Section 1
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Most progressive reformers were
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Last updated
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Date created
Mar 1, 2020
Cards (108)
Section 1
(50 cards)
Most progressive reformers were
middle-class men and women
Significance of the muckrakers
- Symbolized much of the nature of the progressive reform movements - Long on lamentation but stopped short of revolutionary methods - Counted on publicity and aroused public conscience (not drastic political change) to right social wrongs - Sought to not overthrow capitalism but to cleanse it (Puritans vs Pilgrims anyone??) - Believed more democracy was the answer to solve issues
Australian ballot
A system developed in Australia in 1850 that allows voters privacy in marking their ballot choices. Counteracted boss rule (can't bribe if they don't know who they're voting for)
Referendum
Progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill on the ballot for final approval even after being passed by the legislature
At the time, protecting ___________ rather than __________ was more common and similar to __________
women and children —— granting benefits to everyone —— Western Europe
Habit-forming drugs
Often sold for money, induced with alcohol. In Collier's, they exposed the medicine and were reinforced by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley
Thorstein Vablen
- (1899) "The Theory of the Leisure Class" - attack on the new rich. Viewed the leisure class engaged in making money for money's sake instead of making goods to satisfy real needs - Argued that the social leadership should go from the useless rich to those who are useful
Initiative
A Progressive reform measure allowing voters to petition to have a law placed on the general ballot
National Consumers League
Mobilized female consumers to pressure for laws safeguarding women and children in the workplace
The most successful reform of the Progressive Era was
child labor reform
How progressives sought to modernize American institutions
- Use the state to curb monopoly power - Limit socialist threat by improving the common person's conditions of life and labor
Results of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire
- NY had much stronger laws regulating hours and conditions - 30 other states by 1917 put workers' compensation in the books (insurance) - Progressively changed from dog-eat-dog world to employer's responsibility
Progressives
crusaders who waged war on monopoly, corruption, inefficiency, and social justice
Popular Muckrakers
- Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities - Ida M. Tarbell: exposé of the Standard Oil Company - Upton Sinclair: The Jungle - David G. Phillips: The Treason of the Senate
Significance of initiative, referendum, and recall
Brought democracy to the people and helped foster a shift towards interest-group politics and away from old political machines
Urban reformers
- Attacked slumlords, juvenile delinquency, and wide-open prostitution in red-light districts - Looked to English and German cities
Statistics of Americans
- 1/7 foreign-born in 1900 - 1900-1914 - 13 million immigrants
Types of reformers
Social gospel, university-based economists, feminists, muckrakers, temperance, labor rights, and many more
"Separate spheres"
- Women's place was in the home, Republican Motherhood - Women viewed being involved in issues was an extension of their motherly role (protecting children from labor issues, health problems, etc.)
Charles Evans Hughes
Republican governor of NY; investigator of malpractices by gas and insurance companies and the coal trust
Socialism in America
Many advocates for this were European immigrants inspired by the strong movement for socialism in Europe -> began to get more strength at the ballot box
Cause/origin of new reformist wave
Greenback Labor party and the Populists because industrialists made fewer and fewer have power
Social evils in the Progressive Era and books about them
- "White slave" traffic for women, slums, and industrial accidents - Stannard Baker's "Following the Color Line" (1908) - 9 million blacks, 90% of the South, and 1/3 illiterate - John Spargo's "The Bitter Cry of the Children" (1906) - abuses of child labor
Objectives of Progressives
- Regain the power that had slipped from the hands of the people into those of the "interests" - Getting rid of graft (bribery, corrupt practices, etc.) - Direction election of US Senators - often heeded to the voice of business instead of the people (even referred to as the "Millionaires' Club)
Henry Demarest Lloyd
(1894) "Wealth Against Commonwealth: - wrote against Standard Oil Company
City-manager systems
take politics out of municipal administration
Lochner v. New York
(1905) Semi-setback for reformers, the SC invalidated a NY law establishing a 10-hour work day for bakers
Literary clubs
Educated women met to improve literary knowledge -> went to social issues instead of literature
Feminists (suffrage)
Jane Addams in Chicago and Lillian Wald in NY - made women enter the fight to improve the lot of families living and working in the festering cities
Hiram W. Johnson
Republican governor in 1910, broke the dominant grip of the Southern Pacific Railroad on California politics and set up a political machine of his own
Social gospel
Used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor
Recall
Enabled the voters to remove corrupted elected officials
Jacob A. Riis
- (1890) "How the Other Half Lives" - spoke about the horrors of the NY slums - Influenced future NYC police commissioner, TR
Progressive theorists believed
Society could no longer afford the luxury of laissez-faire policy. The people, through government, must substitute mastery for drift
