Chapter 7: The Progressive Era

1900-1920

You could be in any party and still be a Progressive. They wanted to fix:

• Unregulated industrialization

• Unplanned urbanization• Unrelenting

immigration• Social instability• Economic injustice• Political corruption

The Muckrakers

• Muckrakers were named by TR because they could only look down at the problems of society

• The muckrakers saw their primary objective as exposing social problems to the public.

Features of Progressivism:• Democracy – the direct

primary, initiative, referendum, recall, & the 17th amendment

• Efficiency – scientific government, commission system, city-manager plan

• Regulation – restore the competition of small firms

• Social Justice – private charities like Settlement Houses, labor legislation for children, and women

• Prohibition – amendment sent to the states in 1917 Robert M. La Follette

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Disaster

in 1911

Teddy Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”

• He called for enforcement of exiting anti-trust laws

• During the 1902 Coal Strike TR won support for his use of the “big stick” against business

• By taking these actions TR expanded Federal power

Teddy Roosevelt’s Own Term

The Hepburn Act – authorized the ICC to set maximum rates for railroads

Upton Sinclair author of the Jungle

TR signed The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act (b/c of the novel the Jungle)

Teddy Roosevelt and Conservation

Environmental Conservation with his friend George Bird Grinnell who the Audubon Society

TR was an ardent conservationist and sportsman

The 1908 Presidential Race

The Democrats once again nominate

William Jennings Bryan

Vs.TR’s hand picked successor was

Republican William Howard Taft

Taft as President

• Domestic Policies i.e. the Tariff and Department of Interior

• Conservation• Anti-Trust suit against

United States Steel• 16th and 17th

Amendments

The Presidential Election of 1912

Eugene V. Debs Socialist

Socialism- advocates

State ownershipof business

Anti-Capitalism 900,000 votes

William Howard Taft Nominated

by the Republicans

2,500,000 votes8 Electoral Votes

Theodore Roosevelt Split the Republican Party and started a Progressive Party “The Bull Moose

Party”4,100,000 votes

88 Electoral Votes

Woodrow Wilson Democrat

6,300,000 votes435 Electoral

Votes

Wilson’s 1st Term as President

• The Tariff• Wilson appointed

William Jennings Bryan as secretary of state

• The Federal Reserve Act• The Federal Highways

Act• No Woman’s Suffrage• Allowed Racism in Gov.• No support for Anti-

Child Labor laws• No Support for Farmers

The Federal Reserve

The Federal Highway Act

• Passed in 1916• This also marked a

sharp turn from Jacksonian opposition to internal improvements at federal expense

• This would help the farmers with their new automobiles

Limits of Progressivism• At the same time of

progressivism blacks were losing their rights

• Progressivism was mainly for the middle-class not the poor

• Voter turn out would see a steady decline

• When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917 the Progressive Era would end