Chapter 18: The Progressive Era, 1900-1916

Angel Island

- "The Ellis Island of the West" - The main entry point for immigrants from Asia, located in San Francisco Bay

New York City

- 4.7 million residents - Showed the stark urban inequalities of the 1890s - Immigrant families in NYC's downtown tenements often had no electricity or indoor toilets - There were mansions on Fifth Avenue's Millionaire's Row. - J.P. Morgan's financial firm controlled 40% of all financial and industrial capital in the United States

Direct primaries

- A Progressive-era reform in which voters, rather than party officials, chose candidates for office.

Referendum

- A Progressive-era reform that allowed public policies to be submitted to popular vote.

Recall

- A Progressive-era reform that allowed the removal of public officials by popular vote.

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

- A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in a 10-story building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of NYC. - 500 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, worked at sewing machines producing women's blouses earning low wages. - Doors to the stairwell had been locked, and the Fire Department could not reach the upper floors. The result was that some women leaped from the upper stories and over 100 people died. - Focused attention on the social divisions that had plagued American society during the first 2 decades of the 20th century, a period known as the Progressive Era

The Crazy Snakes

- A grassroots movement among the Muscogees that formed in 1902 that continued to call for the reestablishment of their landholdings and governance after Oklahoma became a state.

Society of American Indians

- A new generation of First Nations reformers participated in the Progressive impulse, forming the Society of American Indians in 1911. - Unlike the white reformers who had earlier been concerned with the struggles of First Nations groups, this group's leaders did not believe that being a modern First Nations individual meant eradicating First Nations cultures. - Organization founded in 191 that brought together First Nations intellectuals of many tribal backgrounds to promote discussion of the plight of First Nations peoples. - Leadership drawn from many tribal nations - Known as the "Red Progressives" b/c they promoted a pan-First Nations identity, emphasizing the common cause and shared grievances of First Nations peoples in the U.S.

Conservation movement

- A progressive reform movement that focused on the preservation and sustainable management of the nation's natural resources - Under Theodore Roosevelt, the conservation movement became a concerted federal policy. - Roosevelt moved to preserve parts of the natural environment from economic exploitation - Set aside millions of acres for wildlife preserves and encouraged Congress to create new national parks. - The government could stand above political and economic battles, serving the public good while preventing "special interests" from causing irreparable damage to the government

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

- A second expansion of national power occurred in 1914, when Congress established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate and prohibit "unfair" business activities such as price-fixing and monopolistic practices - Both the Federal Reserve and the FTC were welcomed by many business leaders as a means of restoring order to the economic marketplace and warding off more radical measures for curbing corporate power. They reflected the remarkable expansion of the federal role in the economy during the Progressive era.

Florence Kelley

- A veteran of Hull House - Went on to mobilize women's power as consumers as a force for social change - Under Kelley's leadership, the National Consumers League became the nation's leading advocate of laws governing the working conditions of women and children

Varieties of Progressivism

- According to Progressives' the immediate task was to humanize industrial capitalism and find common ground in a society still racked by labor conflict and experiencing massive immigration from abroad. - Some Progressives proposed to return to a competitive marketplace populated by small producers. Others accepted the permanence of the large corporation and looked to the government to reverse the growing concentration of wealth and to ensure social justice. Another fraction relocated freedom from the economic and political worlds to a private realm of personal fulfillment and unimpeded self-expression.

The Campaign for Woman Suffrage

- After 1900, the campaign for woman suffrage moved beyond the elitism of the 1890s to engage a broad coalition ranging from middle-class members of women's clubs to unionists, socialists, and settlement-house workers. - Became a mass movement. Membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association grew from 13,000 in 1893 to more than 2 million by 1917. - By 1900, more than half the states allowed women to vote in local elections dealign with school issues, and Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah had adopted full woman suffrage. - Campaigns which brought women aggressively into the public sphere were conducted wit ha new spirit of militancy. They also made effective use of the techniques of advertising, publicity, and mass entertainment characteristic of modern consumer society. - State campaigns were difficult, expensive, and usually unsuccessful. Thus, the movement increasingly focused its attention on securing a national constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

Progressive Party

- After Taft's firing of Pinchot, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. Taft defeated him, however, so Roosevelt launched an independent campaign as the head of the new Progressive Party. - Political party created when former president Theodore Roosevelt broke away from the Republican Party to run for president again in 1912. The party supported progressive reforms similar to those of the Democrats but stopped short of seeking to eliminate trusts; also the name of the party backing Robert La Follette for president in 1924.

AFL during the Progressive Era

- After surviving the depression of the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor saw its membership triple between 1900 and 1904. - President Samuel Gompers sought to forge closer ties with forward-looking corporate leaders willing to deal with unions as a way to stabilize employee relations. - Most employers still disliked Unions - The AFL mainly represented the most privileged American workers, most commonly skilled industrial and craft laborers who were nearly all white, male, and native-born.

