Seventeenth Amendment
Many Progressive-era changes are still alive in the United States today. Political parties hold direct primaries to nominate candidates for office. calls for the direct election of senators.
� Federal regulation of food and drugs began in this period.
Progressivism
The era in American history from about 1890 to 1920 is known as the Progressive Era. was a collection of different ideas and activities about how to fix the problems within American society.
Progressives disagreed among themselves on the solutions, but ag
muckrakers
Progressives believed that first the government needed to be fixed and made more responsive to people before other problems could be addressed.
Progressives also believed that they could fix society's problems by applying scientific principles to society.
Jacob Riis
Their articles led to public debate on social and economic problems and put pressure on politicians to introduce reforms.
Muckraker
focused on social problems in his book How the Other Half Lives, published in 1890.
The book described poverty, disease, an
Robert La Follette
Many progressives wanted more democracy in society.
The governor of Wisconsin,
criticized how political parties ran their conventions.
direct primary,
a party election in which all party members vote for a candidate to run in the general election.
Three new reforms were introduced by progressives to force state legislators to respond to voter's concerns.
initiative
allowed a group of citizens to introduce legislation and required the legislature to vote on it.
referendum
allowed proposed legislation to be submitted to the voters for approval.
recall
allowed voters to demand a special election to remove an elected official from office.
Democracy and Progressives
To stop Senate corruption, progressives wanted the direct election of senators by all state voters.
In 1912 Congress passed the direct-election amendment.
In 1913 it was ratified, becoming the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The United States Constitution had originally called for each state legislature to elect two senators from each state. As a result, political machines often influenced the election of senators in exchange for federal contracts and jobs. Progressives hoped
Why did the progressives want the direct election of senators?
Suffrage
is the right to vote.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
organized the first women's rights convention.
Many progressives joined the suffrage movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
After the Civil War, the Republicans in Congress introduced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which protected the voting rights of African Americans.
The woman suffrage movement had wanted these amendments to apply to women as well.
Republicans ref
The Suffrage Movement
National American Woman Suffrage Association
By 1900 only Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado had granted voting rights to women.
In 1890 the two groups united to form the
Alice Paul
a Quaker social worker, used protests to force President Wilson to take action on woman suffrage.
National Child Labor Committee
worked to end child labor.Social welfare progressives created charities to help the poor and disadvantaged and pushed for laws
to help fix social problems
In 1900 over 1.7 million children under the age of 16 worked outside the home. ?
Social Welfare Progressivism
Many adult workers labored in difficult and dangerous conditions.
With the creation of building codes, workers' compensation laws, zoning laws, and health codes, the work environment was made safer for workers.
Some progressives favored zoning laws and bu
temperance
movement called for the moderation or elimination of alcohol.
Many progressives believed alcohol was the cause of many of society's problems.
Women's Christian Temperance Union
By In 1874 the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed
prohibition
laws banning the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol.
Progressives Versus Big Business
A group of progressives focused on regulating big business, but they disagreed on the solutions.
One side believed government should break up big companies to restore competition.
The other group wanted the creation of government agencies to regulate big
Socialism
the idea that the government should own and operate industry for the community as a whole, was an idea shared by a small minority of progressives.
Eugene Debs
led the American Socialist Party and was the party's candidate for president in the election of 1912.
Most progressives and most Americans believed in the American system of free enterprise.
Square Deal.
During his second term, Theodore Roosevelt's reform program was known as the Square Deal.
As a progressive and a Social Darwinist, he felt the government should try to balance the needs of all the groups in American society.
He believed that the U.S. need
Roosevelt Revives the Presidency
The fight for control of the Burlington Railroad erupted on the New York Stock Exchange.
E.H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad and James J. Hill and J. P. Morgan of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads argued over stock, which could hav
Northern Securities.
The three men compromised by creating a new holding company called Northern Securities.
Roosevelt felt Northern Securities violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, and he ordered a lawsuit filed. In 1904 the Supreme Court ruled that Northern Securities had vio
The United Mine Workers
(UMW) union called a strike of the miners who dug coal. ?
About 150,000 workers from the mines of eastern Pennsylvania demanded a pay increase, reduction in work hours, and recognition for their union. ?
The strike went on for months, threatening a coal s
arbitration,
a settlement imposed by an outside party
The union agreed, but the owners did not.
Mine owners finally agreed after Roosevelt threatened to have the army run the mines.
Bureau of Corporations
that had the authority to investigate corporations and issue reports on their activities.
Upton Sinclair's
The Jungle described his observations of Chicago slaughterhouses.
As a result, federal legislation was passed.
Meat Inspection Act
required federal inspection of meat sold and set standards of cleanliness in meatpacking plants.
Pure Food and Drug Act
prohibited the manufacture, sale, or shipment of impure or falsely labeled food and drugs.
Newlands Reclamation Act,
which authorized the use of federal funds from public land sales to pay for irrigation and land development projects.
Roosevelt appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the United States Forest Service to carefully manage the timber resources in the West.
Conservation
Pinchot and his department created regulations controlling lumbering on federal lands.
Roosevelt's actions during his presidency caused Americans to increasingly look to the federal government to solve the nation's economic and social problems.
The execut
Taft Becomes President
Endorsed by Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican candidate, William Howard Taft easily defeated the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, in the election of 1908.
Taft, a skillful administrator and judge, had a slow approach to problem solving that
Roosevelt and Taft
Where Roosevelt was charismatic and loved politics, Taft was the exact opposite. He did not like the spotlight and reacted to issues by approaching them from a legal point of view.
Joseph G. Cannon
Speaker of the House had the power to push bills through without discussion.
Many progressives wanted to unseat him because he blocked their legislation.
Taft stopped the Republican campaign against Cannon, and in return Cannon pushed the tariff bill thro
Payne-Aldrich Tariff,
which raised some tariffs instead of lowering them, Taft had further alienated progressives.
Gifford Pinchot, along with other progressives, felt betrayed and angry with Taft.
Richard Ballinger
Taft's position with Republicans took a final turn for the worst with the hiring of as secretary of the interior.
syndicate,
or business group, for his own profit
insubordination
or disobedience.
Taft as President
The progressives' feeling that Taft had "sold the Square Deal down the river" resulted in a 1910 Democratic victory, with Democrats taking the majority in the House and Democrats and Progressive Republicans gaining control of the Senate from the conservat
How did President Taft differ from President Theodore Roosevelt?
Where Roosevelt was charismatic and loved politics, Taft was the exact opposite. He did not like the spotlight and reacted to issues by approaching them from a legal point of view?
Children's Bureau
to fight child labor.
He was a conservationist who monitored the activities of the mining companies, expanded national forests, and protected waterpower sites from private development.
Theodore Roosevelt refused to criticize Taft's actions as president un
What caused Roosevelt to publicly criticize Taft's actions as president?
Roosevelt criticized Taft after he broke up trusts, destroying Roosevelt's system of cooperation and regulation that he set up with big business through the Bureau of Corporations.
Progressive Party.
Republican conservatives supported William Taft in the election of 1912.
Most Republican progressives supported Theodore Roosevelt.
Taft gained the Republican nomination.
Roosevelt ran as an independent for the
New Nationalism
was a complete line of reforms that favored legislation to protect women and children in the workforce and workers' compensation for those injured on the job.
He also wanted a federal trade commission to regulate industry.
The Election of 1912
In the end, the contest came down to the two progressives: Roosevelt and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.
New Freedom,
supported free enterprise and criticized Roosevelt for a program that Wilson felt supported monopolies.
Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican vote, giving Wilson the Electoral College win.
It was the first time since 1892 that a Democrat had been presid
Underwood Tariff
reduced the average tariff on imported goods to about half of what it had been in the 1890s.
income tax,
or a direct tax on the earnings of individuals and corporations.
Regulating the Economy
There had not been a central bank since the 1830s, when economic depressions had caused small banks to close, wiping out customers' savings. ?
Wilson supported the Federal Reserve system where the banks would have to keep some of their deposits in a reser
Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) to monitor American business.
unfair trade practices.
The FTC investigated companies and issued "cease and desist" orders against companies involved in
Clayton Antitrust Act
that put a ban on tying agreements and price discrimination.
What made the Federal Reserve Act so significant?
The system could fight inflation by raising interest rates and stimulate the economy during a recession by lowering interest rates.
Federal Aid and Social Welfare
Wilson stopped supporting reforms, believing that his New Freedom program was complete.
After a shaky congressional election in 1914, Wilson began to support reforms again.
In 1916 Wilson signed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, which prohibited children
Why did Wilson begin supporting reforms once again?
The congressional election of 1914 left the Democrats with major losses. Many progressives were returning to the Republican Party. Wilson knew he could not rely on a split opposition when he ran for re-election.
Legacy of Progressivism
By the end of the Progressive era, Americans looked to the government to play an active role in regulating the economy and solving social problems.
In 1905 African American leaders met to demand full political rights and responsibilities and an end to rac
In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
W.E.B Du Bois:
Cofounder of the
NAACP
How did Progressive reform help change American society?
-The progressives expanded democracy and improved life for many Americans.
-Not all groups benefited from the reforms.