The United States entered the Progressive Era from 1880 to 1920 when a variety of reformers tried to clean up problems created during the Gilded Age
Industrialization led to a rise in urbanization, immigration, poverty,
and dangerous working conditions
City, state, and federal governments were
seen as corrupt
Corporate monopolies limited competition and workers’ wages
1880-1900: Social Gospel movement to honor God you need to help people
Focus on trying to improve living and working conditions
YMCA, Salvation ArmySettlement houses – Jane Addams – Hull House in Chicago
Florence Kelley - child labor laws
Prohibition (temperance) movement
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) – Carrie Nation
18th Amendment (1919) – outlawed alcohol throughout the USA
Changes for Women
New laws will give women more legal rights
Women are active in other successful reforms during the late 1800s and are inspired to demand greater rights for women
Margaret Sanger – birth control
The most significant reform for women was the demand for suffrage (voting rights)
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton formed
the National American Women Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)
By the early 1900s, most western states allowed women to vote but women in the East could not voteIn 1920, the 19th Amendment gives women the vote
The Progressive Era led to demands for equal rights by African Americans
Sharecroppers = poverty
Literacy tests and poll taxes limited black voting
Jim Crow segregation
Plessy v Ferguson (1896) declared that segregation did not
violate the 14th amendment
Lynching and violence were common
Black civil rights leaders were divided on how to address racial problems
Booker T. Washington
Tuskegee Institute school to train black workers and
teachers
Accommodation: Blacks should work hard, educate themselves, and earn the
rights they wanted
WEB DuBoisCalled for immediate civil rights and the promotion of the “Talented Tenth” of young black leaders
Black civil rights leaders were divided on how to address racial problems
Niagara Movement National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP)
While women gained voting rights and labor laws……African Americans were unable to end Jim Crow
segregation, stop lynching, or gain economic equality
But, black leaders in the Progressive Era inspired
later generations to demand changes
Investigative journalists known as muckrakers exposed corruption, poverty, health hazards, and monopolies
Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives (1890): urban
poverty and life in the slums
Ida Tarbell’s The History of Standard Oil (1904):
corruption of monopolies (especially Standard Oil)
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
(1906): unsanitary
conditions of slaughterhouses
Politics were in need of reformPendleton Act (1883): merit-based exams for
government jobs
City governments shift to city commissions
and city managers Most state create
commissions to oversee gov’t spending
Referendum: citizens can vote to increase taxes for
new programs
Voting Reform
Initiatives: citizens can make law
Recalls: citizens vote to remove officials
Direct primary elections
Secret ballot17th Amendment (1913):
direct election of Senators
The most significant state reform was governor Robert La Follette’s “Wisconsin Idea”
First state to create an income tax, form
industrial commissions, and adopt regulations
on big businesses
Wisconsin politicians teamed with academic
“experts” from the University of Wisconsin
to create state laws
Wisconsin was a model for other progressive
state reforms
1901-1909: Theodore RooseveltBelieved the gov’t ought to take responsibility for the welfare of the people
“Square Deal”
Trust-buster; Regulate good monopolies
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
Conservation
TR hand-picked his successor in 1908
William Howard Taft
Like TR, Taft pushed for progressive reforms Broke up 2X more trustsEstablish the Children’s
Bureau and the Department of Labor
Went against Progressives by supporting a high tariffNot much on conservation
The election of 1912 was a three way raceWilliam Howard Taft can on the
Republican ticket
Democrats ran New Jersey governor
Woodrow Wilson
TR ran as a Progressive Bull Moose
Federal Trade Commission: monitors
unfair business practices
President Woodrow Wilson
Federal Reserve System: regulates economy by
controlling money supply and interest
rates
16th – 19th Amendments
Most of Wilson’s 2nd term was focused on World
War One
The Progressive Era (1890-1920) brought major changes to the United States
For the first time, the government began
regulating big business
Working and living conditions improved
Women’s suffrage and new state ballot reforms
increased democracy for the people
America’s involvement in World War I brought an
end to the Progressive Era