The Progressive Era Social Changes and Awareness Government Reform

Social Awareness Progressivism- Era between1890-1920 Wanted to fix the problems created by the Industrial Rev. Over population Slums Poor work conditions

Social Awareness Muckrakers- journalists who investigated social conditions and corruption. Jacob Riis- Photo essays… How The Other Half Lives -showed slums Upton Sinclair- The Jungle -Showed deplorable conditions in meat packing plants

"I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident hit its stomach."

Sinclair, The Jungle …There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white – it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs.

Sinclair, The Jungle …There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats.

These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – Sinclair, The Jungle

…for the odor of a fertilizer-man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard! Sinclair, The Jungle

Making Government Efficient Commission Plan The notion that government should be run by a group of experts and not popular or corrupt politicians

Three big changes in Gov’t Voter initiative- citizens are allowed to introduce legislation and the legislature is required to vote on it Referendum- allowed proposed legislation to be approved by the voters Recall- allowed voters to demand special elections to remove elected officials

Suffrage (right to vote) 1890- The National American Women Suffrage Association is created Forces President Woodrow Wilson to Take action on Women’s suffrage 1918 The House passed an amendment. It failed in the Senate. August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment passed guaranteeing women the right to vote

Social Welfare 1900- The National Child Labor Committee ends child labor Temperance Movements- Initial call for reducing alcohol consumption l Later they call for Prohibition (complete ban) Alcohol is blamed for many of society’s problems 1909- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed to bring and end to racial discrimination

Business Reform Socialism- Government should own and operate industry Free Enterprise- supported by most Americans…based on business regulating itself through Supply and Demand

Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency The Square Deal- believed progressive reforms were needed to balance the needs of all groups Conservation- 1902 New lands Reclamation Act…used federal $ to set aside millions of acres of wildlife preserves