PROGRESSIVE ERA

As the Civil War ended, increased

immigrants caused American cities to
grow.

PROGRESSIVE As cities grew new problems arose.

ERA Reformers swung into action in areas
such as city government, politics,
public schools, and the workplace.

African Americans, American Indians,

immigrants, and women also called for
reforms.
 Many people refer to the time
period at the end of the 1800’s to
the early 1900’s as the Gilded
Age.
THE
GILDED
AGE: This nickname came from Mark
Twain, a famous author, who said
from a distance American society
looked golden but when you
looked up close it was actually
“gilded”
 • Powerful organization called political
machines influenced city and county politics
• They used both legal and illegal ways to get
candidates elected to office

CORRUPTION • They would bribe voters, election officials,

IN POLITICS: get only one candidate listed on the ballot,

paid for votes, and even hire the people
who counted the votes to make sure it
turned out the way they wanted
• Political machines where run by powerful
bosses
• Bosses traded favors for votes
 • Most bosses got support from new
immigrants who needed more help to get
by
• One of the most famous political bosses:
CORRUPTION William Marcy Tweed of New York City

IN POLITICS: reportedly stole as much as $200 million

from the City Treasury during his time in
power
• Even the federal government was corrupt:
especially the administration of Ulysses S.
Grant. Many of his officials were arrested in
plots to avoid paying taxes and went to jail
 The nation passes Civil Service Reform

HOW DO WE This was supposed to help put the most

qualified candidates in the job
SOLVE
POLITICAL
CORRUPTION? You had to take a test about your test and
show certain skills

People were then ranked (highest to lowest)

based on their test scores and would get
picked for job openings that way
 • This was to prevent unqualified and
corrupt officials from getting
HOW DO WE government jobs
SOLVE • The law passed in 1883 was called the
POLITICAL Pendleton Civil Service Act and set up a
CORRUPTION? merit system controlled by the Civil
Service Commission. Today it covers
almost 90% of all government jobs.
 Reformers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were knows as
Progressives

THE They worked to solve problems such as crime, disease, and

poverty
PROGRESSIVE
MOVEMENT: Many areas were targeted for reform such as health and
education, poor living conditions, unsafe working
conditions, social unjust, government corruption, child
labor, racial discrimination, corrupt monopolies,

Reformers received help from Muckrakers, journalists that

helped “dig up dirt” on the problems in society
 • Solving Corruption in Politics:
• Goal was to Expand Democracy: to help
SOME OF stop the political corruption we start to
THE expand the right to vote and the power
SOLUTIONS of the people

TO THESE • We create more of a direct primary

PROBLEMS: system where the people vote on who
will be the candidates for political office
 The 17th Amendment is passed in
1913 and allows for the first time
Americans the right to vote
directly for their Senators in
SOLVING Congress (remember there are 2
senators from every state)
CORRUPTION
IN POLITICS:

Voters also were given the right

to call for action on many political
issues:
 Recall: Voters can now sign a
petition asking for a special vote
on an elected official. This allows
them to remove elected officials if
RECALL they are not happy with them

The governor of Wisconsin recently

had a recall vote on his term
because many were unhappy with
some of his more recent decisions,
he won his recall vote and is still in
power today
 • Initiative: this allows voters to
propose a new law by getting signatures
on a petition
• Many states recently voted on issues in the
last election under initiative vote, such as
INITIATIVE: the legalization of medical marijuana and
in California many citizens wanted change
what information was on food labels to
include anything genetically altere
•
REFERENDUM:

• Referendum: allows voters to sign a petition to vote on a

law already in place
• Puerto Rico ( a US Territory) recently voted in a referendum to
change their relationship with the United States and instead of
remaining just a territory to try and work towards becoming our
51st state
 Create a new system of government that
runs more like a business model

REFORMING CITY
AND STATE Had a city council that was elected by the
GOVERNMENTS: people and they choose a manager to help
run the city

Robert LaFollette developed the Wisconsin

Idea and pushes for changes such as tax
reform, direct primaries, and more power to
the people to elect their officials
 There were many causes of the problems in the urban (city)
society

City problems were caused by things like urbanization, growth

FIXING THE of the middle class, bad working conditions in factories,
scandals about political corruption, rise of powerful

PROBLEMS corporations (monopolies), and increase in immigration

IN THE New jobs/profession emerge to help the cities: jobs like city
planners and civil engineers
CITY:
These new planners will pass zoning laws, building-safety codes,
create public parks, create proper waste disposal system
(sewers), create safe water system, and created street paving
and proper bridge building projects
 Many states start to pass laws requiring
children to attend school

Push towards opening of High Schools for

EDUCATION upper education
REFORM:
Courses in citizenship, health, and job
training were developed

