THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

The Progressive Era:

I.               Origins

A. Populism:

Farmers' Alliance

Omaha Platform:

--inflationary currency policy

--graduated income tax

--direct government ownership of railroad and telegraph industries

--redistribution of railroad owned lands

B. Hull House—1889

      Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr

II.             A New Mindset:

Progressivism Defined:

Progressivism was a series of movements designed to combat the ills of industrialism. Some progressives also wanted to control the behavior of the working classes.

Stanley Schultz, Univ. of Wisconsin:

·       Government should be more active

·       Social problems are susceptible to government legislation and action

·       Throw money at the problem

·       The world is “perfectible”

III.           Progressive Movements:

A.   Anti-Trust

Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890

“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.”

B.    Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives

To help prepare you to deal effectively with this book for the midterm, find as many specific examples (page numbers) as you can.

Let’s start with the pictures. Which photograph was most compelling?

According to Riis, what is the cause of crime?

How does Riis deal with race? What impact does race have on poverty in this book?

Based on your reading, define poverty.

What is the role of government in the slums?

According to Riis, what should be the role of government in the slums?

C.    Anti-Lynching (Ida B. Wells-Barnett)

D.   Good Government Movement

--17^th Amendment=direct election of senators

--referendums and recalls

E.    Consumer Protection: The Jungle

Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

IV.           Progressivism in Practice:

Immigration:

Newspaper in 1900: "It is well known that nearly every foreigner…goes armed. Some carry revolvers, while many others hide huge ugly knives upon their person."

Senator William Bruce (Maryland):

Immigrants are “indigestible lumps in

the national stomach.”

            1890-1900: 3.5 million

            1900-1910: 7 million

                        Ellis Island:

“Such an impulse toward better things there certainly is. The German rag-picker of thirty years ago, quite as low in the scale as his Italian successor, is the thrifty tradesman or prosperous farmer of to-day. The Italian scavenger of our time is fast graduating into exclusive control of the corner fruit-stands, while his black-eyed boy monopolizes the boot-blacking industry in which a few years ago he was an intruder.” 

Jacob Riis on social fluidity

TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE OF 1911

A. The ILGWU Strike:

                        B. Fire on the Factory Floor

                        C. Reporters and the Visibility of Triangle

                                    1. "Love Affair in Mid-Air"

                                    2. Mortillalo and Zito

D. The Public Response

V.             Progressivism Abroad:

A. Foreign Policy Community

                        --T.R., Henry Cabot Lodge

                        --“large policy”

            B. Capitalism

            C. "Yellow" Journalism

                  Pulitzer: New York World

Hearst: New York Journal

Rudyard Kipling, “White Man’s Burden” (1899)

     

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

VI.           More Progressivism in Practice: