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HIST 1302 Part Two
22 The Progressive Era
Automobiles
The world’s first gasoline-powered automobile
was made in Germany by Karl Benz in 1886.
The first practical automobile in the U.S. was patented by
the Duryea Brothers of Massachusetts in 1895.
Early automobiles ranged in price from $650 to over
$6,000. Few people could afford them.
In the early days, there were 3 types of cars:
1. Gasoline-powered
2. Electric
3. Steam-powered
15 min. 00 sec.
Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson, mechanic Sewell Crocker,
and “Bud” the dog made the first transcontinental
automobile trip May 23 to July 26, 1903
The Ford “Model T”
Nicknamed the “Tin Lizzie” or “Flivver”
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Introduced in 1908
Original cost: $850
20 Horsepower engine
Reached speeds of more than 25 m.p.h.!
You could have one in any color as long as it was black.
How Ford Succeeded
• Ford was the first to build affordable cars.
• In 1913 he pioneered use of the assembly line for
automobile manufacturing, leading to even lower prices.
• In 1914, he paid workers $5 a day to combat turnover.
By the mid-1920s, the price of a
Model T had dropped to below $300!
4 min. 40 sec.
Airplanes
At the beginning of the 20th century, some people thought the
lighter-than-air dirigible was the future of air transportation.
Two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, Orville
and Wilbur Wright, thought differently.
On Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC,
the Wright Brothers successfully tested
the world’s first powered, controllable,
heavier-than-air aircraft.
Orville Wright at the controls
Distance: 120 ft. Duration: 12 sec.
Back home in Ohio, the Wright Brothers
continued to perfect their “flyer.”
7 min. 06 sec.
In 1908, the Wright Brothers sold “Wright
Flyers” to their first customer: the U.S. Army.
Muckrakers
President Theodore Roosevelt coined the term “Muckraker” in 1906.
“There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man
whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in
politics, or business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer
or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or
newspaper, with merciless severity makes such an attack, provided
always that…the attack is absolutely truthful.”
--Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man with the Muck-Rake” speech, April 14, 1906
McClure’s Magazine made
its reputation as a
“Muckraking” journal.
In December 1902 Ida Tarbell exposed the corrupt practices of
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in the pages of McClure’s.
“Rockefeller and his associates did not build the Standard Oil Co.
in the board rooms of Wall Street banks. They fought their way
to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail,
espionage and price cutting, by ruthless ... efficiency of
organization.”
--Ida Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company, 1902
In 1904, in his “Shame of the Cities” series, McClure's editor
Lincoln Steffens exposed corruption in municipal politics.
“The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of
individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. “My
business is sacred,” says the business man in his heart. “Whatever prospers my
business, is good; it must be. Whatever hinders it, is wrong; it must be. A bribe is bad,
that is, it is a bad thing to take; but it is not so bad to give one, not if it is necessary to
my business.” "Business is business“ is not a political sentiment, but our politician has
caught it. He takes essentially the same view of the bribe, only he saves his self-respect
by piling all his contempt upon the bribe-giver, and he has the great advantage of
candor.”
In 1906 David Graham Phillips’
“Treason of the Senate” articles in
Cosmopolitan magazine lent support to
ratification of the Seventeenth
Amendment (1913), mandating direct
election of Senators.
“No…legislation that was not either
helpful to or harmless against "the
interests"; no legislation on the subject of
corporations that would interfere with "the
interests," which use the corporate form to
simplify and systematize their stealing; no
legislation on the tariff question unless it
secured to "the interests" full and free
license to loot; no investigations of
wholesale robbery or of any of the evils
resulting from it—there you have in a few
words the whole story of the Senate's
treason under Aldrich's leadership, and of
why property is concentrating in the hands
of the few and the little children of the
masses are being sent to toil in the
darkness of mines, in the dreariness and
unhealthfulness of factories instead of
being sent to school; and why the great
middle class…is being swiftly crushed into
dependence and the repulsive miseries of
"genteel poverty."
In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s
novel The Jungle, exposed
working conditions and
unsanitary practices in the
meat-packing industry.
“I aimed at the public's
heart, and by accident I hit
it in the stomach.”
--Upton Sinclair,Socialist Author
1906: After reading Upton Sinclair’s
The Jungle, President Theodore
Roosevelt urged Congress to pass the
Meat Inspection Act.
Progressive Movements
Progressivism was a “big tent”
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Political Reform & Civic Housekeeping
The Prohibition Movement
African-American Civil Rights
Woman Suffrage
The Labor Movement
Political Reforms
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Secret Ballot
Party Primaries
Recall
Referendum
Initiative
City Manager System
“Civic Housekeeping”
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Paved Streets and Sidewalks
Street Lights
Sanitary Sewers
Safe Water Supply
Public Libraries
Parks and Playgrounds
Expansion of Public Transportation
The Prohibition Movement
Women Reformers
In 1873 and 1874 women in New York and Ohio began a “Women’s
Crusade” to rid their communities of liquor.
Women Reformers
Their success led to the formation of
the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU). Under the leadership
of Frances Willard, the WCTU began
a national crusade to ban alcohol.
