1. The Progressive Era

2. What is a Progressive?
A “Progressive” is generally concerned with one of more of the following goals.
Promoting social welfare
Moral betterment
Economic, political, industrial or labor reform
Fostering efficiency

3. John Green’s Crash Course U.S. History #27: The Progressive Era

4. Progressive Presidents
Roosevelt
Taft
Wilson
Each of these three presidents was seen to be “progressive” by their contemporaries or by historians in different ways. However, modern critics might disagree.

5. Labor Reforms

7. Champions of Labor Reform
Florence Kelley – Founder of the “National Child Labor Committee” (1904)
Eugene V. Debs – Labor reformer, union founder and supporter, and proponent of socialism
Robert M. La Follette – Labor reformer concerned with limiting corporate power and championing worker’s compensation

8. Labor Problems: Long hours (12-16) Low pay Child labor
Few recognized unions
No safety
Progress:
8-9 hour workday
Higher wages
Child labor banned (not fully until 1938)
Unions began to gradually gain grudging acceptance from employers, and continued to gain power
First worker safety laws passed in individual states beginning in 1877 (not fully addressed until 1971!!)

9. Environment Problems: Depletion of natural resources
Destruction of natural landscapes
Destruction of species

13. Environment Progress: Problems: National Parks created
Balance environmentally-responsible commercial development while still allowing for conservation and habitat protection
Making it possible for the public to enjoy natural landscapes
Problems:
Depletion of natural resources
Destruction of natural landscapes
Extinction of other species

14. Roosevelt’s Conservation Legacy
Established federally-protected conservation areas in 24 states
National forests, game preserves, bird preserves, reclamation areas

16. Reforms in Business

18. Andrew Carnegie

19. Cornelius Vanderbilt

20. JP Morgan

21. John D. Rockefeller

22. Henry Ford

23. Business
Problems:
Giant amalgamated companies called “trusts” controlled everything
Alarming growth in the gap between rich and poor
Progress:
“Trustbusting” lawsuits
Northern Securities (railroad holding company owned by JP Morgan) resisted Roosevelt by appealing to the Supreme Court, which ordered the company dissolved
Roosevelt would initiate legal proceedings against some 40 major trusts during this presidency
Taft busted 90 during his 4-year term, including Standard Oil
Trustbusting Laws
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
Reinforced and improved upon the Sherman Act
Federal Trade Commission (1914)
Consumer protection
Prevention of anti-competitive business practices
Income Taxes (16th Am.)
Socialists, Populists and Democrats had been calling for a graduated income tax since the 1870s

24. Food & Drugs
Problems:
Unsanitary
Unsafe

25. 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. 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.
-Quoted in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

28. Food & Drugs Progress: Problems:
Muckraker, Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” grabbed Roosevelt’s attention
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Pure Food & Drug Act (1906)
Problems:
Unsanitary
Unsafe