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Eugenics
• The study of or belief in the possibility of
improving the qualities of the human
species or a human population, especially
by such means as discouraging
reproduction by persons having genetic
defects or presumed to have inheritable
undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or
encouraging reproduction by persons
presumed to have inheritable desirable
traits (positive eugenics)
Second International Eugenics
Conference Logo, 1921
Prohibition
• The banning of the manufacture, sale, and
possession of alcoholic beverages. With a
capital “P” it is the period from 1920-1933
during which the Eighteenth Amendment
forbidding the manufacture and sale of
alcohol was in force in the United States.
Social Darwinism
• Social theory loosely based on Charles Darwin’s
theory of natural selection.
• Belief that in human society the fittest individuals
and corporations would survive.
• “Survival of the Fittest”
• Progressives opposed Social Darwinism with the
idea that wealth concentrated in the hands of
monopolies and business owners was bad for the
economy and society.
• Progressives believed that the government should
promote social reforms, clean up cities, and help
those in need.
Social Darwinism
Red Scare
(1st Red Scare 1919-1921)
• Shortly after the end of World War I and the
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare
took hold in the United States. A nationwide fear
of communists, socialists, anarchists, and other
dissidents suddenly grabbed the American psyche
in 1919 following a series of anarchist bombings.
The nation was gripped in fear. Innocent people
were jailed for expressing their views, civil
liberties were ignored, and many Americans
feared that a Bolshevik-style revolution was at
hand. Then, in the early 1920s, the fear seemed to
dissipate just as quickly as it had begun, and the
Red Scare was over.
Scopes Trial
• A fight over evolution and the role of science
and religion in public schools and in
American society. The clash over evolution,
the Prohibition experiment, and the
emerging urbanization of the country
demonstrate the changes occurring during
the 1920s.
• http://www.history.com/this-day-inhistory/the-trial-of-the-century-drawsnational-attention
Booker T. Washington
• Noted educator and director of the Tuskegee Institute
in Alabama to train teachers. Washington believed
that the best way for African Americans to get ahead
was to work hard and improve their economic
condition. He urged blacks to adapt themselves to the
limits imposed by white society. He called for gradual
economic advancement.
• Washington served as an adviser to Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
Although Washington clashed with other black
leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois and drew ire for his
seeming acceptance of segregation, he is recognized
for his educational advancements and attempts to
promote economic self-reliance among African
Americans.
W. E. B. DuBois
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The first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. DuBois argued
that African Americans must demand civil rights and encouraged them to
protest when equality was denied. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
in 1909.
The Souls of Black Folk published in 1903
The book contains several essays on race.. To develop this work, Du Bois
drew from his own experiences as an African-American in the American
society. The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science
as one of the early works in the field of sociology.
Chapter I lays out an overview of Du Bois's thesis for the book. It says that
the blacks of the South need the right to vote, the right to a good education,
and to be treated with equality and justice. Here, he also coined “double
consciousness", which he defined as a "sense of always looking at one's self
through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world
that looks on in amused contempt and pity."
Jim Crow Laws
• State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the
Southern United States.
• Jim Crow laws mandated the segregation of public
schools, public places, and public transportation, and
the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and
drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S.
military was also segregated.
• Segregation of public schools was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1954
in Brown v. Board of Education Generally, the remaining
Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Jim Crow Law Examples
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“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in
company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or
checkers.”
—Birmingham, Alabama, 1930
“Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is
possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood.”
—Nebraska, 1911
“Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of
African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any
white school, or any white child to attend a colored school.”
—Missouri, 1929
“All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads)
shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored
races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or
by dividing the cars by a partition, so as to secure separate
accommodations.”
—Tennessee, 1891
16th Amendment
• 1913 - Established Congress's right to
impose a Federal income tax.
Progressives introduced a graduated
income tax putting a higher tax burden on
those who had more money.
17th Amendment
• Progressives wanted senators to respond
to the people – not big business. They
pushed Congress to propose and ratify the
17th Amendment requiring the direct
election of senators by popular vote.
18th Amendment
• Prohibition of the “manufacture, sale, or
transportation of intoxication liquors.”
• Progressives believed that alcohol
consumption was a serious social ill
19th Amendment
• 1920 - This amendment guaranteed
women the right to vote. This was an
important progressive goal designed to
advance democratic rights.
NAACP
• National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. The NAACP fought
through the courts to end segregation. It
also helped to ensure African Americans
could vote guaranteed to them by the 15th
Amendment. It protested lynchings and
other racial violence. Some progressives
favored fighting racism
Upton Sinclair/The Jungle
• In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks in disguise,
working undercover in Chicago's meatpacking
plants to research his novel, The Jungle (1906), a
political exposé that addressed conditions in the
plants as well as the lives of poor immigrants.
When it was published two years later, it became a
bestseller.
• The government did not regulate product quality
at the time and Sinclair helped to expose the
unsanitary conditions at the meat packing plans in
particular.
Muckraker
• A group of writers and journalists who
helped uncover the nation’s problem and
wrote about them. The term was given to
them by President Theodore Roosevelt
because they, “raked the mud of society.”
Susan B. Anthony
• American civil rights leader who played a
pivotal role in the 19th century women's
rights movement to introduce women's
suffrage into the United States. She was
one of the important advocates in leading
the way for women's rights to be
acknowledged and instituted in the
American government.
ACLU
• American Civil Liberties Union founded
in 1920 by a group of pacifists and social
activists.- “The ACLU is our nation's
guardian of liberty, working daily in
courts, legislatures and communities to
defend and preserve the individual rights
and liberties that the Constitution and
laws of the United States guarantee
everyone in this country.” – ACLU
website.
FDA
• Pure Food and Drug Act
• The first Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906.
• The purpose was to protect the public against adulteration of food
and from products identified as healthful without scientific support.
• For confectionary, adulteration would be the result of any
poisonous color or flavor, or of any other ingredients harmful to
human health.
• Food was adulterated if it contained filthy or decomposed animal
matter, poisonous or harmful ingredients, or anything that
attempted to conceal inferior components.
• The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed on the same day as the
Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This act mandated examination of
livestock before slaughter as well as analysis of carcasses, and
required ongoing USDA inspection of slaughterhouses and
processing plants.