Chapter 18, part 1

The Progressive Movement by Benjamin P. Dewitt (1915)

"the individual could not hope to compete...Slowly, Americans realized that they were not free." (due to economic and political consolidations of power).

Ellis Island and Angel Island

- *Ellis Island* - located in NY Harbor, this became in 1892 the nation's main facility for processing immigrants; most European immigrants entered thru here - *Angel Island* in San Francisco Bay served as the main entry point for immigration from Asia ("Ellis Island of the West")

Pure Food and Drug Act & Meat Inspection Act

- Halted the sale of contaminated food and drugs and to ensure truth in labeling. - established strict cleanliness requirements for meat-packers and created a federal meat-inspection program.

Why did better-off employees complain of loss of freedom?

- Large firms in the automobile, electrical, steel, and other industries sought to implement greater control over work process. Frederick Taylor pioneered what he called "scientific management"--urged employers to subdivide tasks; make workers more interchangeable and diminish dependence on any one employee. Workers would have to obey detailed instructions of supervisors. Many skilled workers saw the erosion of their traditional influence over the work process as a loss of freedom. - The great increase in number of white-collar workers (salespeople, bookkeepers, salaried professionals, corporate managers) also undermined the experience of personal autonomy.

Corporate greed in cities

- Lewis Hine photographed child laborers to draw attention to persistent social inequality. - *The Shame of the Cities* by Lincoln Steffens - showed how party bosses and business leaders profited from political corruption. Also exposed arrogance and economic machinations of John d. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. - *History of the Standard Oil Company* by Ida Tarbell - Roosevelt disparaged this substantial product as *"muckraking"*--the use of journalistic skills to expose the underside of American life.

Causes of population flow of 1840-1914

- Rural southern and eastern Europe, as well as Asia, were regions marked by widespread poverty and illiteracy. - Burdensome taxation and declining economies. - Political turmoil at home, like in Mexico after 1911.

By 1910, ___________ of American population was foreign-born, the highest % in U.S. history.

1/7

Progressive Era

1890 - 1920, years when economic expansion produced millions of new jobs and brought an unprecedented array of goods within reach of American consumers. Progressive era saw expansion of political and economic freedom thru reinvigoration of movement for woman suffrage, use of political power to expand workers' rights, and efforts to improve democratic govt by weakening power of city bosses and giving ordinary citizens more influence on legislation.

Lawrence Strike of 1912 in MA

A group of women strikers proposed to send strikers' children out of the city during the walkout, and Socialist families in NYC agreed to take them in. However, the sight of the pale and half-starved children marching led to a wave of sympathy for the strikers. MA governor soon intervened and strike was settled on the workers' terms. A banner carried by Lawrence strikers read "We want bread and roses, too"--saying that they want both higher wages and opportunity to enjoy finer things in life.

AFL and corporate leaders

AFL saw its membership triple during the era, and at the same time, it sought to forge closer ties w/ forward-looking corporate leaders willing to deal w/ unions as a way to stabilize employee relations.

"What is Feminism?"

According to one female speaker at a meeting at NY's Cooper Union, it meant women's emancipation both as a human being and a sex-being

Consumer freedom

Cities were birthplace of a mass-consumption society that added new meaning to American freedom: many stores and retail-order houses for farmers and small-town residents made available to consumers thru out country a vast array of goods now pouring from the nation's factories and by modern capitalism. - However, low wages, unequal distribution of income, and South's persistent poverty limited the consumer economy.

*Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)*

Consisted of a group who reflected the AFL's exclusionary policies (since they only had mostly white, male, and skilled industrial and craft laborers). They promised a "fraternal hand to every wage-worker, no matter what his religion, fatherland, or trade," and sought to mobilize those excluded from AFL.

How did the promise of abundance inspire political activism?

Exclusion from mass consumption would come to seem almost as barred from voting. Desire for consumer goods led many workers to join unions and fight for higher wages. Argued that monopolistic corporations raised prices at expense of consumers.

Henry Ford

Exemplified new consumer society. Did not invent automobile but developed techniques of production and marketing that brought it within reach of ordinary Americans. In 1913 Ford's factory in Highland Park, Michigan, adopted the method of production known as the moving assembly line on a conveyor belt which enabled Ford to expand output by greatly reducing time it took to produce each car. In 1914 he raised wages to unheard level of $5 per day

How did farms and cities grow together during this era?

Expansion of urban areas stimulated demand for farm goods, and American agriculture would enter "golden age" after recovering from depression of 1890s (Farm families poured into Great Plains for free govt land under Homestead Act of 1862).

Fordism

Form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly.

