Progressive Movement 8-5.8

8-5.8 Compare the Progressive Movement in SC with the national movement, including the impact on temperance; women's suffrage; labor laws; and educational, agricultural, health, and governmental reform.

Unit 12 SLM: Progressive Issues EQ: How does the Progressive movement in SC compare to the national Progressive movement? Vocabulary: Progressive Movement Child Labor Muckrakers

What is going on?

Progressivism… (or the Progressive Movement) developed first at the city and state level in response to the problems of the growing cities and the changing workplace in the late ninetieth century. What problems?

Nationally, Progressives wanted to… Reform corrupt government End monopolistic practices by “big business” Improve industrial working class conditions Address the problems of immigrants & migrants Progressive mayors & governors were supported by a growing middle class in their cities; Progressives gained support at the national level with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

SC & the National Progressive Movement In SC, some national issues held little concern. For example: Solving the problems of new immigrants Why?

Major issues of Progressives in SC Child labor Fair treatment for workers Improving education Temperance Women’s suffrage The problems of the cities in the North prompted Northern Progressives to propose reform. In SC, the problems of Mill Villages prompted SC progressives to support reform.

Child Labor “There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers.” - Lewis Hine

“Muckrakers” Someone who seeks to expose corruption of business and government. Journalist or writers expose the truth to the public. Progressivism reached a large audience through the work of “muckraking” journalists.

“Muckrakers” in SC Newspapers in SC such as Columbia’s The State, like muckraking journalists elsewhere, Supported child labor reform with articles that described the problems of the workers.

The accident rate for children working in the mills was twice as high as it was for adults

Sadie, a cotton mill spinner Lancaster, South Carolina – 1908.

Accidents in Mills In one mill, Hine reported, “A twelve-year-old doffer boy fell into a spinning machine and the unprotected gearing tore out two of his fingers.”

Why hire children? Cheap Too young for complaints to be taken seriously

Why would parents allow it? Low wages

SC progressives were also concerned with issues of health and literacy Diseases spread through mill villages Mill workers remained largely illiterate

Education reform in SC… Compulsory attendance law Increased funding Establishment of adult school program by the state

Mill workers & Progressivism Reforms did not always have the support of mill workers Resented anyone telling them When their children could work That they had to go to school That they should be inoculated against diseases Why?

A state hospital was established outside Columbia for patients with TB Women raised money to build libraries throughout the state