INTRODUCTION
The Progressive
Era (1901–1929) was a period in the United States during the early
20th century of widespread social activism and political reform across the
country. Progressives sought to address the problems caused by rapid
industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption as well
as the enormous concentration of industrial ownership in monopolies.
Progressive reformers were alarmed by the spread of slums, poverty, and the
exploitation of labor. Multiple overlapping progressive movements fought perceived
social, political, and economic ills by advancing democracy, scientific
methods, and professionalism; regulating business; protecting the natural
environment; and improving working and living conditions of the urban poor.
Philosophical questions:
Why was it called the Progressive Era?
It was called Progressive movement because there was political and social-reform
movement that brought major changes to the United States during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. During this time, known as the Progressive Era, the
movement’s goals involved strengthening the national government and addressing
people’s economic, social, and political demands.
What were the causes of the Progressive Era?
·
The
urbanization of the time included a shift from small-scale manufacturing and
business to large-scale factory production.
·
The
growth of cities and industries introduced new problems, such as
worsening economic inequality, dangerous working conditions, and poor, overcrowded
living conditions.
·
At
the time, the United States had a more decentralized form of government that
was not equipped to address new economic and social problems on a national
scale.
What were the success of the Progressive Era?
·
The
Progressive Era started a reform tradition that has since been present in
American society.
·
Regulations
that progressive groups helped to enact still shape government and commerce
today, including food safety requirements, child labor laws, and the
normalization of the eight-hour workday.
·
Many
labor unions, trade groups, and professional, civic, and religious associations
were founded. They improved the lives of individuals and communities.
What were the problems in the Progressive Era?
·
Rapid
industrialization problem
·
Urbanization
problem
·
Political
corruption problem
Significant event in the Era
·
Spanish-American
War
Spanish-American War, (1898), conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas
and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific
and Latin America. The immediate cause of the
Spanish-American War was Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.
Newspapers in the U.S. printed sensationalized accounts of Spanish atrocities,
fueling humanitarian concerns. The mysterious destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana’s harbor on February 15, 1898, led to a
declaration of war against Spain two months later.
·
Philippine-American
War
There were two phases to the
Philippine-American War. The first phase, from February to November of 1899,
was dominated by Aguinaldo’s ill-fated attempts to fight a conventional war
against the better-trained and equipped American troops. The second phase was
marked by the Filipinos’ shift to guerrilla-style warfare. It began in November
of 1899, lasted through the capture of Aguinaldo in 1901 and into the spring of
1902, by which time most organized Filipino resistance had dissipated.
President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed a general amnesty and declared the
conflict over on July 4, 1902, although minor uprisings and insurrections
against American rule periodically occurred in the years that followed.
Event that usher in the Progressive
Era in USA
Propelled by a Second Industrial Revolution, the United
States arose from the ashes of the Civil War to become one of the world’s
leading economic powers by the turn of the 20th century. Corporate titans such
as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan amassed spectacular
fortunes and engaged in the most conspicuous of consumptions. Beneath this
golden veneer, however, American society was tarnished by poverty and
corruption, which caused this period of American history to be called the
“Gilded Age,” derived from the title of an 1873 novel co-authored by Mark
Twain.
Protected from foreign competition by high
tariffs, American industrialists colluded to drive competitors out of business
by creating monopolies and trusts in which groups of companies were controlled
by single corporate boards. Political corruption ran amok during the Gilded Age
as corporations bribed politicians to ensure government policies favored big
businesses over workers. Graft fueled urban political machines, such as New
York’s Tammany Hall, and the Whiskey Ring and Crédit Mobilier scandals revealed
collusion by public officials and business leaders to defraud the federal
government.
As the rich grew richer during the Gilded Age, the poor
grew poorer. The great wealth accumulated by the “robber barons” came at the
expense of the masses. By 1890, the wealthiest 1 percent of American families
owned 51 percent of the country’s real and personal property, while the 44
percent at the bottom owned only 1.2 percent.
The
Populist Party pushes for reforms
Many Gilded Age workers toiled in dangerous jobs
for low pay. Approximately 40 percent of industrial laborers in the 1880s
earned below the poverty line of $500 a year. With such a yawning chasm between
“haves” and “have-nots,” workers fought back against the inequality by forming
labor unions. Industrial strikes occurred with greater frequency—and greater
violence—following the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. During the 1880s alone,
there were nearly 10,000 labor strikes and lockouts.
