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The Progressive Era,
1876–1920
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Politics in the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age stretched from the 1870s through the 1890s. The era got its name from an
1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age. The book poked
fun at the era’s greed and political corruption.
Political power was split between the two major parties. Neither party controlled
Congress for more than a term or two, though Republicans held the White House for
nearly 25 years. Congress had more power than the President.
Concerns that shaped politics
Concerns about the
power of the rich
People feared that bankers, industrialists, and other weathly
men were controlling politics at the expense of the public good.
Worries about
corruption
People worried about bribery and voter fraud. Reformers blamed
much corruption on the spoils system, the practice of rewarding
political supporters with government jobs.
Reforming the Spoils System
• When a new President took office, supporters would swarm into
Washington demanding jobs. The practice of giving jobs to followers is
called patronage.
• Patronage often led to corruption. Some jobholders simply stole
money. Others were not qualified for the jobs they were given.
• President Rutherford B. Hayes first tried to reform the system.
President James Garfield thought that government jobs should be
awarded on the basis of merit, or ability, not politics. Garfield’s
assassination in 1880 by a disappointed office seeker led to efforts to
reform this system.
• In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act. It created the Civil
Service Commission to conduct exams for federal jobs. The civil
service includes all federal jobs except elected offices and the military.
• At first, the Civil Service Commission controlled only a few federal
jobs. By 1900, the commission controlled about 40 percent of all
federal jobs.
Jobs you can get through Civil Service
Regulating Big Business
• The behavior of men like railroad builder Collis Huntington,
who tried to bribe members of Congress, convinced many
Americans that big businesses controlled the government.
They demanded that something be done.
• The government began to regulate railroads and other large
businesses.
• The Constitution gave the federal government the power to
regulate interstate commerce, or business that crossed state
lines. Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which
set up the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to
oversee the railroads. The act outlawed such practices as
pools and rebates.
• In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which
prohibited trusts and other businesses from limiting
competition. At first, the act was not effective.
Railroads were the target of the ICC, Senator John
Sherman
Corruption in City Governments
As cities grew, they needed to expand services. Often, politicians accepted
money to give away these jobs. Bribes and corruption became a way of life.
• Powerful politicians, called political bosses, gained power in many city,
county, and state governments. They were often popular with the poor
because they provided jobs and loans for the needy. They handed out
extra coal in winter and turkeys at Thanksgiving. In exchange, the poor
voted for the boss or his chosen candidate.
• One political boss in New York City, Boss William Tweed, carried
corruption to extremes. He cheated the city out of more than $100 million.
• Journalists exposed Boss Tweed’s wrongdoing. Cartoonist Thomas Nast
pictured Tweed as a vulture. Faced with prison, Tweed fled to Spain, but he
was returned to the United States—and to prison.
• In many cities, reformers set up good-government leagues. Their goal was
to replace corrupt officials with honest leaders.
Muckrakers Contribute to Reform
Reformers used the press to turn public opinion against corruption.
Crusading journalists became known as muckrakers. People said
they raked the dirt, or muck, and exposed it to public view. When
muckrakers helped people see how dishonest some politicians and
businesses had become, the public began to demand change.
• Jacob Riis, a photographer and writer, provided shocking images
of slum life.
• Ida Tarbell targeted the unfair practices of big business—
especially Standard Oil.
• Upton Sinclair wrote a novel, The Jungle, which shocked the
nation. Although the book was fiction, it was based on facts about
the meatpacking industry. He described how packers used meat
from sick animals, how rats got into the ground meat, and how the
meat was dyed to make it seem healthy.
Boss Tweed
Boss Tweed
Goals of the Progressives
By 1900, reformers were calling themselves Progressives.
They meant that they were forward-thinking people who
wanted to improve American life.
• Progressives were not a single group with a single goal, but
they all believed that society could be improved. They
wanted the government to act in the public interest, for the
good of the people.
• The Progressives drew their inspiration from both religion
and science.
• Progressives valued education. John Dewey, a Progressive
educator, wanted schools to promote reform and teach
democratic values by example.
Progressives and John Dewey
Progressive Political Reforms
Progressive Political Reforms
• Governor Robert La Follette of Wisconsin was a leading
Progressive. He introduced a number of reforms that
became known as the Wisconsin Idea. For example, he
lowered railroad rates, which increased rail traffic.
• Progressives wanted voters to participate more directly in
government. To achieve this goal, Progressives introduced
the primary, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall.
• Progressives fought for other changes, such as lower
tariffs on imported goods. They said if American industry
had to compete against foreign imports, the result would be
lower prices, which would benefit consumers.
Robert La Follette
Progressive Political Reforms
• Reformers backed a graduated income tax, which
taxes people at different rates. The wealthy pay taxes
at a higher rate than the poor or the middle class.
Because the Supreme Court had said that a federal
income tax was unconstitutional, Progressives
campaigned for the Sixteenth Amendment. It gave
congress the power to pass an income tax.
• State legislatures had elected senators. Sometimes
powerful interest groups bribed state lawmakers to
vote for certain candidates, so Progressives worked
for the Seventeenth Amendment, which allows voters
to elect their senators.
16th Amendment
Theodore Roosevelt
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Theodore Roosevelt chose a life of politics because he was
determined to end corruption and work for the public interest.
When Roosevelt became President, he said that he was not
against big business. In fact, he believed that business and giant
corporations were beneficial. He did see a difference between
good trusts and bad ones, however. He said that good trusts were
efficient and fair and that bad ones took advantage of workers and
cheated the public.
Roosevelt wanted to test the power of the government to break up
bad trusts. He had the Attorney General bring a lawsuit against the
Northern Securities Company, a trust formed to control
competition among railroads, for using unfair business practices.
Roosevelt had the Attorney General sue other trusts, too,
including Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company. The
courts ordered the breakup of both trusts for blocking free trade.
Teddy Roosevelt
Standard Oil Cartoon
The American Tobacco Company also made early
baseball cards like this one
Theodore Roosevelt
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Some business leaders called Roosevelt a trustbuster, a person
who wanted to destroy all trusts. Roosevelt replied that he only
wanted to regulate them, not “bust” them.
When Pennsylvania coal miners went on strike for better pay and
a shorter workday, Roosevelt forced the mine owners to negotiate
with the miners’ union. Roosevelt was the first President to side
with labor.
Trustbuster
Miners like these from Hazleton, PA went on Strike
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCxf9eYWiaM
The Square Deal
During the 1904 election campaign, Roosevelt promised Americans a
Square Deal. He meant that everyone should have the same
opportunity to succeed.
Business
Railroads were a main target of the Square Deal. Roosevelt urged
Congress to outlaw rebates. In 1906, Congress gave the Interstate
Commerce Commission the power to set railroad rates.
Consumers
• Roosevelt wanted to protect consumers. After he read Upton
Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, he worked to get Congress to pass a law
allowing more inspectors to enter meatpacking houses.
• Congress also passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required
food and drug makers to list ingredients on packages. It also tried to
end false advertising and the use of impure ingredients.
Conservation
• Roosevelt pressed for conservation, the protection of natural
resources. He wanted some forest areas left as wilderness.
• Under Roosevelt, the government set aside many acres as national
parks, federal lands set aside for the public to enjoy.
Campaign Pin
Upton Sinclair
Roosevelt was disgusted after Reading Sinclair’s
book
Taft and the Progressives
• Roosevelt backed William Howard Taft for President. Taft
won easily.
• Taft supported many Progressive causes. He broke up more
trusts than Roosevelt had. He favored the graduated income
tax, approved new safety rules for mines, and signed laws
giving government workers an eight-hour day. Under Taft,
the Commerce Department set up an office to deal with child
labor.
• In 1909, Taft lost Progressive support. He had signed a bill
that raised most tariffs. Progressives were against high
tariffs. Also, he fired a Forest Service official during a
dispute over wilderness lands in Alaska. Progressives
accused Taft of blocking conservation efforts.
William Howard Taft
The Election of 1912
• In 1912, Roosevelt decided to run against Taft for the
Republican nomination for President.
• Taft had the backing of Republican party leadership. The
party nominated Taft.
• Progressive Republicans stormed out of the convention and
set up a new party with Roosevelt as their candidate.
Roosevelt said, “I feel as strong as a bull moose.” The party
became known as the Bull Moose Party.
• Democrats chose Woodrow Wilson, a Progressive, as their
candidate.
• Together, Taft and Roosevelt won more votes than Wilson,
but they split the Republican vote. Wilson won the election.
Election of 1912
Woodrow Wilson
• Wilson tried to restore competition in American business by
breaking up trusts into smaller companies. He called this program
the New Freedom.
• To spur competition, Wilson asked Congress to lower tariffs.
• To regulate banking, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act.
The act set up a system of federal banks. It also gave the
government the power to raise or lower interests rates and control
the money supply.
• To insure fair competition, Wilson persuaded Congress to create
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914. It had the power to
investigate companies and order them to stop using unfair
practices to destroy competitors.
• Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. It banned some
business practices that limited free enterprise. It also stopped
antitrust laws from being used against unions.
Woodrow Wilson
The Woman’s Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth
Amendment
1869
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony set up the
National Woman Suffrage Association, a group that worked for
a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote.
Late
1800s
• Women won the right to vote in four western states: Wyoming,
Utah, Colorado, and Idaho.
Early
1900s
• The women’s suffrage movement gained strength. New leaders
took up the cause. Carrie Chapman Catt became the new
leader of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She
created a detailed plan to fight for suffrage.
• Across the nation, suffragists, or people who worked for
women’s right to vote, carried out her plan. One by one, states
in the West and Midwest gave women the right to vote.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Carrie Chapman Catt
The Woman’s Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth
Amendment
1912 –
1917
• Suffragist Alice Paul met with President Wilson. She told him
that suffragists wanted a Constitutional amendment to give
women the vote. Delegations of suffragists continued to visit
the President.
• Early in 1917, Paul, Rose Winslow, and other women began to
picket the White House.
1918
• President Wilson finally agreed to support the suffrage
amendment.
1919
• Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which
guaranteed women the right to vote.