Settlement houses — significance
Offered door to public life - showed issues of America's cities and gave women skills/confidence to attack them
Muckrakers
Bright young reporters at the turn of the 20th century, term coined by TR, but boosted circulations of their magazines by writing exposés of widespread corruption in American society (business manipulation of government, white slaves, child labor, and illegal deeds of trusts). Also helped spur passage of reform legislation
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911)
Locked doors and fire code violations made the factory a death trap. 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, incinerated or leapt to their death from 8 or 9 stories
Women suffrage support
- Political reformers believed the women's vote would elevate the political tone - Anti-Saloons felt they could rely on support of enfranchised females
Robert M. La Follette
Most militant of progressive Republican leaders. Became the governor of WI in 1901. - Tackled RR and lumber "interests" - Regulated public utilities and inspired other states to follow - Gave the power from the business -> people
17th Amendment
Direct election of senators. Many Senators liked existing methods, and local legislatures found it wise to give the vote to the people
Theodore Dreiser
Pounded promoters and profiteers in "The Financier" (1912) and "The Titan" (1914)
How Progressives attempted to get power into the hands of the people
Direct election of US senators, initiative, referendum, and recall
How Progressives aimed to get rid of graft
- Limited the amount of money a candidate could spend on their election campaign - Australian ballot
Urban Progressive reforms
- Frustrated by inefficiency and corruption of city government — looked to Galveston, TX as an example (expert-staffed commissions to manage urban affairs) - Often favored efficiency over democracy - City-manager systems
University-based economists
Advocated for new reforms modeled on European examples
10¢ and 15¢ magazines
McClure's Cosmopolitan, Collier's, and Everybody's. Extensive research for finding things bad about business that the public loved
Muller v. Oregon
(1908) Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the SC to accept the constitutionality of the laws protecting women workers by presenting evidence of the harmful effects of factory labor on women's weaker bodies; restricted women to 10-hour work day
Florence Kelley
Illinois' first chief factory inspector, one of the nation's leading advocates for improved factory conditions. Also took control of the National Consumers League
Progressivism can be best described as
a broadly dispersed majority mood, not a movement
Women's suffrage gradually began especially in:
Western states
Section 2
(50 cards)
Big business at the end of TR's reign
"healthier" but more "tame" — even gave JP Morgan blessing with US Steel to absorb TN Coal and Iron Company
Elkins Act
(1903) Law passed by Congress to impose penalties on RRs that offered rebates and customers who accepted them. Strengthened the ICA of 1887
"Square Deal" and TR's three C's
- Control of corporations - Consumer protection - Conservation of natural resources
Pure Food and Drug Act
(1906) Designed to prevent the mislabeling of food and pharmaceuticals
"Roosevelt Panic" of 1907 / Panic of 1907
- Financial world blamed TR for causing it, TR lashed back - Paved way for fiscal reforms - Aldrich-Vreeland Act
Bureau of Mines
Controlled the mineral resources, attempt at conservation by Taft
Roosevelt's most enduring achievement was:
preserving or conserving land (IMPORTANT!!)
"Dry" laws
Controlled, restricted, or abolished alcohol
Fiscal reforms in the panic of 1907
- Banks unable to increase volume of money in circulation - Those with ample reserves reluctant to lend to their competitors
Bureau of Corporations
Probe business engaged in interstate commerce; useful in breaking stranglehold of monopoly and allowing "trust-busting"
Business influence/characteristics in the West
- Large companies found ways to work with the federal conservation programs - Individuals and single-person enterprises had minimal influence and were set aside in favor of efficiency
Newlands Act
(1902) Fed govt was authorized to collect money from the sale of public lands in the western states and then use the funds for the development of irrigation projects
"Rule of reason"
Only those combinations that "unreasonably" restrained trade were illegal
Desert Land Act
(1877) Fed govt sold arid land cheaply on the condition that the purchaser irrigate the thirsty soil within three years
The government often encouraged bankers to:
invest their money in foreign places -> strengthened American defenses and foreign policies
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
Founded by Frances E. Willard, largest organization of women in the world
Beef Trust Cases
SC declared beef trust illegal, monopolists controlling sugar, fertilizer, harvesters, and other key products suffered
Opponents and proponents of the Hetch Hetchy Valley Dam
Opponents: "temple" of nature that should be preserved. Proponents: Should use nature's resources wisely (TR and Gifford Pinchot)
Manchuria
- Object of Taft's effort to inject the dollar into the Far East - Japan and Russia controlled the RRs here - Saw Chinese economic interests and a slamming of the Open Door in the faces of US merchants
TR's actions against trusts
- Believed there were good and bad trusts - Didn't want to completely destroy all big business
Taft the Trustbuster
- Brought more suits against trusts than TR did - 1911 - SC demanded the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company (violated Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890) -> rule of reason - Taft decided to press an antitrust suit against US Steel Corporation -> upset Roosevelt
