PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

Negative effects of Industrialization•Child labor•Low wages• long hours•Unsafe working conditions

Rise of organized laborIn response to negative effects of industrialization:

•Workers formed Labor unions•Growth of American Federation of Labor (AFL)

•Samuel Gompers - founder of AFL

Homestead Strike •At Carnegie’s steel plant in Homestead, PA

•Wages were cut; workers went on strike

•Strike was a failure

•This violent strike turned public opinion against unions

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory FireBy 1911, the Triangle Waist Company was one of the largest blouse makers in New York City.

The Triangle Waist Company had made its owners rich, but it was through the exploitation of their workers.

In 1909, shirtwaist factory workers from around the city went on strike for an increase in pay, shorter work week, and the recognition of a union.

Though many of the other shirtwaist companies eventually agreed to the strikers' demands, the Triangle Waist Company owners never did.

Conditions at the Triangle Waist Company factory remained poor.

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire started on the eighth floor.

A cutter noticed a small fire had started in his scrap bin.

No one is sure what exactly started the fire, but a fire marshal thought a cigarette butt had possibly gotten tossed into the bin.

Nearly everything in the room wasflammable: hundreds of pounds of cotton scraps, tissue paper patterns, and wooden tables.

Several workers threw pails of water on the fire, but it quickly grew out of control.

Workers then tried to use the fire hoses that were available on each floor, for one last attempt to put out the fire; however, when they turned the water valve on, no water came out.

Everyone rushed to escape the fire. Some ran to the four elevators. There wasn't time for many trips to the bottom and back up before the fire reached the elevator shafts as well.

Others ran to the fire escape. Though about 20 reached the bottom successfully, about 25 others died when the fire escape buckled and collapsed.

Many on the tenth floor, including the owners, made it safely to the roof and then were helped to nearby buildings.

The doors to the hallways were locked (company policy). Many workers headed to the windows.

At 4:45 p.m., the fire department was alerted to the fire. They rushed to the scene, raised their ladder, but it only reached to the sixth floor.

Those on the window ledges started jumping.

Of the 500 employees, 146 died.

Many people searched for someone to blame. The Triangle Waist Company owners, Blanck and Harris, were tried for manslaughter, but were found not guilty.

The fire and the large number of deaths exposed the hazardous conditions and fire dangers that were in these high-rise factories.

Shortly after the Triangle fire, New York City passed a large number of fire, safety, and building codes and created stiff penalties for non-compliance. Other cities followed New York's example.

Progressive Movement workplace reforms

•Improved safety conditions•Reduced work hours•Placed restrictions on child labor

Upton Sinclair

Jacob Riis

Muckrakers were journalists who exposed dangerous conditions and factories’/mines’ use of child labor

One of the most important things muckrakers did was help reduce child labor

Breaker boys in a coal mine

Women’s suffrage (suffrage = right to vote)•Increased educational opportunities for women

•19th amendment (1920)Women attained voting rights nation-wide

•Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth CadyStanton worked for Women’s suffrage

Temperance Movement•Composed of groups opposed to the

making and consuming of alcohol

Carrie Nation – one of the most famous temperance supporters

Standing at nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 180 pounds,, Carry Amelia Moore Nation, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, was an imposing figure. Wielding a hatchet, she was downright frightful.

In 1900, the target of Nation's wrath was alcoholic drink.

Kiowa, Kansas was the setting of Nation's first outburst of destruction in the name of temperance in 1900.

Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times after leading her followers in the destruction of one waterhole after another with cries of "Smash, ladies, smash!"

•18th amendment (start of the Prohibition Era)

Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages

Results of prohibition

•Speakeasies were created as places for people to drink alcoholic beverages (these places were illegal)

•Bootleggers: made and smuggled alcohol illegally and promoted organized crime

Police with seized illegal alcohol

Surveillance photo of bootleggers smuggling liquor

The 18th Amendment wasrepealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933