Women’s Progressive Reforms

Temperance, Suffrage, and Settlement Houses

Temperance• Temperance: moderation

or elimination of drinking alcohol–Aimed primarily at

laboring-class men–Believed alcohol was

responsible for a majority of the problems of the working class

• Extension of the settlement house movement

Temperance Becomes Prohibition

• Urging people to give up alcohol proved unpopular and difficult

• Began advocating local legislation banning alcohol but soon turned to national level

• Prohibition: ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol– 18th Amendment passed

in 1919 (repealed in 1933)

Trivia: The Ku Klux Klan supported Prohibition!

The Right to Vote• Suffrage: the right to vote

– Belief that women’s vote would reform government

• Movement grew alongside abolition– Many of the same activists– Used skills learned in

abolition crusade• Intensified after 14th & 15th

Amendments passed– Argued that white women’s

votes would counter black men’s

• Worked longer for women’s suffrage than any other reform

Winning Suffrage• 1890: Formation of National

American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

• Original strategy was to win state by state

• When U.S. entered World War I to make the world “safe for democracy,” it seemed a little odd for American women not to have the vote

• 1920: 19th Amendment passed

Trivia: Suffragists began the practice of protesting directly outside the White House.

Famous Suffragists

Susan B. Anthony

Elizabeth Cady

Stanton Carrie Chapman

Catt

Alice Paul

Settlement Houses• Community centers in

immigrant neighborhoods– English classes– Day care for working

mothers– Raise awareness of political

issues– Most had religious

sponsorship• Most famous was Hull

House in Chicago– Jane Addams

• Movement peaked around World War I

Why are these Progressive movements?Tempera

nce• Increased

government regulation

• Goal is to protect the people from themselves & one another

• Constitutional Amendment

Women’s Suffrage

• Increased people’s involvement in government

• Goal is to reform the electorate– Women purer,

more moral• Constitutional

Amendment

• Increased people’s involvement in government

• Goal is to make life better for working classes

• Reliance on experts

Settlement Houses