American forces in the Caribbean
Disorders in Cuba, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic made marines be deployed there
Meat companies in Europe
shut out because of unsanitary meat sold
Upton Sinclair and The Jungle (1906)
Described the grotesqueness of Chicago's slaughterhouses. Moved readers and even TR to appoint an investigating commission
Department of Commerce and Labor
Settle disputes between owners and workers
TR's nature conservation
Set aside 125 million acres for federal reserves. Designated millions of acres of coal deposits and water resources for irrigation and power
"Multiple-use resource management"
Combined recreation, sustained-yield logging, watershed protection, and summer stock grazing on the same expanse of federal land
Cause of TR's conservation
- His outdoorsman persona - Upwelling national mood of concern about the disappearance of the frontier - Jack London's Call of the Wild (1903) and other books of nature made the Boy Scouts of America the country's largest youth organization
Hepburn Act
(1906) Restricted free passes and also strengthened the ICC (now included express, sleeping-car, and pipeline companies)
Lasting achievements of TR's presidency
- Most lasting achievement: Conservation crusade (conservationists of wilderness and resource predators) - Enlarged power and prestige of presidential office - Helped shape the progressive movement and reform campaigns later in the century - Square Deal - grandfather of the New Deal - Opened the eyes of Americans to the fact that they shared the world with other nations
Election of 1908
- Boring. - Roosevelt hand-picks for Taft - 421k votes for Eugene V. Debs (Socialism)
Northern Securities Company
- Railroad holding by JP Morgan and James Hill, wanted a monopoly of NW RRs - 1904 - Company appealed to SC, ordered it to be dissolved -> Upset Wall street and big business but gave TR reputation as a trust-smasher
The temperance movements resulted in tensions between:
Nativists and immigrants
Major centers for alcohol products and why
Big cities. Large immigrant vote; Old World had free-flowing alcohol
Roosevelt Dam
Arizona Salt River, dedicated to TR in 1911. Resulted in more dams in all major western rivers in upcoming decades
Anthracite Coal Mines in PA
- 140k workers demanded 20% increase in pay and 9-hour workday - Unsympathetic mine owners, George F. Baer also unsympathetic - Coal supplies dwindled -> factories, schools, and hospitals had to shut down because of the lack of heat -- - TR brandished the Big Stick -> threatened to seize the mines and use federal troops - Owners arbitrated -> 10% pay boost and working day of 9 hours
Caribbean involvement
Washington encouraged Wall Street bankers to pump money into Honduras and Haiti to keep out foreign funds. Couldn't allow other countries to invade under the Monroe Doctrine
Meat Inspection Act
(1906) The preparation of meat shipped over state lines would be subject to federal inspection, regardless of packaging. Larger companies saw it as a way to put smaller competitors out of business
Philander C. Knox
- Proposed that a group of American and foreign bankers buy the Manchurian RRs and turn them over to China under a self-liquidating arrangement - Japan and Russia rejected -> Taft ridiculed
Roosevelt in the 1904 election
- Easily elected president in 1904, yet Republican bosses found him unpredictable - Blunder: announced he would never run a third term - Platform was stronger regulation of corporations, taxing incomes, and protecting workers
Roosevelt's real purpose of in getting rid of big business
To prove conclusively that the government, not private business, ruled the country. Believed in regulating, not fragmenting, the big business
William Howard Taft, the other bull-necked president
- Reputation as lawyer and judge, regarded as hostile to labor unions, trusted administrator under TR - Suffered from political handicaps: didn't have the charisma of TR, passive towards Congress, and poor judge of public opinion - Cabinet didn't contain any of the insurgent wing on fire for current issues (tariff)
Forest Reserve Act
(1891) Authorized the president to set aside public forests as national parks and other reserves
Dollar diplomacy
Name applied by Taft's critics to the policy of supporting US investments and political interests abroad. First applied to the financing of the railways in China after 1909, the policy then spread to Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua -- In other words: Wall Street bankers encouraged to invest in areas of strategic concern to the US. Helped other countries while made $$ for the US
Carey Act
(1894) Distributed federal land to the states on the condition that it be irrigated and settled
TR's presidency charas
- Political lightning rod to protect capitalists against popular resentment and socialism - Middle road between unbridled individualism and paternalistic collectivism
Aldrich-Vreeland Act
Authorized national banks to issue emergency currency backed by various kinds of collateral. Paved way for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. In theory, more people could have $, spend it, and help out the economy
Hetch Hetchy Valley
Government allowed San Fran to build a dam here in 1913. Blow to the preservationists, who wished to project the Yosemite National Park, location of the dam
T/F: Roosevelt busted more trusts than Taft
False, Taft busted almost two times as many trusts
Ways people conserved nature
- Middle-class club-women raised money for nature preserves and organized the Massachusetts Audubon Society (save birds by banning the use of plumes to hats) - Sierra Club - preserve wilderness of western landscape
Section 3
(8 cards)