rights

populous movement

• rural citizens behind this

• wanted women to vote (19th)

• more rule over money (16th)

• 1913 federal reserve (17th)

• wanted prohibition (18th amendment)

• factory workers and rural population united

industrilization in 19th century early 1900s

• big corporations much more common, a few ruling industires

The Merger Movement

financiers

• people who use large amounts of money on behalf of

  • typically know less about the businesses themselves but just the processes they go through

    • e.g. J.P. Morgan

      • Carnegie sold to him

Taylorism

Scientific Management

• researchers took time into account to how fast labor tasks are done

• time and motion studies

  • are people in sync, are they talking while working, etc.

  • what actions are the most efficient

    • birth of micromanagement

• birth of industrial research centers

  • came up with time and motion specialists

• workers had no right in what the process of their work is/was

  • led to a lot of discontent and was then done away with

Industrial Response to Labor

• greater acceptance

• greater acceptance of regulation by the government

  • increased pay

Henry Ford was a big name

• wanted to assimilate immigrants

  • “americanization”

  • teaching how to dress, talk, etc. like Americans

• companies created newsletters and even adopted or created sports teams

• celebrated retirement of long-term workers and managers

• public relations became a common department

New Immigration

• Chinese

• mostly southern Europeans

  • scandanavian

    • Jewish and Catholic

  • were reluctant to send their kids to the public schools although all teens were required by law to go

    • resisted bc no religious values enforced and no way to make money at school

• a lot less this time (1.8 million)

• a lot of Mexicans

  • 10% moved to US due to revolution in MX

• Birds of passage

  • would come to the US, make a bunch of money, then go back home

    • a lot of Italians

Dealing with Immigrations and Social Problems

Temperance

• thought a lot of immigrants drank too much

• temperance turned to prohibition

• women and children affected most by alcohol abuse

• divorce rate double b/w 1880s and 1960

Theodore Roosevelt

low intellect, low wage, low moral

Progressive motives

• industrial elites degrading society

  • concern about its effects and conditions for life

  • overall was an urban movement

  • wanted management and regulation, overall, not radicalism

• restore past luster and lost status

• belief in reason and science

  • could be solved if the right people put their minds to it

• paternalistic and coercive

  • if you weren’t in their groups

  • very bold about their opinions “you need to do xyz, and this is why”

    • if you support target you’re a bigot, kind of thing

• use of scientific management and basically more

• paternalistic and coercive

• is not really extremist or radical

  • had its exceptions: eugenics and over doing scientific management

• did not work actively for Black suffrage

• overcome political machines and newly rich

• convert immigrants to Americanism and halt immigration from the ‘wrong countries’

• less concern for individual charity and for helping individuals and more concern for improving society

• a lot were first ministers

  • can create heaven on earth before Jesus comes back

  • almost exclusively protestant christians

    • then became more

• eugenics

  • low intelligence was considered genetic

    • italians, czechs, russians, germans, etc.

    • called the mixing of these races the ‘race suicide’

  • persuaded poor to have fewer children

  • “the passing of

• environmentalism

  • environment influences who people are

  • changing their environment changes who people are

  • criminals are made not born

    

Positive Eugenics

Professions

• certifications

  • need to go to school to be a teacher, lawyer

• economics became its own field

  • also needed to be certified for things

Women in Progressive Era

Florence Keller

Black Americans in the Progressive Era

• Booker T Washington (South)

  • education and up to speed before civil rights

• W.E>B> Du Bois

  • talent black americans

  • vocational education

  • one of first to get a P.h.D.

Civil Rights rarely touched in the south

• not by either party

• “the solid south”

  • all democrats who very strongly opposed civil rights in any manner

  • allowed lynching and all kinds of stuff

  • south very powerful in national voting

Cultural and Social life

• movies silent except for music in the background like in plays

  • no audio until the 30s

• 10k theatre houses with millions of viewers

• National Academy of Art

  • without approval, you had a hard time seling your art

  • originality was seen more like a bane or just not that common

• alternative school of art: AShkan school with 8 big artsits

  • gritty scenes of real life in big cities

  • 1900s-1920

  • jacob Reese

  • darker palletes

  • John sloan

  • George Bellows

  • Robert Henri

  • Theresa Bernstein

  • Brancusi

  • Cubism, Modernism, impressionism, fogs

  • not too involved with europe’s ideas

Presidents during the Progressive Era

theodore roosevelt

• elected in 1896 for VP

• becamse president in

established between good vs. bad trusts

• good services at reasonable rates

• vs. price gougers

clean food, pure drugs, pristine land

• pure food and drug act 1906

  • happened in stages

  • accurate labeling

    • make sure u state all that was in it

  • unsafe products

    • if it has arsenic

  • be affective for what you say it does

3 C’s

• conservation of natural resources

• control of corporations

• consumer protects

The square deal

• equal opportunity

the Bully Pulpit

• predatory wealth

Woodrow wilson

Henry Taft