Women Reformers and Progressivism

- Alongside elitist politics, Progressivism also included a more democratic vision of the activist state; as much as any other group, organized women reformers spoke for the democratic side of Progressivism. - Still barred from voting and form holding office in most states, women nonetheless became central to the political history of the Progressive era. The immediate catalyst was a growing awareness among women reformers of the plight of poor immigrant communities and the emergence of the condition of women and child laborers as a major focus of public concern.

Initiative

- Also known as direct legislation, enabled citizens to propose and vote directly on laws, bypassing state legislatures

Progressivism in the West

- Although often associated with eastern cities, Progressivism was also a major presence in the West. - Former Populists and those who believed in the moral power of the frontier gravitated to Progressive programs to regulate the railroads and other large corporations, and to the idea that direct democracy could revitalize corrupt politics. - Important Progressive leaders worked for reform in western states and municipalities, including Hiram Johnson of California and Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. - Reforms such as the initiative, referendum, recall, and direct primaries were meant to weaken the power of political bosses and transfer it to ordinary citizens.

The Promise of Abundance

- As economic production shifted from capital goods (steel, railroad equipment, etc.) to consumer products, the new advertising industry perfected ways of increasing sales, often by linking goods with the idea of freedom. - Economic abundance would eventually come to define the "American way of life," in which personal fulfillment was to be found through acquiring material goods

Lewis Hine

- At aa time when more than 2 million children under the age of 15 worked for wages, Lewis Hine photographed child laborers to draw attention to persistent social inequality.

The Square Deal

- Attempted to confront the problems caused by economic consolidation by distinguishing between "good" and "bad" corporations. - "Good corporations": U.S. Steel and Standard Oil, which served the public interest - "Bad corporations": Were run by greedy financiers interested only in profit and had no right to exist - Roosevelt persecuted the Northern Securities Company under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Created by financier J.P. Morgan, this "holding company owned the stock and directed the affairs of 3 major western railroads, monopolizing transportation between the Great Lakes and the Pacific. In 1904, the Supreme Court ordered Northern Securities dissolved, a major victory for the antitrust movement.

Progressivism

- Broad-based reform movement, 1900-1917, that sought governmental action in solving problems in many areas of American life, including education, public health, the economy, the environment, labor, transportation, and politics. - Progressives included forward-looking businessmen who realized that workers must be accorded a voice in economic decision making, labor activists bent on empowering industrial workers, members of female reform organizations who hoped to protect women and children from exploitation, social scientists who believed that academic research would help to solve social problems, and members of an anxious middle class who feared that their status was threatened by the rise of big business.

Election of 1908

- Chosen successor of Roosevelt in 1908 was William Howard Taft - Defeated William Jennings Bryan, marking his third unsuccessful race for the White House.

Consumer Freedom

- Cities, however, were also the birthplace of a mass-consumption society. Large downtown department stores, neighborhood chain stores, and retail mail-order houses made available to consumers throughout the country the vast array of goods now pouring from the nation's factories. - By 1910, Americans could purchase things like electric sewing machines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and record players. - Amusement parks, dance halls, and theaters attracted large crowds of city residents. - Working-class urban residents attended "nickelodeons," motion-picture theaters whose 5-cent admission charge was far lower than that of vaudeville shows.

Industrial Freedom

- Complaints of a loss of freedom came not only from the most poorly paid factory workers but from better-off employees as well. - Large firms in the automobile, electrical, steel, and other industries sought to implement greater control over the work process

Oregon System

- Consisted of the initiative, referendum, and recall in Oregon - Using the initiative, Progressives won the vote for women in Oregon - Studied and emulated in many other states. Came into being via an alliance of the urban middle class with reform-minded farmers and workers. Fault lines appeared, however, when labor-oriented Progressives tried to use the initaitive and referendum to increase taxes on the well-to-do and require the state to provide jobs for the unemployed. Both measures failed. The initiative system also quickly became out of control. - Between 1910 and 1912, Oregon's West Coast neighbors, Washington and California, also adopted the initiative and referendum and approved woman suffrage.

Democracy Enhancement in the Progressive Era

- Democracy was enhanced by the 17th Amendment (1913) - By widespread adoption of the popular election of judges - Use of primary elections among party members to select candidates for office - Culminated with the constitutional amendment enfranchising women, the largest expansion of democracy in American history.

New Freedom

- Democrat Woodrow Wilson's political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson wanted to improve the banking system, lower tariffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses freedom to compete - Wilson's program envisioned the federal government strengthening antitrust laws, protecting the right of workers to unionize, and actively encouraging small businesses. This created the conditions for the renewal of economic competition without increasing government regulation of the economy. - Wilson warned that corporations were as likely to corrupt government as to be managed by it.

Fordism

- Early 20th century term describing the economic system pioneered by Ford Motor Company based on high wages and mass consumption - In 1914, Ford raised wages at his factory to the unheard-of level of $5 per day (more than double the pay of most industrial workers), enabling him to attract a steady stream of skilled laborers. - When other businessmen criticized him for endangering profits by paying high wages, Ford replied that workers must be able to afford the goods being turned out by American factories.

The Progressive Era: Historical Context

- Economic expansion produced millions of jobs and brought more goods than ever before within reach of American consumers - Cities expanded rapidly; for the 1st time, in 1920, more Americans lived in towns and cities than in rural areas. - Severe inequality remained prevalent, and persistent labor strife raised again the question of the government's role in combating it.

The New Feminism

- Entered the political vocabulary during the Progressive era. - Attacked traditional rules of sexual behavior, adding a new dimension to the idea of personal freedom. - Issues of intimate personal relations previously confined to private discussion blazed forth in popular magazines and public debates. - Free sexual expression and reproductive choice emerged as critical definitions of women's emancipation

The Adamson Act

- Established an 8-hour workday on the nation's railroads

Clayton Act of 1914

- Exempted labor unions from antitrust laws and barred courts from issuing injunctions curtailing the right to strike

Mary "Mother" Jones

- Fiery organizer who at the age of 83 had been jailed after addressing striking Colorado miners

Henry Ford

- Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed the techniques of production and marketing that brought it within the reach of ordinary Americans. - In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company. 5 years later, he introduced the Model T, a simple, light vehicle sturdy enough to navigate the country's poorly maintained roads. - In 1913, Ford's factory in Highland Park, Michigan, adopted the method of production known as the moving assembly line, in which car frames were brought to workers on a continuously moving conveyor belt. - The process enabled Ford to expand output by greatly reducing the time it took to produce each car.

Election of 1912

- Four-way contest between Taft, Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs that became a national debate on the relationship between political and economic freedom in the age of big business. - Taft believed that economic individualism could remain the foundation of the social order so long as government and private entrepreneurs cooperated in addressing social ills. - Debs, as the leader of the Socialist Party, had forward-looking Progressive plans with immediate demands to establish public ownership of the railroads and banking system, government aid to the unemployed, and laws establishing shorter working hours and a minimum wage. It's long term goal was to abolish the "capitalistic system" altogether, but relatively few Americans supported this. - Wilson and Roosevelt represented competing strands of progressivism. Both believed government action necessary to preserve individual freedom, but they differed over the dangers of increasing the government's power and the inevitability of economic concentration

Gifford Pinchot

- Head of the U.S. Forest Service under Roosevelt - Halted timber companies' reckless assault on the nation's forests. Unlike Muir, he believed that development and conservation could go hand in hand and that logging, mining, and grazing on public lands should be controlled, not eliminated.

The New Immigrants on Strike

- IWW organizers printed leaflets, posters, and banners in multiple languages and insisted that each nationality enjoy representation on the committee coordinating a walkout. - Drew on the sense of solidarity within immigrant communities to persuade local religious leaders, shopkeepers, and officeholders to support the strikes.

Eugene V. Debs

- Important in spreading the socialist gospel and linking it to ideals of equality, self-government, and freedom. - Railroad union leader who had been jailed during the Pullman Strike of 1894. - Preached across the nation that control of the economy by a democratic government held out the hope of uniting "political equality and economic freedom."

Hepburn Act

- In 1906, Congress passed the Hepburn Act to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to examine railroads' business records and to set reasonable rates, a significant step in the development of federal intervention in the corporate economy.

Keating-Owen Act

- In 1916, child labor was outlawed in the manufacture of goods sold in interstate commerce

"The right type of good citizenship"

- In a 1910 speech in Kansas Outlining his New Nationalism, Roosevelt announced that "no man can be a good citizen... unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living..." - Yet the person who lacked the qualities to be "a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband" could also never be a good citizen. - Roosevelt's idea of citizenship had a strong gender bias, yet in 1912, he would embrace woman suffrage. - Roosevelt's concept of Americanism, although closed to Blacks and Asian Americans, was open to more people than the outlook of his contemporaries who also excluded the "new immigrants" from Europe. - Coercive potential would become evident when the U.S. entered World War I and the government demanded absolute loyalty of all Americans and the immediate assimilation of immigrants

Wilson's First Term

- In office, Wilson was a strong executive leader. He was the first president to hold regular press conferences, and he delivered messages personally to Congress rather than sending them in written form, as had all his predecessors since John Adams. - With Democrats in control of Congress, Wilson moved aggressively to implement his version of Progressivism.