The belief that big businesses had too much power
in the United States led to a backlash. The passage of the Tariff Act of 1890,
which hiked import duties to nearly 50 percent and raised consumer prices,
sparked an agrarian political rebellion that gave rise to the People’s Party,
known as the “Populists.” The party advocated for government ownership of
railroad and telephone companies, a graduated income tax, shorter workdays and
the direct election of senators. In the 1892 presidential election, Populist
candidate James Weaver won 22 electoral votes.
When the Panic of 1893 launched what was at the time
the worst economic downturn in American history, President Grover Cleveland was
forced to borrow $65 million in gold from financiers including Morgan to keep
the federal government afloat, further highlighting corporate power in American
society.
“It is no longer a government of the people, by the
people and for the people,” proclaimed Populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease,
“but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street.” The
victory of Tariff Act of 1890 sponsor William McKinley in the 1896 presidential
election marked the effective end of the People’s Party, but it foreshadowed
the Progressive Era to come.
The
role of President Theodore Roosevelt in the Progressive Era
Some historians point to the 1890s as the start of
the Progressive Era, but the ascent of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency
after McKinley’s assassination marked its definitive arrival. Like the
Populists, Progressives advocated democratic reforms and greater governmental
regulation of the economy to temper the capitalistic excesses of the Gilded
Age. Historian Richard Hofstadter wrote that the Progressive movement sought to
“restore a type of economic individualism and political democracy that was
widely believed to have existed earlier in America and to have been destroyed
by the great corporation and the corrupt political machine.”
Unlike previous presidents, Roosevelt vigorously
enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up industrial behemoths. The “trust
buster” was also the first president to threaten to use the army on behalf of
labor in a 1902 coal miners’ strike. Roosevelt easily won re-election in 1904
campaigning on a “Square Deal” platform to control corporations, conserve
natural resources and protect consumers.
Investigative journalists, writers and photographers
spurred Progressive reforms by exposing corporate malfeasance and social
injustice. These “muckrakers” included Ida Tarbell, whose investigation of
Rockefeller led to the breakup of the Standard Oil Company monopoly. Upton
Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle about working conditions in the
meatpacking industry sparked the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and Pure
Food and Drug Act in 1906.
SOCIAL REFORMS MOVEMENT
Settlement
House Movement - White, upper-middle class,
college-educated women who wanted to make a difference in society created and
worked at settlement houses, which were like community centers in inner-city,
immigrant neighborhoods. They wanted to improve the lives of slum-dwellers by
providing education and child care, teaching English and other basic skills,
helping the immigrants get better jobs and housing, and uplifting them
culturally (art & music appreciation.) Part of the mission of the
settlement house workers was Americanization of immigrants to teach the
immigrants WASP middle-class values. The most famous settlement house was Hull
House in Chicago, led by Jane Addams. Black middle-class women ran separate
settlement houses for fellow African-Americans illustrating the racial
segregation of the Progressive movement.
Housing
and Sanitation Reforms - Progressive reformers urged cities to
pass legislation which set standards for housing (to try to eliminate the worst
tenements) and such sanitation matters as garbage pick-up and sewage systems.
The legislation would require the hiring of inspectors to see that these
standards were met. Many of the inspectors first hired by city governments
under these reforms were women, such as Jane Addams.
Beautification
Campaigns - Some reformers wanted to improve the urban
environment by making it more pleasant and attractive. This, like the housing
reforms, was based on their idea that an improved environment meant improved
people. (This idea was a rejection of Social Darwinism.) Some of their reforms
included parks, civic centers, and better transportation systems. Some
historians argue that these were superficial reforms enacted to please the
middle-class inhabitants or tourists of cities, but did not really address the
dire problems of the masses who lived in the slums.
Anti-Prostitution
Campaign - Progressives were responsible for the Mann Act
(1910), which prohibited interstate transportation of
women for immoral purposes. By 1915, nearly every state had outlawed
prostitution.