Frances Willard
With Bible in hand, WCTU member Carrie Nation
attracted attention by smashing saloons with a hatchet.
In 1895 the newly-formed Anti-Saloon League joined the
WCTU in its campaign to rid the nation of alcohol.
The WCTU and Anti-Saloon League put pressure on
individual states to pass Prohibition laws.
By 1917, 26 of the 48 states were completely “dry.”
In 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment, banning alcohol
nationwide, was ratified, to take effect in 1920.
The African-American Struggle
During the early 20th Century AfricanAmericans continued to struggle for equality.
In the South, “Jim Crow” state laws made racial
separation and discrimination statutory (legal).
Between 1882 and 1968, 4,742 people were lynched, mostly in
the South. The majority (3,445) were African-American.
After 3 of her friends were lynched, Ida B. Wells became the
leading voice against lynching.
“I am before the American people to day through no inclination of my own, but
because of a deep seated conviction that the country at large does not know the
extent to which lynch law prevails in parts of the Republic…I cannot believe that the
apathy and indifference which so largely obtains regarding mob rule is other than
the result of ignorance of the true situation.” –Ida B. Wells
July 1905: W. E. B. Dubois founds the Niagara Movement
“Any discrimination based simply on race or color is barbarous, we care not how
hallowed it be by custom, expediency or prejudice. Differences made on account of
ignorance, immorality, or disease are legitimate methods of fighting evil, and against
them we have no word of protest; but discriminations based simply and solely on physical
peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin, are relics of that unreasoning human savagery
of which the world is and ought to be thoroughly ashamed.”
1909: The NAACP is established “to uplift the black men and women
of this country by securing for them the complete enjoyment of their
rights as citizens, justice in the courts, and equal opportunity in every
economic, social, and political endeavor in the United States.”
Woman Suffrage Movement
Women Reformers
Led by Carrie Chapman Catt, the National American Woman
Suffrage Association sought state-by-state enfranchisement.
Women Reformers
By 1912, eleven western states had
given women the right to vote.
Women Reformers
The day before Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural,
suffragists held a parade in Washington, D.C.
Unfortunately, the parade turned into a
riot when the marchers were attacked.
4 min. 39 sec.
Women Reformers
In 1913, the National Women’s Party, led
by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, began
working for a federal constitutional
amendment.
“I never doubted that equal
rights was the right direction.
Most reforms, most problems
are complicated. But to me
there is nothing complicated
about ordinary equality.”
Alice Paul
--Alice Paul
Lucy Burns
Women Reformers
4 min. 01 sec.
In 1917, NWP members began to regularly protest outside the White House.
Women Reformers
Between 1917 and 1919, hundreds of
NWP pickets were arrested and thrown
into prison. Some staged hunger strikes.
3 min. 46 sec.
Lucy Burns in Prison
Women Reformers
After an appeal by President Wilson, Congress passed a
Woman Suffrage amendment in June 1919. On August
26, 1920 Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify.
Women Reformers
Alice Paul toasting victory
Women Celebrating
Women Reformers
In the 1920 election, all American women were allowed to vote.
The Labor Movement and
Radical Politics
The American Federation of
Labor (AFL), headed by Samuel
Gompers boasted 1.7 million
members by 1904.
Margaret Dreier Robins was an early leader of the
Women’s Trade Union League (founded 1903).
Margaret Dreier Robins
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or “Wobblies” was
organized in Chicago in June 1905. Unlike other labor unions, the
IWW had a political agenda: to replace Capitalism with Socialism.
The Socialist Party of America, lead
by Eugene V. Debs, dramatically
increased its membership during the
early twentieth century. Between
1900 and 1920, Debs ran for
President of the United States 5
times! In 1912, he got more than a
million votes.
Socialist party members included Jane
Addams, Helen Keller, and educator Francis
Bellamy, who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance
(originally without the words “under God”).
"I had once believed that we were
all masters of our fate - that we
could mould our lives into any form
we pleased...I had overcome
deafness and blindness sufficiently
to be happy, and I supposed that
anyone could come out victorious if
he threw himself valiantly into life's
struggle. But as I went more and
more about the country I learned
that I had spoken with assurance on
a subject I knew little about...I
learned that the power to rise in the
world is not with the reach of
everyone.“
--Helen Keller, Socialist
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
1911
The shirtwaist blouse was a popular
woman’s garment in the early 1900s.
Shirtwaists were made in sweatshops
by underpaid, overworked women,
many of them immigrants.
A 1910 women garment workers’ strike in New
York was unsuccessful. Their demands included
safer working conditions.
On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the
Triangle Shirtwaist Company in lower Manhattan.
146 people, mostly young immigrant girls, died in the fire.
15 min. 59 sec.
Owners Isaac Harris and Max Blank were acquitted of
manslaughter (because they had broken no laws).
The Ludlow Massacre
1914
A Miners’ Strike in Ludlow Colorado led to tragedy in 1914.
Employer opposition to the strike led to the
Ludlow Massacre, April 20, 1914.
U.M.W. Ludlow Massacre Monument
U.M.W. Ludlow Massacre Monument Plaque
No one was punished for these deaths.