Settlement House

- Late 19th-century movement to offer a broad array of social services in urban immigrant neighborhoods; Chicago's Hull House was one of hundreds of settlement houses that operated by the early 20th century. - Unlike previous reformers who had aided the poor from afar, settlement-house workers moved into poor neighborhoods. They built kindergartens and playgrounds for children, established employment bureaus and health clinics, and showed female victims of domestic abuse how to gain legal protection. - "Spearheads for reform"

The Immigrant Quest for Freedom

- Like 19th-century immigrants, the new immigrants arrived imagining the U.S. as a land of freedom, where all person enjoyed equality before the law, could worship as they pleased, enjoyed economic opportunity, and had been emancipated from the oppressive social hierarchies of their homelands. - Some of the new immigrants, especially Jews fleeing religious persecution in the Russian empire, thought of themselves as permanent emigrants. - The majority of immigrants initially planned to earn enough money to return home and purchase land, including Mexicans and Italians ("birds of passage").

The Progressive Presidents

- Localism seemed to most Progressives an impediment to a renewed sense of national purpose. - Poverty, economic insecurity, and lack of industrial democracy were national problems that demanded national solutions - To achieve the "Jeffersonian ends" of democratic self-determination and individual freedom, there was a growing belief that the country needed to employ the "Hamiltonian means" of government intervention in the economy. - Progressive presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson

Muller v. Oregon vs. Lochner decision

- Lochner: invalidated a New York law limiting the working hours of male bakers. - Contrasted with Muller v. Oregon, as the Court created the first large breach in "liberty of contract" doctrine.

Scientific management

- Management campaign to improve worker efficiency using measurements like "time and motion" studies to achieve greater productivity; introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911 - Argued that through scientific study, the best way of producing goods could be determined and implemented. The role of workers was to obey the detailed instructions of supervisors. Thus, many skilled workers saw the erosion of their traditional influence over the work process as a loss of freedom.

William Howard Taft

- More conservative than Roosevelt but pursued antirust policy even more aggressively. - Persuaded the Supreme Court to declare John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company (Roosevelt's "good" trusts) in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and to order its breakup into separate marketing, producing, and refining companies. - Government won a case against American Tobacco, which the Court ordered to end pricing policies that were driving smaller firms out of business. - Gravitated toward the more conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Ellis Island

- Most European immigrants to the United States entered through Ellis Island. - Located in New York Harbor, this became in 1892 the nation's main immigrant processing and detention facility. - Reception center in New York Harbor through which most European immigrants to America were processed from 1892 to 1954.

The Progressive Party platform

- Offered numerous proposals to promote social justice. Drafted by a group of settlement-house activists, labor reformers, and social scientists, the platform laid out a blueprint for a modern democratic welfare state, complete with woman suffrage, federal supervision of corporate enterprise, national labor and health legislation for women and children, an 8-hour day and "living wage" for all workers, and a national system of social insurance covering unemployment, medical care, and old age. - Roosevelt's campaign helped to give freedom a modern social and economic content and established an agenda that would define political liberalism for mucho f the 20th century.

William U'Ren

- Oregon stood at the forefront of Progressive reform. The leading figure in the state was William U'Renn, a lawyer who had entered politics as a supporter of Henry George's single-tax program - Founder of the Oregon System, which included the initiative, referendum, and recall

Muller v. Oregon

- Other Progressive legislation recognized that large numbers of women did in fact work outside the home but defined them as a dependent group (like children) in need of state protection in ways male workers were not. - 1908 Supreme Court decision that state interest in protecting women could override liberty in contract. Louis D. Brandeis, with help from his sister-in-law Josephine Goldmark of the National Consumers League, filed a brief in Miller that used statistics about women's health to argue for their protection. - Brandeis cited scientific and sociological studies to demonstrate that because women had less strength and endurance than men, long hours of labor were dangerous for women, while women's unique ability to bear children gave the government a legitimate interest in their working conditions. - Persuaded by Brandeis's argument, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of an Oregon law setting maximum working hours for women.

Pure Food and Drug Act

- Passed in 1906, the first law to regulate manufacturing of food and medicines; prohibited dangerous additives and inaccurate labeling.

Margaret Sanger

- Placed the birth-control movement at the heart of the new feminism by challenging the laws banning contraceptive information and devices - Began a column on sex education, What Every Girl Should Know, for the Call, a NY socialist newspaper - Opened a clinic in 1916 in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn and began distributing contraceptive devices to poor Jewish, Irish, and Italian women. - The IWW and Socialist Party distrbiuted Sanger's writings

New Nationalism

- Platform of the Progressive Party and slogan of former president Theodore Roosevelt in the presidential campaign of 1912; stressed government activism, including regulation of trusts, conservation, and recall of state court decisions that had nullified progressive programs. - Roosevelt insisted that only the "controlling and directing power of the government" could restore "the liberty of the oppressed." - He called for heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and federal regulation of industries, including railroads, mining, and oil.