Woman
suffrage This was the movement to secure for women the right
to vote. Many different kinds of women (race, class, and ethnicity) joined the
campaign to win the federal amendment, but the movement was mainly led by WASP
middle and upper-class women.
Factory
Safety Regulations, Limits on Working Hours (mainly for women), Workers
Compensation for injuries, Restrictions on Women and Child Labor - While
labor unions sought these measures by organizing workers to bargain with their
employers, a tense alliance between some middle-class and working-class
reformers also sought these reforms by passing laws (government intervention
instead of collective bargaining.) These reformers were successful in
convincing most states to pass factory inspection laws, workers comp, and
minimum age of employment laws. Some states passed laws limiting the number of hours’ women (but not men) could work. These regulations
were usually difficult to enforce; many employers found ways to evade them.
Another problem
was that some working-class families wanted their women and children to work in
order to make as much money for the family as possible (in order to survive)
and did not appreciate reforms that restricted women and child labor. Many
middle-class reformers did not understand this reaction. Many middle-class
reformers believed that the working class should adopt WASP middle-class
values, which included the value that women and children should not work for
wages.
Moreover, even
though they wanted to improve conditions for workers, many middle-class
reformers were suspicious of (or hostile to) labor unions because they felt
threatened by the idea of working-class autonomy, or working-class solidarity.
They were much more comfortable with the idea of the middle class generously
bestowing labor reforms upon the downtrodden workers, which is a paternalistic
attitude. Working-class reformers, including socialists, recognized this
condescending attitude and were uneasy about working with middle-class
reformers to achieve labor legislation, though they
often swallowed hard and did anyway. There were, however, some examples of
fairly harmonious organizations that brought working-class and middle-class
reformers together to help workers.
Temperance,
then Prohibition - Progressive reformers focused their
fight against the consumption of alcohol on the saloons. Saloons were a major
center of immigrant culture, for they were not only bars but important social
gathering places and where most political machines operated out of. The
Progressives war on saloons was motivated by a sincere concern for the real
dangers of alcohol consumption and its effect on families, particularly on
innocent women and children, and also by a less compassionate anti-immigrant
sentiment. Overall, Prohibition aimed at decreasing, if not stopping, drinking
by the working class, especially working-class immigrants. Prohibition also had
an economic motivation: employers wanted sober, efficient workers.
Kill
the Political Machine - Progressives viewed the immigrant’s political
machines as corrupt and inefficient. Also, middle-class WASP reformers felt
threatened by the power these machines afforded working-class immigrants.
Progressives wanted to take the politics (the wheeling & dealing, the
personal favors) out of government to make it more scientific and efficient and
remove power from the hands of immigrants. They advocated replacing elected
officials with appointed experts, such as trained city managers.
Initiative,
Referendum, Recall, and Popular Election of Senators - (17th Amendment) These reforms
aimed to bring about broader political participation to return power to the
people and eliminated corrupt and concentrated power. Some historians argue
that middle-class WASP reformers pushed these reforms because they saw
themselves, not working-class immigrants or African Americans, as the people
who would gain power. Some middle-class reformers assumed that the working
class would not have the time, intelligence, or other resources to participate
actively in the political process.
Meat
Inspection Act, and the Pure Food & Drug Act
- Before the passage of these acts, there was no government agency to make sure
that food, drugs, or any other kind of product was safe. The credo let the
buyer beware had dominated. But when Upton Sinclair published The Jungle
in 1906, which publicized the disgusting methods of meat-packing plants, the
public became outraged. Reformers argued that in a complex, technological age
dominated by big business, consumers needed impartial government experts to
regulate manufacturers, tell consumers what was safe, and eliminate corrupt
business practices.
Anti-Trust Regulation-
Progressives sought more fairness in the capitalist economy and thought that if
businesses became too big and powerful (trusts or monopolies), then they could
exploit consumers and workers and drive out small businesses. Progressives
believed that the government needed to intervene to regulate the size and power
of corporations. Examples of anti-trust laws and government agencies to
regulate trusts are the Interstate Commerce Commission (and the Hepburn Act),
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and The Federal Trade Commission.
Good
roads
The most urgent need was better transportation.
The railroad system was virtually complete; the need was for much better roads.
