Strike (labor related) Monopolies Trustbusters Warm up: Definitions Unions Strike (labor related) Monopolies Trustbusters
9-5 The Progressive Era 1880-1920
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company The Gilded Age and the Progressive Movement LESSON 5 Big Idea From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, the Progressive movement addressed problems in American society. Main Ideas Progressives pushed for reforms to improve living conditions. Progressive reforms expanded the voting power of citizens. Reformers attempted to improve conditions for child laborers. Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in the workplace and to limit working hours. Women fight for temperance and the right to vote African American reformers challenged discrimination and called for equality. Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive reforms tried to balance the interests of business, consumers, and laborers. Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Background: Life in the Cities No clean water Sewage systems Tenements Ventilation & fire codes Tuberculosis & disease Long work days Unsafe work conditions Child Labor
Target of Progressivism Reaction to “extremes” of modern life Urbanization (living conditions) Labor conflicts (strikes, working conditions) Immigration Environmental issues Social rights issues and problems
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Progressives Push for Reforms Main Idea 1 Progressives pushed for reforms to improve living conditions. Reformers Progressives were reformers who worked to solve problems caused by rapid industrial and urban growth. Eliminate causes of crime, disease, and poverty Ease overcrowding in cities Advocate for better education Promote better working conditions and less child labor Fight corruption in business and government Muckrakers were journalists who wrote about child labor, racial discrimination, slum housing, and corruption in business. Influenced voters, causing them to pressure government officials Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Expansion of Voting Power Main Idea 2 Progressive reforms expanded the voting power of citizens. Progressives worked to reduce the power of the political machines by: Ending corrupt ballot practices Adopting the secret ballot Adopting the direct primary, which allowed voters to choose party candidates rather than having it done by party bosses The Seventeenth Amendment allowed Americans to vote directly for U.S. senators. continued… Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Improving Conditions for Children Main Idea 3 Reformers attempted to improve conditions for child laborers. Marie Van Vorst focused attention on the problem of child labor. Many children worked in industry—in 1900 more than 1.75 million children age 15 or younger. Children as young as seven years old provided cheap labor for manufacturers but brought home only small amounts of money to their families. Reformers wanted labor laws to protect women and children. continued… Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Safety and Working Conditions Main Idea 4 Unions and reformers took steps to improve safety in the workplace and to limit working hours. Workplace accidents were coming in 1800s and early 1900s. Some 35,000 Americans were killed industrial accidents in 1900. About 500,000 suffered injuries in 1900. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that killed 146 workers, mostly women and girls, led to laws to improve factory safety. Reformers fought for workers’ compensation laws, which guaranteed a portion of lost wages to workers injured on the job. In 1902 Maryland became the first state to pass a workers’ compensation law. continued… Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Main Idea 5: Women fight for temperance and the right to vote Temperance Women reformers took up the cause of temperance: avoidance of alcohol consumption. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union campaigned to restrict the sale of alcoholic beverages. Radical temperance fighter Carry Nation stormed saloons and smashed bottles with an axe in the 1890s. Temperance efforts led to the Eighteenth Amendment (1919), banning the production, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. continued… Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Women’s Suffrage Women reformers fought for suffrage, or the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890). Alice Paul founded the more radical National Woman’s Party (1913). Used parades and public demonstrations, picketing, and hunger strikes to spread their message Suffragists won the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment (1919). Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company African Americans Challenge Discrimination Main Idea 6 African American reformers challenged discrimination and called for equality. Booker T. Washington encouraged African Americans to improve their educational and economic well-being. Ida B. Wells spoke out against discrimination and drew attention to the lynching of African Americans. W. E. B. Du Bois attacked discrimination and helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They called for economic and educational equality for African Americans. The National Urban League, founded in 1911, helped African Americans moving from the South to find jobs and housing. Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Roosevelt’s Progressive Reforms Main Idea 7 Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive reforms tried to balance the interests of business, consumers, and laborers. Theodore Roosevelt called his reform policy the Square Deal. Used his policy to help settle the 1902 coal miners’ strike Threatened to take over the mines unless managers agreed to arbitration, a formal process for settling disputes, with the strikers Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Regulating Big Business Influenced by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Roosevelt urged Congress to enact meat inspection laws. Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of mislabeled or contaminated food and drugs Roosevelt persuaded Congress to regulate railroad shipping rates. Was the first president to successfully use the 1890 Sherman Trust Act to break up a monopoly (known as trustbusting or trust busters) The public largely supported this expansion of federal regulatory powers. continued… Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Exit Ticket: What did the Progressive Era accomplish?