Chapter Twenty-One

Urban America and the Progressive Era,

1900—1917

Part One:

Introduction

This chapter covers continued urbanization of America and the social problems that resulted from rapid unplanned growth of the cities. Both political bosses and reformers tried to respond to the reality of industrialized and urbanized America. Social Darwinism was challenged by the Progressives who had a new, sometimes inconsistent, vision of the American community. They viewed the government as an ally to achieve realistic and pragmatic reforms. The climate for reform came from social workers, social scientists at universities and investigative journalists. Both political parties would embrace progressive views. Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson based their programs on these new ideas. Although much was accomplished, the progressive movement lacked unity and failed to address issues of class, race or sex adequately. Legislation was not always enforced or had unintended negative consequences. In the long run, politics was affected by the demands for social justice and attempts were made to confront the problems of rapid industrialization and urbanization.

“Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion. . . that the barbarians recede or are conquered . . . is due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct.”

Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life

When Gandhi was asked about “Western Civilization” he responded: “It’s a good idea.”

During the 1930s, the governor of the Michigan territory, Lewis Cass, described the taking of millions of acres of land from Indians as “. . . the progress of civilization.” He also said: “A barbarous people cannot live in contact with a civilized community.”

“True the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to main, rob, and thwart, then what is progress? I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.” Chief Luther Standing Bear, [from his 1933 autobiography]

“. . . There was not a family in that whole nation that had not a home of its own. There was not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did not owe a dollar. . . It built its own schools and its hospitals. Yet the defect of the system was apparent. They have got as far as they can go, because they own their land in common. . . There is not enterprise to make your home any better than that of your neighbors. There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization.” Senator Henry Dawes, author of the act that broke up Indian reservations into small private possessions [today’s privatization?] in the 1880s after a visit to the Cherokee Nation.

John Reed

• Writer for the Masses• Wrote Insurgent Mexico after riding with Pancho

Villa• Wrote Ten Days That Shook the World following his

experiences in Russia during its revolution.• Died in Russia at age of 33 from illness• Influences: Max Eastman, Emma Goldman, Lincoln

Steffens, Margaret Sanger, Walter Lipmann

Sam Houston

“The Anglo-Saxon race must pervade the whole southern extremity of this vast continent. The Mexicans are no better than the Indians and I see no reason why we should not take their land.”

On Karl Marx

“Perhaps the most precious heritage of Marx’s thought is his internationalism, his hostility to the national state, his insistence that ordinary people have no nation that they must obey and give their lives for in war, that we are all linked to one another across the glove as human beings. This is not only a direct challenge to modern capitalist nationalism, with its ugly evocations of hatred for “the enemy” abroad, and its false creation of a common interest for all within certain artificial borders. It is also a rejection of the narrow nationalism of contemporary ‘Marxist’ states, whether the Soviet Union, or China, or any of the others.” Howard Zinn

Sources

Daniel J. Leab (editor), The Labor History Reader [1985] Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement

[1979] Philip Foner (editor), Mother Jones Speaks [1983] Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind [1967] ["Do

rocks have rights?"] Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR

[1955]

Chapter Focus Questions

• What were the political, social, and intellectual roots of progressive reform?

• What tensions existed between social justice and social control?

• What was the urban scene and the impact of new immigration?

• How were the working class, women, and African Americans politically active?

• How was progressivism manifested in national politics?

Chronology

1889 Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago [http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html]

1890 Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives 1895 Booker T. Washington addresses Cotton States

Exposition in Atlanta, emphasizing an accomodationist philosophy; Lillian Wald establishes Henry Street Settlement in NY

1898 Florence Kelley becomes general secretary of new National Consumers' League

1900 Robert M. La Follette, governor of Wisconsin 1901 Theodore Roosevelt succeeds the assassinated William

McKinley as president 1904 Lincoln Steffens publishes The Shame of the Cities 1905 President Roosevelt creates U.S. Forest Service and

names Gifford Pinchot head Industrial Workers of the World founded in Chicago

1906 Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposes conditions in the meat-packing industry Congress passes Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act and establishes Food and Drug Admin.

