THE PROGRESSIVE ERA I was a sickly, delicate boy who suffered much from asthma, and frequently had to be taken away on trips to find a place where I could breathe." He set out on a strenuous life of hiking, camping, exercise, and boxing to improve his strength and health. Teddy Roosevelts Rough Riders TRs Domestic & Foreign Policy Considered progressive; his Square Deal called for end of special treatment of big business Led trust-busting movement of progressive era Issued Roosevelt Corollary of Monroe Doctrine Speak softly and carry a big stick foreign policy Led Conservation movement Progressivism and the Role of Government Progressives believed the increased science and modernization of the nation led to a shift in the role of government. Government should interpret the Constitution through modern eyes as opposed to the intent of the Founding Fathers. regulating more fair Government should step into a new role of equalizing and regulating the economy to make the usa more fair. Laissez-faire (government does not intervene except in cases of mail & war) ended as Progressives felt intellectuals in the government could make society more fair. The Social Gospel Liberal Progressives (Protestants) sought to use government to reform the plight of the poor. They were the religious wing of Progressivism. Changes include: 1.Mandatory schooling 2.Child Labor elimination (Florence Kelley) 3.Regulating work hours for mothers **Muller v. Oregon (1908) --legalized sex discrimination --social science in Constitutional law Other effects: 1.YMCA (YWCA) created to transition rural americans to urban areas 2.AFL began to preach unionization like a revival (vs. Billy Sunday) 19 th century religious leaders supported Laissez-faire as a Christian principle. The Social Gospel saw religious leaders use the Bible to promote government intervention. Gospel of Wealth vs. Social Gospel near end of Gilded Age (1900) Carnegies (captains of industry) belief that it was your Christian duty to accumulate as much wealth as possible Once wealthy, it was your Christian duty to be a trustee for the poor he who dies rich dies disgraced. beginning of Progressivism (early 1900s) Religious wing of Progressive Movement felt it was the intellectual elite in the government that should become caretakers of poor the Bible and Christian teachings should be taught and cared for by the government III. The Progressive Era A.Reformers Progressives replaced populists as leading reform movement PopulistsPopulists=rural (financial reform) ProgressivesProgressives=urban (social reform) Robber Barons & Political Machines were chief targets Andrew Carnegie is the chief example of a robber baron turned philanthropist III. The Progressive Era B. Intellectuals Lay Ground Work Education shifted to more social interdependence & the public good Law became more socially flexible & active Oliver Wendell Holmes: The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. (appointed to Supreme Court in 1902) Novelists & journalists Muckraking Upton Sinclairs The Jungle Magazine & newspaper circulation increased dramatically (i.e. McClures) III. The Progressive Era C. Urban Reform Political Machines Worker Protection NYC enacted 56 laws alone By 1914, 25 states had factory liability laws Clean and Pretty Cities Corporate regulation occurred by limiting lobbying, campaign donations, state regulation of railroads & power, increasing corporate taxes Robert La Follette Fighting Bob III. The Progressive Era D. Moral Control Social reformers often taught proper behavior (movie audiences) Fear of immorality led to censorship of movies Main moral attack was on prostitution (income 5 times that of factory laborer); Mann Act (1910) Anti-Saloon League (ASL) Struggle between new & old immigrants on evils of alcohol abuse = prohibition The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Bayer Aspirin advertising, as seen in 1898 Coca-Cola used cocaine in its soft drink until 1900 Upton Sinclairs The Jungle led progressive Teddy Roosevelt to demand federal legislation regulating businesses and their products Womens Voting Rights by State III. The Progressive Era E. Revival of Womens Suffrage 1910: women could vote in WY, UT, CO, ID only Grassroots efforts Susan B. Anthony retired in 1900 Carrie Chapman Catt Average member: white, native-born, middle class Alice Paul (Womans party) led more militant attack Picketed White House in 1917 (jailed) Went on hunger strike & were force fed Womens Movement Most women abandoned movement to support war effort Previous gains & gratitude led to the Nineteenth Amendment (passed in 1919, ratified in 1920) Feminism movement began as more women gained positions of leadership & intellectual acceptance Margaret Sanger led birth control movement Jane Addams founded Hull House Florence Kelley fought for child labor laws Jane Addams sought to provide assistance to working-class immigrants III. The Progressive Era F. TRs National Progressivism Labor disputes & corporate regulation: United Mine Workers Union strike of 1902 Disliked big-money men but saw their importance Trust-busting & the Square Deal We dont wish to destroy corporations, but we do wish to make them subserve the public good. Sued 44 companies to break up monopolies (Standard Oil Company & American Tobacco Co.) Regulated railroads primarily Elkins Act (1903) Conservationism III. The Progressive Era G. Natl Progressivism Tariff & Banking Reform Lowered tariffs Sixteenth Amendment Federal Reserve Act (network of 12 banks) Federal Reserve Board (member terms & financial policy) Election of 1916 Defeated Hughes (49.4% to 46.2%) CA decided election (less than 4,000 votes) Issues of the Great War III. The Progressive Era H. Constitutional Progressivism Amendments Sixteenth Seventeenth Income taxdirect election of senators EighteenthNineteenth ProhibitionWomens suffrage Booker T. Washington Atlanta Compromise (1895) economics The agreement was Southern blacks would focus on economics and submit to Jim Crow segregation. Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education and due process in law. Blacks would not agitate for equality, integration, or justice, and Northern whites would fund black educational charities. This philosophy was dominant from The Tuskegee Machine felt African Americans could not win a civil rights fight and therefore should focus on economics to strengthen their plight in the South. W.E.B. DuBois The Talented Tenth POLITICAL The educated and intellectual elite African Americans should lead the fight to replace the Atlanta Compromise. Full Civil Rights and POLITICAL equality are the goals. DuBois died one year before the culmination of the Civil Rights movement of the fifties and sixties but his ideas were heavily influential in that legislation. Niagara Movement DuBois was a co-founder of the Niagara Movement. A group of African American intellectuals that fought for equal rights (political and economic). Niagara Movement Du Bois led conference at Niagara Falls in 1905 (annually after) NAACPDu Bois & Oswald Garrison Villard formed NAACP Crisis editor Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. D u Bois Economic focus, accept Jim Crow vs. Full political rights Atlanta Compromise vs. Talented Tenth Ida B. Wells Researched and wrote books, poems on LYNCHINGS in the South. The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro- American life. The more the Afro- American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched. Woodrow Wilson and Progressives view of Race Endorsing the blockbuster movie of its day, Birth of a Nation, Wilson credited the KKK with restoring the American way of life in the post-Civil War South: The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self- preservation..until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country. Many progressives favored eugenics, or improving society through selective breeding. This mindset hurt African Americans and immigrants. In her 1920 book, Woman and the New Race, Margaret Sanger explicitly called her work "nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or those who will become defectives." Margaret Sanger Sanger coined the phrase Birth Control, opened its first clinic, and founded Planned Parenthood Sanger in 1922 Race Failures of Progressivism Immigration Opposed immigration in general Gentlemens Agreement (1907) with Japan Did progressives seek to help the economically and socially disadvantaged or believe they were caretakers of them through collectivization? Progressivism: then and now "We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 8-1 Supreme court ruling Buck v. Bell (1927) to force sterilize someone of lower intellectual ability Roe v. Wade & Planned Parenthood: Choice Or Eugenics?