America in the 1900s

Teddy Roosevelt

• Born in NYC• Sick as a child,

encouraged to be athletic and spend time outdoors

• Boxing, camping, hunting

• Masculinity

Teddy Roosevelt

• Harvard Educated• NY Assemblyman• Rancher in Dakota

Territory, 1880s• Worked in Harrison

administration, NYC Police Commissioner, Asst Sec of Navy during Spanish American War.

Rough Riders

President Roosevelt, 1901 - 1909

• 1899: VP Hobart dies in office.• 1900: McKinley/TR defeat WJ Bryan.• 1901: McKinley assassinated, TR becomes

President.

1900

• Tremendous social stratification and inequality.– Andrew Carnegie’s income was $23 million/year,

Average head of household was $500/year.– 1% of Americans owned 87% of wealth– 80% of Americans were subsistence wage earners

Urban Changes

1890s Urban growth is extraordinary

1860: 5 cities of 100,000

1890: 38 cities of 100,000

(2010: 252)

Muckrakers

The social pressures of increased population density led to calls for municipal level reform.

• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1895• Lincoln Steffens, Shame of the Cities, 1904• Ida Tarbell, History of Standard Oil, 1904• Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906Muckrakers identified social issues, proposed

solutions including public intervention.

Trust Busting

• 1902: Ida Tarbell’s History of Standard Oil published magazine series, a muckraking anti-monopoly tract.

• 1904: Teddy Roosevelt elected president, campaigned as “trust buster.”

• 1905-1909: US government prosecuted S.O. for unfair trade practices.

• 1911: Standard Oil ordered to dissolve.

Breaking up the Giant• Seven regional mini-Standard Oils and a 25+ smaller companies:

– S.O. of New York = Mobil– S.O. of New Jersey = Exxon (later merged with Mobil)– S.O. of Ohio = Sohio (later bought by BP)– S.O. of California = Chevron (later merged with Texaco)– S.O. of Indiana = Amoco (later bought by BP)– Continental Oil = Conoco (later bought by Phillips)– Atlantic Oil = Arco (later bought by BP, now Sunoco)

Professionalization

The 1880s to 1900s witnessed a wave or institutional reforms that created professional standards.• American Bar Association 1878• American Historical Association 1889• American Psychiatry Association 1892• American Medical Association 1897

Progressivism

• Rational use of government powers to solve social problems.

• Social uplift/social control.• Role of “experts”.• Space for “woman’s maternal role”.• Rises from municipal to state and national and

then international levels.

Progressive Reforms

• Initiative• Recall• Referendum• City Councils and Managers• Public school expansion• Sanitation services

Progressive President?Teddy Roosevelt & Election of 19041904: Teddy Roosevelt seeks nomination on Republican ticket for his first

Presidential election.

Teddy Roosevelt (R): 7.6 million336 electoral college votes56%

Alton Parker (D): 5 million140 electoral college votes38%

Eugene Debs (S): .4 million3%

Prohibition, Populists, and other small parties run candidates as well.

1904

Progressive President Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt embraces Reform• State and federal parks system, Yellowstone, Muir• Promoted fitness and exercise to restore masculine vigor to

American men; emergence of YMCA• Sent in federal militia to PROTECT striking coal miners, 1902• Oversaw establishment of Dept. of Commerce, 1903• Pursued anti-trust action against monopolies, particularly

Standard Oil, 1905-1911• Interstate Commerce Commission, 1904• Established Food and Drug Administration, 1906

1908

Teddy Roosevelt declines to run a second time for a third term.William Howard Taft (R): 7.7 million

321 EC52%

William Jennings Bryan (D): 6.4 million162 EC43%Third time to lose!

Eugene Debs (S): .42 million2.8%

1908

President Taft

1908 Roosevelt’s Secretary of War and former governor of the Philippines vs. aging, perennial Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

1909-1913: Taft served one term as President. Strove to balance Roosevelt’s Progressivism and traditional pro-Wall Street Republican priorities.

1912: Roosevelt frustrated with own inactivity and with Taft administration, challenged Taft in 1912 for nomination.

1912

Republican Party denied Teddy Roosevelt the nomination in favor of business friendly incumbent.

Roosevelt founded his own party, the Progressive Party, nicknamed the Bull Moose Party.

Democrats nominated Virginian born and Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson as a “Progressive Democrat”.

1912

Woodrow Wilson (D): 6.3 million435 EC

Teddy Roosevelt (P): 4.1 million88 EC

William Taft (R): 3.5 million8 EC

Eugene Debs (S): .9 million0 EC

1912

Progressive Amendments

• Amendment 16: Income Tax (1913)• Amendment 17: Direct Election of Senators

(1913)• Amendment 18: Prohibition (1919)• Amendment 19: Women’s Suffrage (1920)• Amendment ??: Child Labor Act (1924)

28 States ratified, just 10 to go!