The Socialist Party

- Political party demanding public ownership of major economic enterprises in the United States as well as reforms like recognition of labor unions and woman suffrage; reached peak of influence in 1912 when presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs received over 900,000 votes. - The Socialist Party called for immediate reforms such as free college education, legislation to improve the condition of laborers, and, as an ultimate goal, democratic control over the economy through public ownership of railroads and factories - Supported by American Federation of Labor (AFL) and had elected scores of local officials - Socialism flourished in diverse communities across the country, including the Lower East Side of NYC (b/c of economic exploitation of immigrant workers and Judaism's tradition of social reform and consisted of Yiddish-language newspapers and theaters), Milwaukee, mining regions of Idaho and Montana, and tenant farmers in old Populist areas like Oklahoma.

Hiram Johnson

- Progressive governor of California from 1911 to 1917. Took over power from a Republican machine closely tied to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had dominated politics for decades. - Worked against Southern Pacific Railroad, secured passage of the Public Utilities Act--one of the country's strongest railroad-regulation measures as well as laws banning child labor and limiting the working hours of women

Seventeenth Amendment

- Progressive reform passed in 1913 that required U.S. senators to be elected directly by voters; previously, senators were chosen by state legislatures - Provided that U.S. senators be chosen by U.S. senators than by state legislatures

Progressive Democracy

- Progressives hoped to reinvigorate democracy by restoring political power to the citizenry and vici harmony to a divided society - Alarmed by the upsurge in violent class conflict and the unrestricted power of corporations they believed tat political reforms could help to create a unified "people"" devoted to greater democracy and social reconciliation. - Increasing responsibilities of government made it more important to identify who was entitled to political participation and who was not. - The electorate was simultaneously expanded and contracted, empowered and removed from direct influence on many functions of government. - Progressives believed that the "fitness" of voters, not their absolute numbers, defined a functioning democracy.

Effective Freedom

- Progressivism was an international movement. Reformers across the globe exchanged ideas and envisioned new social policies. - As governments in Europe institute progressive policies such as old-age pensions, minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and the regulation of workplace safety, American reformers came to believe they had much to learn from Europe. - The term "social legislation" entered the political vocabulary of the U.S. from Germany, meaning governmental action to address urban problems and the insecurities of working-class life. - Progressives sought to reinvigorate the idea of an activist, socially conscious government. Progressives could reject the traditional assumption that powerful government poses a threat to freedom, because their understanding of freedom was itself in flux. Sometimes, the. government had to act on behalf of those with little wealth or power.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

- Radical union organized in Chicago in 1905 and nickname the Wobblies; its opposition to World War I led to its destruction by the federal government under the Espionage Act. - In 1905, a group of unionists who rejected the AFL's exclusionary policies formed the Industrial Workers - Part trade union, part advocate of a workers' revolution that would seize the means of production and abolish the state. - Sought to mobilize those excluded from the AFL--the immigrant factory labor force, migrant agricultural workers, women, Blacks, and the Chinese on the West Coast.

Public Support for Regulation

- Reelected in 1904, Roosevelt pushed for more direct federal regulation of the economy. He proposed to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which the Supreme Court had essentially limited to collecting economic statistics. - Journalistic exposés, labor unrest, and the agitation of Progressive reformers had created significant public support for Roosevelt's regulatory program. - Many businessmen supported these measures b/c they would increase the safety of their products and the public confidence consumers had in their quality. Yet, many were alarmed by Roosevelt's calls for federal inheritance and income taxes and the regulation of all interstate businesses.

Warehouse Act

- Reminiscent of the Populist subtreasury plan - Extended credit to farmers when they stored their crops in federally licensed warehouses

Government by Experts

- Robert M. La Follette's reliance on college professors to staff important posts in his administration reflected a larger Progressive faith in expertise. The government could best exercise intelligent control over society through a democracy run by impartial experts who were in many respects unaccountable to the citizenry. - Political freedom was less a matter of direct participation in government than of qualified persons devising the best public policies.

Roosevelt's Americanism

- Roosevelt wanted immigrants to "Americanize" rather than retaining cultures and customs from their countries of origin. He also believed that fitness for citizenship--or lack thereof--was both inborn and related to past historical experience. - Believed that enslaved people and their descendants could not assimilate properly into American culture and that only persons with the capacity for "self-control" (meaning white people) were capable of participating in democracy

Birth Control Laws

- Slowly, as the birth-control movement took root, laws banning birth control began to change. - The birth-control movement gained increased respectability in the 1920s as doctors and professionals joined the cause, and its earlier radical faded. - However, because individual states determined the laws banning birth control, even when some states liberalized their laws, birth control remained unavailable in many others.

