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Chapter 18 - The Progressive Era, 1900–1916

  1. Introduction
    1. Progressive era
      1. Surge in production, consumption, urban growth
      2. Persistence of social problems
    2. Progressivism
      1. Broad-based elements
      2. Loosely-defined meanings
      3. Varied and contradictory character
    3. New notions of American freedom
  2. An urban age
    1. Early-twentieth-century economic explosion
      1. "Golden age" for agriculture
      2. Growth in number and size of cities
      3. Stark contrasts of opulence and poverty
    2. Popular attention to dynamism and ills of the city
      1. Painters and photographers
      2. Muckrakers
        1. Lewis Hine's photography
        2. Lincoln Steffens's The Shame of the Cities
        3. Ida Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company
      3. Novelists
        1. Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie
        2. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
    3. Immigrants and immigration
      1. Height of "new immigration" from southern and eastern Europe
      2. Immigration from agrarian to industrial centers as a global process
        1. Volume and flows
        2. Causes
        3. Circumstances of immigrants
      3. Ellis Island
      4. Influx of Asian and Mexican immigrants in West
      5. Immigrant presence in industrial cities
      6. Aspirations of new immigrants
        1. Social and legal equality, freedom of conscience, economic opportunity, escape from poverty
        2. Means to acquire land back home
        3. Material prosperity as central to "freedom"
      7. Circumstances of new immigrants
        1. Close-knit "ethnic" neighborhoods
          1. Social institutions
          2. Preservation of native languages
          3. Churches
        2. Low pay, harsh working conditions
    4. The new mass-consumption society
      1. Outlets for consumer goods
        1. Department stores
        2. Neighborhood chain stores
        3. Retail mail order houses
      2. Expanding range and availability of consumer goods
      3. Leisure activities
        1. Amusement parks
        2. Dance halls
        3. Theaters; vaudeville
        4. Movies; "nickelodeons"
    5. Women in urban public life
      1. Employment
        1. Racial and ethnic stratification
        2. Working woman as symbol of female emancipation; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Women and Economics
      2. Leisure, entertainment
    6. "Fordism"
      1. Background on Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company
      2. Production innovations
        1. Standardized output
        2. Lower prices
        3. Assembly line
      3. Strategies to attract and discipline labor
        1. Five-dollar day
        2. Anti-union espionage
      4. Linking of mass production and mass consumption
    7. Impact of mass-consumption ideal
      1. Recasting of "American way of life," "freedom"
      2. Challenges to material inequalities
        1. Labor unionism
        2. Critique of corporate monopoly
        3. Doctrine of "a living wage"; Father John A. Ryan
  3. Changing ideas of freedom
    1. Varieties of Progressivism
    2. Industrial labor and the meanings of freedom
      1. Frederick W. Taylor's "scientific management"
        1. Principles of
        2. Mixed response to
          1. Favorable: as way to enhance efficiency
          2. Unfavorable: as threat to worker independence
      2. New talk of "industrial freedom," "industrial democracy"
    3. Socialist party
      1. High watermark of American socialism
        1. Membership
        2. Elected officials
        3. Newspapers
        4. Eugene V. Debs
      2. Program
        1. Immediate reforms
        2. Public ownership of railroads and factories
        3. Democratic control of economy
      3. Breadth of following
        1. Urban immigrant communities
        2. Western farming and mining regions
        3. Native-born intelligentsia
      4. Rising presence of socialism throughout Atlantic world
    4. Labor movement
      1. American Federation of Labor
        1. Surge of growth
        2. Boundaries of membership
          1. Skilled industrial and craft laborers
          2. White, male, and native-born
        3. Moderate ideology; ties with business Progressives
          1. National Civic Federation
          2. Collective bargaining for "responsible" unions
          3. Alternative strain of rigid employer anti-unionism
      2. Industrial Workers of the World
        1. Inclusion of workers from all stations and backgrounds
        2. Trade union militancy
        3. Advocate of workers' revolution
        4. William "Big Bill" Haywood
        5. Support and guidance for mass, multiethnic strikes
      3. High points of broad-based labor struggle
        1. Lawrence "Bread and Roses" textile strike; march of strikers' children
        2. New Orleans dock workers strike
        3. Paterson silk workers strike; Paterson pageant
        4. Colorado Fuel and Iron miners strike; Ludlow Massacre
      4. Suppression of labor radicalism and emergence of "civil liberties" issue
    5. Shadings of feminism
      1. Appearance of term "feminism"
      2. "Lyrical Left"
        1. New cultural "bohemia"