1920
• By August, three fourths of the states ratified the amendment,
and it went into effect.
Alice Paul
Rose Winslow
19th Amendment Celebration
Women’s Right to Vote
New Opportunities for Women
Higher education
• In 1877, Boston University granted the first Ph.D. to a woman.
• Slowly, more women entered graduate schools.
Women’s clubs
• During the late 1800s, many middle-class women joined women’s
clubs. At first clubwomen read and discussed books. In time, they
became more active, supporting reforms that would improve society.
• African American women formed their own clubs, such as the
National Association of Colored Women. They were also concerned
with social issues, such as lynching, and worked for reforms.
Women reformers
• Some women entered the new profession of social work.
• Others campaigned to end social evils. For example, Florence Kelley
investigated conditions in sweatshops.
Florence Kelley
The Crusade Against Alcohol
The temperance movement sought to end the sale of alcoholic
beverages.
• Women often led the temperance drive. Many wives and
mothers recognized alcohol as a threat to their families.
• Women also opposed saloons for political reasons.
Saloons didn’t admit women, and male political bosses
made important political decisions there.
• In 1874, a group of women organized the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU. Frances Willard
became its president. She spoke tirelessly about the evils
of alcohol.
• Carrie Nation dedicated her life to fighting against alcohol.
She often stormed into saloons, swinging a hatchet.
WTCU
Carrie Nation
The Crusade Against Alcohol
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Public support for an amendment banning the sale of
liquor grew after 1917.
Temperance leaders finally persuaded Congress to
pass the Eighteenth Amendment in 1917. By 1919,
three fourths of the states had ratified it. The
amendment made it illegal to sell alcoholic drinks
anywhere in the United States.
Prohibition hit some harder than others
African Americans During the Progressive Era
Progressives did little to help minority groups. Instead, minority
groups struggled alone to gain basic rights. In the South, African
Americans lost many hard-won rights, as Jim Crow laws led to
segregation. In the North, African Americans faced prejudice and
discrimination.
Ida B. Wells
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Hard times in the 1890s left many whites jobless. They
took out their anger on blacks. In the 1890s, more than
1,000 African Americans were lynched—murdered by
mobs.
The murders outraged Ida B. Wells, an African American
journalist. She urged African American protests and a
boycott of streetcars and white-owned stores.
Ida B. Wells
African Americans During the Progressive Era
Booker T.
Washington
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W.E.B. Du
Bois
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Washington called on blacks and whites to live in
harmony. He had worked hard to gain an education. He
helped found the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to offer
higher education to other blacks.
He urged African Americans to learn trades and earn
money so that they would have the power to demand
equality.
Du Bois agreed with Washington’s view on “thrift,
patience, and industrial training.” However, he urged
blacks to fight against discrimination.
In 1909, Du Bois joined Jane Addams, Lincoln Steffens,
and other reformers in organizing the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. Blacks
and whites in the NAACP worked together for equal rights
for African Americans.
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. Dubois
Mexican Americans in the Progressive Era
• Thousands of Mexican Americans lived in the United
States. Many were the ancestors of people living in the
Southwest and West when the United States acquired those
areas under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the
Gadsden Purchase.
• When revolution and famine swept Mexico in 1910,
thousands of Mexicanos, or native-born Mexicans, fled to
the United States.
• Many Mexican immigrants worked as field hands or on the
railroads. Like other immigrants, Mexicans created their
own neighborhoods, or barrios.
• Within the barrio, Mexican immigrants and Mexican
Americans took many steps to help each other. Some
formed mutualistas, or mutual aid groups.
Asian Americans in the Progressive Era
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In the 1870s, whites on the West Coast pressed Congress to pass the
Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese from settling in the United States.
White employers on the West Coast and in Hawaii got around the act by
hiring workers from other Asian countries—the Philippines, Korea, and
Japan.
Many newcomers from Japan were farmers. Soon, they were producing a
large percentage of California’s fruits and vegetables.
Prejudice against Asian immigrants remained high. Many white workers
resented their success. Unions and other groups put pressure on
President Roosevelt to limit immigration from Japan.
In 1907, Roosevelt reached a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan. Japan
would stop workers from going to the United States. The United States
would allow Japanese women to join husbands who were already in this
country.
In 1913, California passed a law that banned Asians who were not
American citizens from owning land.
Chinese Exclusion Act Cartoon
Native Americans in the Progressive Era
What the Dawes Act of 1887 was supposed to do
• Divide reservation lands into family plots.
• Indians were to become farmers and enter mainstream American life.
Reasons for the failure of the Dawes Act
• Much of the land was unsuited to farming.
• Many Indians had no farming tradition.
• Many Indians believed the plains were an open place where everyone
could ride and hunt—not something to divide into small plots.
• Thus, many Native Americans sold lands to speculators at low prices.
In the early 1900s, a new generation of leaders emerged.
• One group set up the Society of American Indians. The Society worked for
social justice and tried to educate white Americans about Indian life.
• It supported policies to force Indians into the American mainstream by
abolishing reservations. This policy created so much opposition among
other Native Americans that the Society went out of existence in 1925.