Expanding Role of Government

- Some of Wilson's policies seemed more in tune with Roosevelt's New Nationalism than the New Freedom of 1912. Wilson presided over the creation of 2 powerful new public agencies. - In 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System, consisting of 12 regional banks. They were overseen by a central board appointed by the president and empowered to handle the issuance of currency, aid banks in danger of failing, and influence interest rates so as to promote economic growth.

Society of American Indians: Policies

- Sought to include First Nations studies curriculums in federal boarding schools - Supportive of basic goals of federal First Nations policy, including the transformation of communal landholdings on reservations into individual property. - Insisted on better educational opportunities, U.S. citizenship, a special claims court, and increased independence through diminishing the power of the Bureau of Indian Affairs over First Nations lives. - Founder Carlos Montezuma spoke out against Bureau of Indian Affairs, appalled by poverty and prisonlike conditions on reservations, and believed that the power of federal government officials to determine all aspects of First Nations social, economic, and cultural life was not freedom.

State and Local Reforms

- State and local governments enacted most of the era's reform measures - In cities, Progressives worked to reform the structure of government to reduce the power of political bosses, establish public control of "natural monopolies" like gas and water work, and improve public transportation. - They raised property taxes in order to spend more money on schools, parks, and other public facilities - Gilded Age mayors and governors pioneered urban Progressivism.

Wilson's Vision

- Strongly influenced by Louis D. Brandeis, Wilson insisted that democracy must be reinvigorated by restoring market competition and freeing government from domination by big business. Wilson feared big government as much as he feared the power of the corporations.

Louis D. Brandeis

- Supreme Court Justice who President Woodrow Wilson appointed to the Supreme Court in 1916, maintained that unions embodied an essential principle of freedom--the right of people to govern themselves.

Sixteenth Amendment

- Taft supported the 16th Amendment which passed in 1913 and legalized the federal income tax - Authorized Congress to enact a graduated income tax (one whose rate of taxation is higher for wealthier citizens) - A key step in the modernization of the federal government because it provided a reliable and flexible source of revenue for a national state whose powers, responsibilities, and expenditures were growing rapidly. - Supreme Court had declared a prior income tax as a "communistic threat to property"

Richard A. Ballinger

- Taft's secretary of the Interior that caused Taft's rift with Progressives to deepen when Ballinger concluded that Roosevelt had exceeded his authority in placing land in forest reserves. - Decided to return some of this land to the public domain, where mining and lumber companies would have access to it. - Gifford Pinchot accused Ballinger of colliding with business interests and repudiating the environmental goals of the Roosevelt administration. As a result, Taft fired Pinchot in 1910, creating an irreparable breach with party Progressives.

Restricting Democratic Participation in the Progressive Era

- The Progressive era also witnessed numerous restrictions on democratic participation, most strikingly the disenfranchisement of Blacks in the South. - To make city government more honest and efficient, many localities replaced elected mayors with appointed non-partisan commissions or city managers--a change that insulated officials from machine domination but also from popular control. - New literacy tests and residency and registration requirements, common in both northern and southern states, limited the right to vote among the poor.

Farms and Cities

- The Progressive era was a period of explosive economic growth, fueled by increasing industrial production, a rapid rise in population, and the continued expansion of the consumer marketplace. - Farm families poured into the western Great Plains, with 1 million claims for free government land being filed under the Homestead Act of 1862. - Irrigation transformed the Imperial Valley of California and parts of Arizona into major areas of commercial farming. - The city became the focus of Progressive politics and of a new mass-consumer society

"American standard of living"

- The Progressive-era idea that American workers were entitled to a wage high enough to allow them full participation in the nation's mass consumption economy - The maturation of the consumer economy gave rise to concepts--a "living wage" and an "American standard of living"--that offered new language for criticizing the inequalities of wealth and power in Progressive America.

1912 Election Results

- The Republican Party split in 1912, ensuring a sweeping victory vote for Wilson (42%) - Roosevelt humiliated Taft (27% to 23%).

John Muir and the Spirituality of Nature

- The United States led the way in conservation of natural resources. The first national park, Yellowstone in Wyoming, was created in 1872, partly to preserve an area of remarkable natural beauty and partly at the urging of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was anxious to promote western tourism. - in the 1890s, Scottish-born naturalist John Muir organized the Sierra Club to help preserve forests from uncontrolled logging by timber companies. - Also in the 1890s, Congress authorized the president to withdraw "forest reserves" from economic development, a restriction on economic freedom in the name of a greater social good. - Muir's love of nature stemmed from deep religious feelings, as he believe that men could experience directly the presence of God through nature. - As more Americans lived in cities, they came to see nature less asa something to conquer and more as a place for recreation and personal growth.

