1. PROGRESSIVES
1890 to 1920
“Progressives were reformers who attempted to solve problems caused by industry, growth of cities and laissez faire.”

2. Populists vs Progressives
Populists---rural
Progressives---cities
Populists were poor and uneducated
Progressives were middle-class and educated.
Populists were too radical
Progressives stayed political mainstream.
Populists failed
Progressives succeeded

3. Areas to Reform Social Welfare Moral Improvement Economic Reform
PROGRESSIVES
Areas to Reform
Social Welfare
Moral Improvement
Economic Reform
Fostering Efficiency

4. PROGRESSIVES
Social Welfare Improve working conditions in industry, regulate unfair business practices, eliminate child labor, help immigrants and the poor

7. The Wages of Negligence Family members arrive at the morgue to identify the bodies
of victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in Outrage over this calamity
galvanized a generation of reformers to fight for better workplace safety rules.
p646

8. PROGRESSIVES
Moral Improvement Morality was the key to improving the lives of the poor, and hoped to help people uplift themselves by improving their personal behavior

9. Saloon Keepers Versus Homemakers This Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union flyer, tallying the cumulative
costs of alcohol consumption to a drinking man’s family,
illustrates the influential role of women in the temperance
movement. Alcohol abuse threatened the stability and
economic well-being of the family, still predominantly considered
the “woman’s sphere” at the turn of the century.
p647

10. Promoting Moral Improvement
Most successful and well known WCTU reformer was Carrie Nation.
She would march into a bar and sing and pray, while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet.

11. Promoting Moral Improvement
Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times, and paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.
Changed her name to Carry A. Nation and referred to herself as “A Home Defender”.

12. PROGRESSIVES
Economic Reform
Fairness and opportunity in the work world, regulate unfair trusts and bring about changes in labor.
Demonstrate to the common people that U.S. Government is in charge and not the industrialists.

13. The IWW Seeks Subscribers, 1911 This poster
aimed to attract subscribers to Industrial Worker,
the newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW). The IWW was a small but vocal radical
labor union that hoped to unify American
workers in “one big union,” irrespective of their
particular jobs, gender, or race. Its motto was
“An injury to one is an injury to all.” At its peak
in 1923, the union claimed 100,000 members,
commonly known as Wobblies, and could marshal
the support of some 300,000 more, mostly
workers on the docks and in mines, lumbering,
and textiles.
p643

14. Roosevelt Tames the Trusts Legend to the contrary,
Roosevelt did not attack all trusts indiscriminately. Rather,
he pursued a few high-profile cases against a handful of
corporate giants, in order to “tame” other businesses into
accepting government regulation.
p649

15. Progressives exposed corruption but offered no solutions.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
MUCKRAKERS
Muckrakers were journalists and photographers who exposed the abuses of wealth and power.
They felt it was their job to write and expose corruption in industry, cities and government.
Progressives exposed corruption but offered no solutions.

16. “Digging up the dirt” = Investigative Journalism
SOCIAL JUSTICE
They believed that if the public could only see or read for itself…..
There would be an outcry and people would want to help make conditions better…..
Or demand the government to make reforms.
“Digging up the dirt” = Investigative Journalism

17. PROGRESSIVES
Fostering Efficiency
Using scientific principles to make society and the workplace more efficient

18. Reforming Government
Corruption, ineptitude, and a desire to make government more efficient led progressives to reform government at all levels.
New types of city governments were adopted.
Progressive mayors and governors enacted needed reforms
Laws and amendments were passed to give people more power and to make government more democratic

19. Workplace Reforms
The growth of women and children in the industrial workforce, and accidents that coincided, resulted in a push to regulate work hours, ban child labor, and institute safety regulations in business across America