National Civic Federation

Founded by AFL president Samuel Gompers, George Perkins of J.P. Morgan financial empire, and Mark Hanna, which accepted right of collective bargaining for "responsible" unions. It helped to settle industrial disputes and encouraged improvements in factory safety and establishment of pension plans for long-term workers

Socialist Party

Founded in 1901, called for immediate reforms such as free college education, legislation to improve the condition of laborers, and democratic control over the economy thru public ownership of railroads and factories.

Society of American Indians

Founded in 1911, reform organization typical of the era. Brought together Indian intellectuals of different tribes to promote discussion of their plight in hope that public exposure would be first step toward remedying injustice. Created a pan-Indian public space independent of white control.

The immigrant question for freedom

Freedom was largely an economic ambition--a desire to escape from poverty and achieve a standard of living impossible at home. Some new immigrants, like Jews, wanted to earn enough money to return home and purchase land. *Immigrants, although earned more than was possible in impoverished regions from which they came, endured low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions.*

The real poverty of NY

Immigrant families in NY's downtown tenements often had no electricity or indoor toilets. Alongside such wealth, more than ⅓ of country's mining and manufacturing workers lived in "actual poverty."

Immigrant labor contracts

Large numbers of Chinese, Mexican, and Italian migrants were bound to long-term labor contracts--these contracts were signed w/ labor agents, who then provided the workers to American employers.

Eugene V. Debs

Leader of the American Railway Union, he voted to aid workers in the Pullman strike. He was jailed for six months for disobeying a court order after the strike was over. Important in spreading socialist gospel and linking it to ideals of equality; preached control of economy by a democratic govt.

Carlos Montezuma

Native American who helped establish the Society of American Indians who in 1916 established newsletter Wassaja (meaning "signaling"), that condemned federal paternalism toward Indians and called for abolition of Bureau of Indian Affairs. Demanded that Indians be granted full citizenship and all the constitutional rights of other Americans; also insisted that self-determination was only way for Indians to escape poverty and marginalization.

What indicated that traditional gender roles were changing dramatically? What group was an exception?

New visibility of women in urban public places--Native-born white women were now employed as office workers, telephone operators, and no longer confined to domestics; Exception was that black women still worked primarily as domestics or in southern cotton fields and immigrant women were largely confined to low-paying factory employment.

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in a New York City sweatshop run by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Some workers, having no way of opening the doors that had been locked to prevent theft, leaped from windows to their deaths. Fire truck ladders, then able to reach only six stories were of little help, and the building's overloaded fire escape collapsed. One hundred forty-six individuals, mostly young immigrant women, died in the tragedy.

Many progressives believed that "industrial freedom" lay in empowering workers to...

Participate in economic decision making via strong unions.

Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898)

Reinforced claim that the road to women's freedom lay thru workplace. Women experienced oppression and servitude to husband and children in the home. This would make them incapable of contributing to society or enjoying freedom.

Free speech issue in early 20th century America

State courts frequently issued injunctions prohibiting strikers from speaking, picketing, or distributing literature during disputes. Like abolitionists, the labor movement demanded right to assemble, organize and spread their views.

Labor solidarity and ethnic cohesiveness

Strikes demonstrated that while ethnic divisions among workers impeded labor solidarity, ethnic cohesiveness could also be a basis of unity, so long as strikes were organized on a democratic basis. *IWW were sometimes called in to solidify strikers--printed leaflets, posters, and banners in multiple languages and insisted that each nationality enjoy representation on the committee coordinating a walkout.*

Population flow from 1840 to 1914

The "new immigration" from southern and eastern Europe had reached it speak during Progressive era. Progressive-era immigration formed part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by industrial expansion and decline of traditional agriculture.

Impact of Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

The disaster touched off a national movement for safer working conditions, led to the creation of health and safety legislation, including factory fire codes and child-labor laws, and helped shape future labor laws. Efforts to organize the city's workers accelerated. Roosevelt would refer to it in a press conference as an example of why the govt needs to regulate industry. In addition, the fire and its aftermath also highlighted how women were now taking on new responsibilities in the workplace and in the making of public policy.

The birth-control movement

The growing presence of women in labor market reinforced demands for access to birth control--changing sexual behavior, w/ right to control one's body. A popular speaker was Emma Goldman. Margaret Sanger was openly advertising birth-control devices in her own journal, The Woman Rebel. She was jailed after distributing contraceptives to poor Jewish and Italian women.

Heterodoxy Club

The most influential women's organization in Greenwich Village was certainly the Heterodoxy Club, part of "bohemia" (a social circle of artists, writers, and others who reject conventional rules and practices). Its definition of feminism merged issues like the vote and greater economic opportunities w/ open discussion of sexuality.

Most Asian and Mexican immigrants ended up in...

the West