The Immigrant Family

- The desire to participate in the consumer society led to conflicts between parents and their self-consciously "free" children, especially daughters. Young working women spent part of their low wages on clothing and makeup and at places of entertainment. - Daughters considered parents who tried to impose curfews or to prevent them from going out alone to dances or movies as old-fashioned and not sufficiently "American."

The Contradictions of the Progressive Era

- The era saw the expansion of political and economic freedom through the reinvigoration of the movement for woman suffrage, the use of political power to expand workers' rights, and efforts to improve democratic government by weakening the power of city bosses and giving ordinary citizens more influence on legislation. Understandings of freedom were developed based on individual fulfillment and personal self-determination. - At the same time, many Progressives supported efforts to limit the full enjoyment of freedom to those deemed fit to exercise it properly. - The new system of white supremacy of the 1890s became fully consolidated in the South. Growing numbers of Americans born in the U.S. demanded that immigrants abandon their traditional cultures and become fully "Americanized.' Efforts were made at the local and national levels to place political decision making in the hands of experts who did not have to answer to the electorate.

Jana Addams and Hull House

- The era's most prominent female reformer, born in 1860. In 1889, she founded the Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house devoted to improving the lives of the immigrant poor. - Typical of the Progressive era's "new woman." By 1900, there was a growing number of college-educated women in the United States. Many found a calling in providing social services, nursing, and education to poor families in the growing cities. The efforts of middle-class women to uplift the poor, and of laboring women to uplift themselves, helped to shift the center of gravity of politics toward activist government. - Women liked Addams discovered that even well-organized social work was not enough to alleviate the problems of inadequate housing, income, and health. Government action was essential. - Hull House inspired an array of reforms in Chicago, soon adopted elsewhere, including stronger building and sanitation codes, shorter working hours and safer labor conditions, and the right of labor to organize.

Underwood Tariff

- The first significant measure of Wilson's presidency - Substantially reduced duties on imports, and, to make up for lost revenue, imposed a graduated income tax on the richest 5% of Americans

The Birth-Control Movement

- The growing presence of women in the labor market reinforced demands for access to birth control, and issue that gave political expression to changing sexual behavior. - Famous activists: Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman - An offshoot of the early 20th-century feminist movement that saw access to birth control and "voluntary motherhood" as essential to women's freedom. The birth-control movement was led by Margaret Sanger - Became a crossroads where the paths of labor radicals, cultural modernists, and feminists intersected.

Lawrence, Massachusetts

- The labor conflict that had the greatest impact on public consciousness took place in Lawrence, Massachusetts. - The city's huge woolen mills employed 32K men, women, and children representing 25 nationalities. - When the state legislature in January 1912 enacted a 54-hour limit to the workweek, employers reduced the weekly take-home pay of those who had been laboring longer hours. Workers then went on strike. - In February, strikes sent strikers' children out of the city for the duration of the walkout. The sight of the children, many of whom appeared pale and half-starved, marching up 5th Avenue from the train station led to a wave of sympathy for strikers. The governor of Massachusetts soon intervened, and the strike was settled on the workers' terms. Workers sought not only higher wages but also the opportunity to enjoy the finer things of life.

The Welfare state

- The maternalist agenda that built gender inequality into the early foundations of the welfare state raised the idea that government should better the living conditions of men as well. - Brandeis envisioned the welfare states as one rooted in the notion of universal economic entitlements, including the right to a decent income and protection against unemployment and work-related accidents. - By 1913, 22 states had enacted workmen's compensation laws to benefit workers, male or female, injured on the job. - Opened the way for broader programs of social insurance - Minimum wage laws and most laws regulating working hours applied only to women. Interference with the freedom of contract of adult male workers was still seen as degrading. - The establishment of a standard of living and working conditions beneath which no American, male or female, should be allowed to fall would await the coming of the New Deal.

Robert M. La Follette

- The most influential Progressive administration at the state level, made Wisconsin a "laboratory for democracy." - After serving as a Republican member of Congress, La Follette became convinced that an alliance of railroad and lumber companies controlled state politics. - Elected governor in 1900 of Wisconsin. Instituted a series of measures known as the "Wisconsin Idea," including nominations of candidates for office through primary elections, the taxation of corporate wealth, and state regulation of railroads and public utilities. Other measures created a statewide system of insurance against illness, death, and accident, barred the sale to private companies of land, mineral rights, and other natural resources owned by the state, required safety devices ton various forms of machinery, and prohibited child labor. - To staff his administration, he used nonpartisan faculty members from the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin offered the most striking merger of the social and political impulses that went under the name of Progressivism.

Immigrant Life

- The new immigrants clustered in close-knit "ethnic" neighborhoods with their own shops, theaters, and community organizations, and often continued to speak their native tongues. - Endured low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions. - While native-born workers dominated skilled and supervisory jobs, eastern European immigrants performed low-wage unskilled labor in the mines and factories of Pennsylvania and the Midwest.