The traditional method of putting the burden on maintaining roads on local
landowners was increasingly inadequate. New York State took the lead in 1898,
and by 1916 the old system had been discarded in every area. Demands grew for local
and state government to take charge. With the coming of the automobile after
1910, urgent efforts were made to upgrade and modernize dirt roads designed for
horse-drawn wagon traffic. The American Association for Highway Improvement was
organized in 1910. Funding came from automobile registration, and taxes on
motor fuels, as well as state aid. In 1916, federal aid was first made
available to improve post-roads, and promote general commerce. Congress
appropriated $75 million over a five-year period, with the Secretary of
Agriculture in charge through the Bureau of Public Roads, in cooperation with
the state highway departments. There were 2.4 million miles of rural dirt
rural roads in 1914; 100,000 miles had been improved with grading and gravel,
and 3000 miles were given high quality surfacing. The rapidly increasing speed
of automobiles, and especially trucks, made maintenance and repair a high
priority. Concrete was first used in 1933, and expanded until it became the
dominant surfacing material in the 1930s. The South had fewer cars and trucks
and much less money, but it worked through highly visible demonstration
projects like the "Dixie Highway."
Schools
Rural schools were often poorly funded, one room
operations. Typically, classes were taught by young local women before they
married, with only occasional supervision by county superintendents. The
progressive solution was modernization through consolidation, with the result
of children attending modern schools. There they would be taught by full-time
professional teachers who had graduated from the states' teacher’s colleges,
were certified, and were monitored by the county superintendents. Farmers
complained at the expense, and also at the loss of control over local affairs,
but in state after state the consolidation process went forward.
Numerous other programs were aimed at rural youth,
including 4-H clubs, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. County fairs not only gave
prizes for the most productive agricultural practices, they also demonstrated
those practices to an attentive rural audience. Programs for new mothers
included maternity care and training in baby care.
DECLINE
The Progressive political crusades were overshadowed in 1919 by violent
confrontations with Bolsheviks (Communists), anarchists and violent strikes.
The crusading element of progressivism thus largely ended, apart from
prohibition, although business-oriented efficiency efforts continued. In 1919,
Theodore Roosevelt died and Wilson's health collapsed, leaving a void in top
leadership. The major new face was Herbert Hoover.
Much less settled is the question of when the era ended. Some historians
who emphasize civil liberties decry their suppression during 1917–1919 and do
not consider the war as rooted in Progressive policy. A strong anti-war
movement headed by noted Progressives including Jane Addams, was suppressed by
the Preparedness Movement and Wilson's 1916 re-election, a victory largely
enabled by his campaign slogan, "He kept us out of the war." The
slogan was no longer accurate by April 6 of the following year, when Wilson
surprised much of the Progressive base that twice elected him and asked a joint
session of Congress to declare war on Germany. The Senate voted 82–6 in favor;
the House agreed, 373–50. Some historians see the so-called "war to end
all wars" as a globalized expression of the American Progressive movement,
with Wilson's support for a League of Nations as its climax.
The politics of the 1920s was unfriendly toward
the labor unions and liberal crusaders against business, so many if not most
historians who emphasize those themes write off the decade. Urban cosmopolitan
scholars recoiled at the moralism of prohibition, the intolerance of the
nativists and the KKK, and on those grounds denounced the era. Richard Hofstadter,
for example, in 1955 wrote that prohibition, "was a pseudo-reform, a
pinched, parochial substitute for reform" that "was carried about
America by the rural–evangelical virus". However, as Arthur S. Link
emphasized, the Progressives did not simply roll over and play dead. Link's
argument for continuity through the 1920s stimulated a historiography that
found Progressivism to be a potent force. Palmer, pointing to leaders like
George Norris, says, "It is worth noting that progressivism, while temporarily
losing the political initiative, remained popular in many western states and
made its presence felt in Washington during both the Harding and Coolidge
presidencies." Gerster and Cords argue that, "Since progressivism was
a 'spirit' or an 'enthusiasm' rather than an easily definable force with common
goals, it seems more accurate to argue that it produced a climate for reform
which lasted well into the 1920s, if not beyond." Some social historians
have posited that the KKK may in fact fit into the Progressive agenda, if
Klansmen are portrayed as "ordinary white Protestants" primarily
interested in purification of the system, which had long been a core
Progressive goal.
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