1. Chapters 19 & 20, Henretta CITY POLITICS, POPULISTS AND PROGRESSIVES

2. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
“We are not used to a complicated civilization, we don’t know how to behave when personal contact and eternal authority have disappeared.  There are no precedents to guide us, no wisdom that was not meant for a simpler age.”
- Walter Lippmann, writing during World War I
New Problems Require New Solutions The world has changed faster than our ability to control it. The industrial world has created new kinds of jobs, new kinds of cities, new mixes of ethnicity, new temptations, new ideas and new challenges to authority, and nobody knows quite how to manage them. Yet corporations and cities continue to grow…

3. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Problem: How do we manage big cities?
Solution #1: Political Machines
Party organizations with representatives in each neighborhood cater to the needs of residents – especially new immigrants, helping them find jobs, housing and help through troubled times in return for their votes. Party leaders skim money off the top but often deliver effective government. Popular with the poor.
Solution #2: “Scientific” Government
Experts adopt “rational” innovations in government based on scientific data, careful observation and successes in other cities and countries. Popular innovations include replacing mayors with city managers or commissions and the public ownership of utilities and streetcar lines. Popular with the middle class.

4. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Problem: How do we manage big cities?
Solution #3: Exposés and Activism
Journalists photograph and write about urban problems, alarming the public, then reformers form targeted organizations (like the National Playground Association, the American Purity Foundation and the YMCA) pressure city, state and national governments to fix the problems. (Sometimes they fix problems directly, with institutions like settlement houses.) Popular with the middle class.

5. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Problem: How do we manage the industrial economy?
Solution #1: Worker-Farmer Radicalism
The poor people most threatened by the industrial economy band together to challenge the capitalist system, with radical programs for taxation, regulation and government control. They create the Greenback-Labor Party in the 1870s and the People’s Party (Populists) in the 1890s. Popular with the poor.
Solution #2: Progressive Reform
Middle-class reformers take some ideas from the worker-farmer parties, water them down, make them more business-friendly. They believe that government bureaus led by experts and armed with statistics can investigate problems, find rational solutions and regulate the private economy. Popular with the middle class.

6. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Some important themes of the Progressive Era
The belief that government must step in to solve problems Even when Americans choose corporate-friendly Republican William McKinley as president, they tend to believe that government action of some sort is necessary to rein in the excesses of large corporations. Nothing else is powerful enough to do so. They’re ready to try new ideas.
A true majority party Years of stalemated, weak, partisan and often corrupt government ends when Republicans achieve a substantial majority in Congress and win the White House in Weak governments couldn’t enact bold reforms, but strong governments with big majorities can.

7. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Some important themes of the Progressive Era
Resistance from the courts During this period, the courts tend to favor business, striking down many important reforms and regulations. They often argue that the privileged and underpriveleged have equal protection of the law when clearly they have it only on paper, e.g., in Plessy v. Ferguson, where they say black Americans and white Americans live “separate” lives but “equal” ones.
State and local governments are bold and experimental Much of the innovation of the Progressive era came from state and local governments. People often talk about states as the “laboratories of democracy,” where new ideas are tried before being adopted nationally. In no era was this as true as during this one.

8. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Some important themes of the Progressive Era
Reformers embrace a scientific approach Americans – especially better educated ones – come to love studies, graphs, evidence, data and statistics and believe that all problems can be solved by experts armed with the proper data. Progressives turn this into a philosophy of government.
Radical politics is widespread and acceptable Never before or since in American politics have radical ideas been so widespread and accepted. The Socialist Party wins more than six percent of the vote in The Industrial Workers of the World union works toward a general strike that will replace capitalism with a worker-controlled state. President Roosevelt avidly reads European socialist writers.

9. Important strands in Chapters 19-20
Some important themes of the Progressive Era
But, distrust of the poor and of African-Americans Middle class and wealthy Americans resist reform until poll taxes and literacy tests reduce the voting power of the poor and of blacks. Only then do they seek to empower remaining voters through such reforms as direct election of U.S. Senators and primaries for choosing presidential candidates.
And paternalism toward women Even though women lead many reform efforts, they mostly have to do it under the guise of protecting children and families – traditional roles for women.