Immigration as a Global Process

- The new immigration from southern and Eastern Europe reached its peak during the Progressive Era. - Around 13 million immigrants came to the United States, the majority from Italy, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian empire. - Worldwide migration was caused by industrial expansion and the decline of traditional agriculture - Rural southern and Eastern Europe and large parts of Asia were regions marked by widespread poverty and illiteracy, burdensome taxation, and declining economies. Political turmoil at home also inspired immigration. - An influx of Asian and Mexican newcomers occurred in the West. 72K Japanese arrived after Chinese exclusion in the late 19th century, primarily to work as agricultural laborers in California's fruit and vegetable fields and on Hawaii's sugar plantations. 1 million Mexicans entered the United States - By 1910, 1/7 of the American population was foreign-born (highest % in the country's history)

The Working Woman

- The new visibility of women in urban public places--at work, as shoppers, and in places of entertainment like cinemas and dance halls--indicated that traditional gender oles were changing dramatically in Progressive America. - Immigrant women were largely confined to low-paying factory employment - For native-born white women, the kinds of jobs available expanded enormously. Many became office workers or telephone operators. Female work was no longer confined to young, unmarried white women and adult Black women. - The working woman--immigrant and native, working-class and professional--became a symbol of female emancipation

Collective bargaining

- The process of negotiations between an employer and a group of employees to regulate working conditions - A series of mass strikes among immigrant workers demonstrated that although ethnic divisions among workers impeded labor solidarity, ethnic cohesiveness could also be a basis of unity - Placed labor's demand for the right of collective bargaining at the forefront of the reform agenda.

Labor and Civil Liberties

- The struggle of workers for the right to strike and of labor radicals against restraints on open-air speaking made free speech a significant public issue in the early 20th century. The court rejected their claims. - Lacking union halls, IWW organizers relied on songs, street theater, impromptu organizing meetings, and street corner gatherings to spread their message and attract support. - In response to IWW activities, officials in Los Angeles, Spokane, Denver, and more than a dozen other cities limited or prohibited outdoor meetings. The IWW eventually forced local officials to give way, however.

Maternalist Reform

- The suffrage movement was reinvigorated by the desire to improve women's role within the home. Female reformers helped to launch a mass movement for direct government action to improve the living standards of poor mothers and children. - Laws providing for mothers' pensions (state aid to mothers of young children who lacked male support) spread rapidly after 1910 - Progressive-era reforms that sought to encourage women's childbearing and their childrearing abilities and to promote their economic independence - Both feminists and believers in conventional domestic roles supported such measures, though women wanted these laws to eliminate women's depended on men and men wanted them to strengthen traditional families and the mother-child bond.

The "labor problem"

- These developments helped to place the ideas of "industrial freedom" and "industrial democracy" which had entered the political vocabulary in the Gilded Age, at the center of political discussion during the Progressive era. - The lack of "industrial freedom" was widely believed to lie at the root of the much-discussed "labor problem." - Many Progressives believed that the key to increasing industrial freedom lay in empowering workers to participate in economic decision making via strong unions.

The Jungle (1906)

- Upton Sinclair wrote the era's most influential novel in 1906, with his description of unsanitary slaughterhouses and the sale of rotten meat stirring public outrage and leading directly to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

Theodore Roosevelt

- Was vice president when William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901 - Actively and continuously engaged in domestic and foreign affairs. - Created a domestic program called the Square Deal

First Nations Freedom

- While the Society of American Indians emphasized equal rights and education, other First Nations groups aimed to retain or restore land as the basis for First Nations freedom - When federal officials broke up their common holdings, sold "surplus" lands to settlers, and sought to dissolve their governments, First Nations leads vigorously protested. - Instead of allowing the new pan-Indian state of Sequoyah that would allow the First Nations to retain their political authority within the U.S. federal system, Congress established the state of Oklahoma in 1907 to unite Indian and Oklahoma Territory.

Impact of Muller v. Oregon

- While women were entering the labor market and earning college degrees, Brandeis's brief and the Court's opinion solidifed the view of women workers as weak, dependent, and incapable of enjoying the same economic rights as men. - By 1917, 30 states had enacted laws limited the hours of labor of female workers.

Muckraking

- Writing that exposed corruption and abuses in politics, business, meatpacking, child labor, and more, primarily in the first decade of the 20th century; included popular books and magazine articles that spurred public interest in reform - A new generation of journalists writing for mass-circulation national magazines exposed the ills of industrial and urban life. Major novelists took a ruthless approach to social ills - Theodore Roosevelt did not like it.

The Shame of Cities (1904)

- Written by Lincoln Steffens in 1904, showed how party bosses and business leaders profited from political corruption