Populism, Imperialism, and Progressivism

Populism

• (mostly farmers) wanted to get rid of the power of large businesses

• unlimited coinage of silver

• graduated income tax

• died out but their ideas were carried out by other political parties

Imperialism

• expansion of empires (small countries are controlled by large countries)

• supported by Social Darwinism (“Survival of the Fittest”), Anglo-Saxonism (superiority of the white race), Jingoism (the willingness to fight for their country over anything)

Progressivism

• worked on social reforms (growing powers of big business, instabilities in the economy, workers’ rights, Jim Crow laws/segregation, political machine power, women’s suffrage, temperance)

• “Government needs to get involved to prevent society/the country from falling apart”

• Progressive era journalists (muckrakers): Upton Sinclair (The Jungle), Ida Tarbel (about U.S. Steel), Jacob Riis (Where the Other Half Lives - exposes the bad living conditions in tenements that the poor/working class people of NYC had to live in)

• created the Secret Ballot (people can vote in private, so they aren’t forced/influenced into voting for what the party boss wants)