        2. Radical reassessments of politics, the arts, sexuality
      3. Rise of personal freedom
        1. Freudian psychology
        2. Free sexual expression and choice
        3. Pockets of open gay culture
      4. Birth control movement
        1. Emma Goldman
        2. Margaret Sanger
  4. The Politics of Progressivism
    1. Global scope of Progressive impulse
      1. Common strains arising from industrial and urban growth
      2. International networks of social reformers
      3. Influence of European "social legislation" on American reformers
    2. Shared premises
      1. Commitment to activist government
      2. View of freedom as a positive concept
        1. "Effective freedom"; "power to do things"
        2. John Dewey, Randolph Bourne
      3. Trans-Atlantic scope of Progressive impulse
    3. Progressivism in municipal and state politics
      1. Agendas
        1. Curbing of political machines
        2. Regulation of public utilities, railroads, and other business interests
        3. Taxation of property and corporate wealth
        4. Improvement and enhancement of public space
        5. Humanizing of working and living conditions
      2. Significant municipal and state Progressives
        1. Mayors Hazen Pingree (Detroit) and Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones (Toledo)
        2. Governors Hiram Johnson (California) and Robert M. La Follette (Wisconsin)
    4. Progressive democracy
      1. Expansion and empowerment of electorate
        1. Popular election of U.S. senators, judges
        2. Primary elections
        3. Initiatives, referendums, recalls
        4. Women's suffrage
      2. Contraction and curtailment of electorate
        1. Disfranchisement of southern blacks
        2. Spread of appointed city commissions or managers
        3. Narrowing of voting rights for the poor
        4. Preference for government by experts; Walter Lippmann's Drift and Mastery
    5. Women reformers
      1. Challenge to political exclusion
      2. Crusades to uplift condition of immigrant poor, women, and child laborers
        1. Settlement house movement
        2. Government measures to alleviate problems of housing, labor, health
        3. Racist aspect
      3. Leading figures
        1. Jane Addams (Hull House)
        2. Julie Lathrop (Children's Bureau)
        3. Florence Kelley (National Consumers' League)
    6. Revival of suffrage movement
      1. National American Woman Suffrage Association
      2. Scattered progress at state and local levels
      3. Gathering focus on constitutional amendment
    7. Ambiguities of "maternalist" reform
      1. Drive to improve conditions of working women while reconfirming their dependent status
        1. Mothers' pensions
        2. Maximum working hours for women (Muller v. Oregon; Brandeis brief)
      2. Stamping of gender inequality into foundation for welfare state
    8. Native American Progressivism
      1. Profile of Indian reformers
        1. Intellectuals
        2. Pan-Indian
        3. Society of American Indians
      2. Shared aims
        1. Highlight plight of Native Americans
        2. Promote justice for Native Americans
      3. Differing aims
        1. Endorsement of federal Indian policy
        2. Full citizenship rights
        3. Self-determination
      4. Carlos Montezuma
  5. Progressive presidents
    1. Progressivism and the rise of the national state
    2. Theodore Roosevelt
      1. Succession to presidency; reelection in 1904
      2. Limits on corporate power
        1. "Good trusts" and "bad trusts"
        2. Northern Securities case
      3. Mediation between labor and capital; 1902 coal strike arbitration
      4. Regulation of business
        1. Hepburn Act
        2. Pure Food and Drug Act
        3. Meat Inspection Act
      5. Mixed reaction from business
      6. Conservation movement
        1. Late-nineteenth-century antecedents
          1. Early national parks
          2. Sierra Club; John Muir
        2. Wildlife preserves and national parks
        3. Balance between development and conservation; Gifford Pinchot
        4. Water as a key point of contention
    3. William Howard Taft
      1. Anointment as successor by Roosevelt; electoral victory over Bryan
      2. Partial continuation of Progressive agenda
        1. Antitrust initiatives
          1. Standard Oil case
          2. American Tobacco case
          3. Upholding of "good trust"/"bad trust" distinction by Supreme Court
        2. Support for graduated income tax (Sixteenth Amendment)
      3. Conservative drift; Pinchot-Ballinger affair
    4. Election of 1912
      1. Distinctive outlooks on political and economic freedom
        1. Woodrow Wilson (Democrat; "New Freedom")
        2. Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive; "New Nationalism")
        3. William Howard Taft (Republican; conservative wing)
        4. Eugene V. Debs (Socialist)
      2. Wilson victory
    5. Wilson's first-term program
      1. Underwood tariff
      2. Labor
        1. Clayton Act
        2. Keating-Owen Act
        3. Adamson Act
      3. Farmers: Warehouse Act
      4. Supervision of economy
        1. Federal Reserve System
        2. Federal Trade Commission

 

Subject: 
US History
Subject X2: 
US History

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