Progressive Movement

The Progressive Era

An Overview (1901-1917) - began when Theodore Roosevelt became president until the US entered WWI

Shared beliefs:
1. Society must limit big businesses, improve democracy, and strengthen social justice
2. Government was the proper agency for the changes
3. Moderate reform (didn’t want to radically change America, but wanted an expansion of governmental regulation, especially in regards to capitalism’s regulation)
Characteristics:
1. A very inclusive movement (urban middle class, the business community, farmers, factory workers, women, liberals, conservatives, etc.)
2. A combination of liberal concern for the poor, dispossessed, and downtrodden with conservative concern about social chaos
3. Built on the work of the populists from the Gilded age
Populists vs Progressives
1. Populists: Wanted to abolish national banks, graduated income tax, direct election of senators, civil service reform, 8-hour workday, government control of railroads and communication, bimetallism (gold and silver as currency)
2. Progressives: Urban middle class that wanted to purify American Society (not radically change it), sought to check the power of Socialists AND Big Business, better labor conditions (for whites), prohibition of alcohol, Americanization of Immigrants, antitrust laws, women’s suffrage, end of child labor, destroy political machines, conservation
All Amendments
1. 16: Congress has the power to pass direct taxes, such as income tax
2. 17: Senators are to be elected by the voters in their state
3. 18: production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages is illegal (prohibited)
4. 19: gives women the right to vote (suffrage)

Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909)

Trust-Busting: bad trusts should be broken up and good trusts should be regulated; first president to actually use the power of the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up a business monopoly
1. Acts that strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission (1903)
  1. Elkins Act (1903) - ICC can stop companies from giving rebates to favorable customers
  2. Hepburn Act (1906) - ICC can fix “just and reasonable rates for railroads”
2. Square Deal for Labor (Roosevelt favored neither business nor labor)
  1. Anthracite Coal Strike (1902)
  2. Penn coal miners → strike in 1902 (demanded higher wages, shorter workdays, and union recognition) → no coal means freeze to death
  3. Teddy called both to White House → compromise with the owner (if the owner refused, federal troops will takeover the mines) → owner agreed
  4. Roosevelt intervened as a “neutral arbitrator” to end the strike which was perceived to be the first time that the government did not side with big business (contrast from the Gilded Age)
Conservation: sought to protect land from exploitation by corporations, expanded the National Park System, protected wetlands
1. Acts
  1. Forest Reserve Act (1891) - 150 million acres of federal land made not for sale, but for planting trees
  2. Newlands Reclamation Act (1902) - law providing money from the sale of public land for irrigation in the west
  3. White House Conference (1908) - National Conservation Commission formed by Gifford Pinchot
Consumer Protection: sought to protect consumers from the power of corporations
1. Remember The Jungle by Upton Sinclair?
  1. Food and Drug Act (1906) - forbade the sale, manufacture, and transportation of adulterated or mislabeled foods and drugs
  2. Meat Inspection Act (1906) - federal inspectors will visit meatpacking plants to ensure sanitation
Roosevelt’s Corollary: made America an international police power and sent troops to Latin America (BIG STICK)
1. Panama Canal
  1. 1901, Great Britain allowed the U.S. to build the canal alone
  2. 1903, Panamanians revolted against the Colombian government → TR helped this & rebellion succeeded → Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (U.S. can have the canal zone in exchange for protection) → 1904 to 1914, Canal built
  3. 1999, U.S. ended this treaty that threatened “self-determination”
2. Roosevelt Corollary
  1. 1904, European powers came to the Dominican Republic to collect debt → Dec 1904, TR intervened by sending gunboats to facilitate the collection of debts → led to poor U.S. relations with Latin American countries

