The Progressive Movement

(Nebraska Studies)

Four Goals of Progressivism •  Protect Social Welfare •  Promote Moral Development •  Create Economic Reform •  Foster Efficiency

(photos from University Library)

Protect Social Welfare Soften harsh conditions of industrialization

Settlement houses

Salvation Army - Soup kitchens, cared for children in nurseries, taught immigrants how to care for themselves

Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) - opened libraries, sponsored classes, built swimming pools

(Salvation Army designs)

(Solpass)

Promote Moral Improvement

Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Led crusade for prohibition with the Anti-Saloon League – members entered saloons singing, praying, urging owners to stop selling alcohol

Opened kindergartens for immigrants

Visited inmates in prisons and asylums

Worked for suffrage

245,000 members by 1911 (Old State House)

Create Economic Reform Eugene V. Debs helped organize the American Socialist Party in 1901

Concerned with the uneven balance among big business, government and ordinary people under the free-market system of capitalism

Muckrakers exposed the corruption in the government

(Britannica)

(The Muckrakers)

Foster Efficiency

Reformers explored the lack of efficiency in businesses

Assembly line forced long hours, caused injuries and fatigued workers

“Wins” for Progressives!

Florence Kelley

• Illinois Factory Act (1893) – Kelley helped to win passage, prohibiting child labor and limiting women’s working hours; this act soon became a model for other states

• National Child Labor Committee (1904) – supporting the rights of children

• Muller v. Oregon (1908) – passed a 10-hour work day for women

• Bunting v. Oregon (1917) – passed a 10-hour work day for men

(Binghamton University)

Theodore Roosevelt

• Youngest president at that point – only 42

• Well known in New York politics: a member of state legislature and a police commissioner for NYC

• Led Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War

• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) – halted the sale of contaminated foods and medicines and called for truth in labeling

Vice President under William McKinley

Roosevelt disagreed that America’s resources were endless; he set aside 148 million acres as forest reserves, established more than 50 wildlife sanctuaries and several national parks

(photos from Teddy Roosevelt)

William Howard Taft

(America’s Library)

• Secretary of War under Teddy Roosevelt

• Wanted to consolidate rather than expand Roosevelt’s reforms

• Could not fill Roosevelt’s shoes – party split between progressives who sought change and conservatives who did not

• Roosevelt returning, running for Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party)

Woodrow Wilson

(America’s Library)

• Democrats chose Wilson to run against Taft and Roosevelt in the 1912 election

• Wilson promised legislation to control big business, banking reform, and tariff reduction, calling his plan a “New Freedom”

BUT, the war in Europe would dominate his presidency… “There’s no chance of progress and reform in an administration in which war plays the principal part.”

The Progressive Era could not compete with a nation at war! (Academic Brooklyn)