Kindergartens are opened for the first

time specifically to help the children of the
poor and working class learn basic skills
 John Dewey, an important reforming in
education, created new models for
teaching children that are still used
EDUCATION today
REFORM:
Helped to create the American Medical
Association (AMA) to help regulate the
education of doctors and nurses and to
spread the new scientific knowledge
that was being learned about diseases
and treatments
 Because of extremely low
wages in the workplace
Child Labor Reform many families sent their
children to work to help
the family get by

REFORMING Reformers helped create

THE About 1.75 million children
under age 15 worked in
the National Child Labor
Committee to investigate
WORKPLACE: mines, mills, and factories in
1900
child labor and eventually
pass laws

Federal government will

pass laws in 1916 and 1919
but had some trouble
keeping those laws intact
from court challenges
 Many pushed for higher wages and
fewer working hours

Many states will pass minimum wage

SAFETY IN THE laws and maximum working hours
WORKPLACE:
Tragic Accidents bring attention to
workplace safety

In 1900 alone, 35,000 people were killed

by industrial accidents. Another 500,000
were injured on the job
RISE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS:

• Unions fought for better working conditions

• Workers began to unite together to demand shorter working
hours, higher wages, and safety on the job
• In 1903, the Women’s Trade Union League became the first all
women’s union to demand better working conditions for
females
• One of the most powerful unions was the American
Federation of Labor (AFL) whose leader Samuel Gompers
argued for safer working conditions, higher pay, and right of the
worker to organize
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND
MINORITIES:
• Women started to attend more colleges in the late 1800’s
• Some argued that women could not handle the “mental
strain” of too much thinking
• Even with higher education many jobs were still closed to
women because of their gender
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT:

• Women played a vital role in this reform

• This movement blamed alcohol for many of society’s problems
• Leading reformer in this movement was a woman named Carry
Nation who literally stormed into saloons with ax’s chopping up the
bar and smashing the liquor bottles
• Reformers joined the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
• This movement will lead to the passage of the 18th Amendment to the
Constitution in 1919. This amendment outlaws the production and
sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States
• Total ban of alcohol
 WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT:
• Many women wanted more rights including the right to vote
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
in 1890 to help get the right to vote for women
• 19th amendment is passed in 1920 and granted all women in
the United States the right to vote
 AFRICAN AMERICANS FIGHT FOR
CHANGE:
• After slavery ended there was still a lot of problems for
African Americans including discrimination
• Booker T. Washington tried to help improve conditions
through education. He was a founder of the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama
• Ida B. Wells was more outspoken and wrote many articles
drawing attention to the violent killings in the south of
black men
AFRICAN AMERICANS FIGHT FOR
CHANGE:
• W.E.B. Dubois took a more hands approach to fighting
discrimination and helped found the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
• NAACP worked to end discrimination and bring down the
oppressive Jim Crow Laws and end segregation in the
South
THE PROGRESSIVE
PRESIDENTS:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (TEDDY)-

• Sherman Anti-trust Act

• Department of Labor (1903)
• Anthracite Coal Strike (1902)
• Pure Food and Rug Act (1906)
• Meat Inspection Act (1906)
• Newlands reclamation Act (1902)
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (TEDDY)-

• Also passed was the Meat Inspection act specifically addressing

Sinclair’s book.
• Roosevelt also gets Congress to regulate railroad shipping costs, this
helping the small farmers.
• He also becomes a big supporter of the conservation movement that
worked to protect our natural resources and sets up many sites as
protect federal lands. This today is known as our National Parks
System, for example the Grand Canyon,Yosemite, Niagara Falls,
Badlands in South Dakota, Florida Everglades, etc… In total 150
million acres of public land set aside and protected
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT-

• He continued Roosevelt’s path and sued many big

businesses for unfair treatment of workers and for being
monopolies.
• Taft also continued to add more lands to the National Parks
System for protection.
• Taft will lose his re-election bid to Woodrow Wilson and
the Bull Moose Party in 1912 in a very dirty three way race
between Taft, Wilson, and T. Roosevelt.
WOODROW WILSON-

• He lowered tariffs with the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913.

• He also reformed the tax code by pushing for the passage of the 16th Amendment in
1913 that allowed the federal government to tax our personal income. This provided
a new source of income for the federal government.
• He also worked to get the Federal Reserve Act passed to reform the banking
industry. Created a National banking system and a federal reserve.
• Wilson also pushed to reform businesses; He helped get the Clayton Antitrust Act
passed in 1914 and strengthened federal laws against monopolies.
• He also created the Federal Trade Commission that had the power to stop unfair
trade practices.