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Taft quickly developed his own “brand of progressivism” and imperialism → split between Roosevelt and Taft (divided the Republican Party)
Main Issues
1. Trusts - Roosevelt was a “Trust Regulator” & Taft was more of a “Trust Buster”
  1. Nearly double the antitrust cases as TR (Taft attacked U.S. steel, which was approved by TR → made TR angry)
  2. Taft’s Administration broke up some trusts that Roosevelt felt weren’t harmful to the public, which reflected negatively on Roosevelt's presidency
2. Foreign Policy - Taft’s brand of imperialism focused almost exclusively on Latin America while Roosevelt’s was on a more global scale
3. Tariffs - Roosevelt fought for a substantially lower tariff, but Taft signed into law a relatively high tariff in 1909 (Payne Aldrich Tariff)
4. Split - conservative faction was loyal to Taft, Progressives hoped TR would run again

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Tariff - called for a reduction in the Tariff rate
1. Underwood Tariff - lowered the tariff from 40% to 25% (lost Government revenue made up with the passage of the 16th Amendment, the income tax)
Banking Reform - caused by the inflexible gold standard (they were influenced too much by speculators on Wall Street)
1. 1914, Federal Reserve Act - established a system of 12 federal banks and a Federal Reserve Board that would set interest rates and regulate
2. Wilson proposed a national banking system (12 banks) supervised by a Federal Reserve Board appointed by the president
Trusts - expand the powers of the Government in regulating trusts/monopolies
1. 1914, Clayton Antitrust Act - made business monopolies illegal, declared that labor strikes were legal (strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act)
2. Federal Trade Commission - investigate and take action against any “unfair trade practice” in any industry except banking & transportation
Child Labor Act (1916) - interstate commerce cannot employ children under 14 years old (but later, Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional)

List of Progressive Era Movements for your SAQ 😃

Muckrakers - journalists who wrote articles exposing corruption in government and industry (rake the mud)
1. Ida Tarbell - 1902, The History of the Standard Oil Company
2. Jacob Riis - 1890, How the Other Half Lives
3. Upton Sinclair - 1905, The Jungle
Political Reforms
1. Secret Ballot - enforced everywhere by 1910
2. Direct Primaries - nominate state & federal office party bosses by the public, not private conventions
3. Direct Election of Senators - (1912, 30 states → 1913, 17th Amendment require Direct Election of Senators by popular vote)
4. Initiative - voters could compel state legislatures to consider a bill
5. Referendum - voters could vote on proposed laws
6. Recall - voters could remove a corrupt or unsatisfactory politician from office by majority vote
Temperance Movement
1. Wanted to curb the consumption of alcohol in the United States, had a large influence on American politics and society, and led to the 18th Amendment (prohibition of alcohol). Mostly done by women.
2. Notable people / organizations: Carrie Nation, Anti-Saloon League
Municipal Reforms
1. Mayor Samuel M. “Golden Rule” Jones of Ohio
  1. Self-made millionaire who provided free kindergartens, night schools, and public playgrounds
2. Tom L. Johnson
  1. Attempted to achieve public ownership of public utilities, but failed
3. By 1915, ⅔ of cities owned their own water systems, gas lines, electric power plants, and urban transportation systems (modernization)
4. Commissions & city managers are now voted (this includes department heads in the fire department, police, & sanitation) → 1923, 300+ cities adopted the manager-council plan
Social Welfare
1. Settlement House Movement - American social reformers began founding settlement houses in the late 1880s to respond to growing industrial poverty and the negative effects of rapid urbanization. Jane Addams ("Hull House" in Chicago)
Child and Woman Labor
1. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911) - industrial disaster as the fire claimed the lives of 146 people, most of them immigrant women and girls, working in sweatshops.
  1. Caused an outcry against unsafe working conditions in factories and sweatshops.
  2. Led to numerous workplace safety regulations on both the state and federal level
2. Committees: National Child Labor Committee, National Consumers League
3. Child labor led to compulsory school attendance
4. Court Cases
  1. Lochner v. New York (1905) - 10-hour workday
  2. Muller v. Oregon (1908) - women needed health protection as well
Women’s suffrage
1. Carrie Chapman Catt (president of National American Women’s Suffrage Association) argued that the vote equals the broadening of democracy that would empower women
2. Alice Paul → National Women’s Party founded in 1916 → focused on support from president and congress
3. 19th Amendment guaranteed (white) women’s right to vote

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