1908 In Muller v. Oregon the Supreme Court upholds a state law limiting maximum hours for working women

1909 Uprising of the 20,000 in New York City's garment industries helps organize unskilled workers into unions National Associations for the Advancement for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded

1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire kills 146 garment workers in New York City Socialist critic Max Eastman begins the Masses

1912 Dem. Woodrow Wilson wins presidency, defeating Repub. William H. Taft, Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, & Socialist Eugene V. Debs

Bread and Roses strike involves 25,000 textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts

Margaret Sanger begins writing / speaking in support of birth control for women 1913 Sixteenth Amendment, legalizing a graduated income tax, is ratified 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act exempts unions from being

construed as illegal combinations in restraint of trade Federal Trade Commission established Ludlow Massacre

1916 National Park Service established

OBJECTIVES1. Trace the process by which largely female settlement house workers first began and the community of reform they tried to create.2. Summarize the principles of the Progressives, and the views of its principal proponents in journalism, social sciences and government, as well as its legacy. 3. Discuss the aims of and problems with social control legislation desired by the Progressives. 4. Explain the problems of working class communities & their attempts to solve them through unions and reform legislation. 5. Summarize the role of women in the reform campaigns and the effects it had on their participation in public life and leadership positions. 6. Summarize the difficulties of black Progressives in gaining recognition, but also their positive effects within the black community. 7. Explain the attempts by both the Democratic and Republican parties to respond to demands that the governments, local, state and national, address issues of social justice. 8. Analyze the possible connections between Populism and Progressivism as social reform movements.

Part Two:

American Communities

The Henry Street Settlement House

• Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement began as a visiting nurse service.

• At Henry Street, Wald created a community of college-educated women who lived among the urban poor and tried to improve their lives.

• Most settlement workers did not make a career out of this work, but several of the women went on to become influential political reformers.

• The workers served the community by promoting health care, cultural activities, and, later, by promoting reform legislation.

Part Three:

The Currents of Progressivism

Unifying Themes

• Progressivism drew from deep roots in American communities and spread, becoming a national movement.

• Progressives articulated American fears of the growing concentration of power and the excesses of industrial capitalism and urban growth.

• Progressives rejected the older Social Darwinist assumptions in favor of the idea that government should intervene to address social problems.

• Progressives drew upon evangelical Protestantism, especially the Social Gospel movement, and the scientific attitude to promote social change.

Women Spearhead Reform

• Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889.

• Working there served as an alternative to marriage for educated women who provided crucial services for slum dwellers.

• Florence Kelley worked there and later wrote reports that influenced labor legislation.

Jane Addams and Hull House

• http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html

SOME HULL- HOUSE FIRSTS First Social Settlement in Chicago First Social Settlement with men and women residents Established first public baths in Chicago Established first public playground in Chicago Established first gymnasium for the public in Chicago Established first little theater in the United States Established first citizenship preparation classes Established first public kitchen in Chicago Established first college extension courses in Chicago Established first group work school Established first painting loan program in Chicago Established first free art exhibits in Chicago Established first fresh air school in Chicago Established first public swimming pool in Chicago Established first boy scout troop in Chicago

Investigations for the first time in Chicago of: truancy, sanitation, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, distribution of cocaine, midwifery, children's reading, infant mortality, newsboys, social value of the saloon Investigations that led to creation and enactment of first factory laws in Illinois Investigations that led to creation of the first model tenement code First Illinois Factory Inspector, a Hull-House resident, Florence Kelley First probation officer in Chicago, a Hull-House resident, Alzina Stevens Labor unions organized at Hull-House: Women Shirt Makers Women Cloak Makers Dorcas Federal Labor Union Chicago Woman's Trade Union League

The Urban Machine

• Urban political machines were a closed and corrupt system that:– offered jobs and other services to immigrants in

exchange for votes– drew support from businesses and provided

kickbacks and protection in return• By the early 20th century, machines began promoting

welfare legislation, often allying themselves with progressive reformers.

• But reformers blamed the machines for many urban ills.

Political Progressivism and Urban Reform

• Political progressivism arose in cities to combat machines and address deteriorating conditions, such as impure water.

• They sought professional, nonpartisan administration to improve government efficiency.

• Following a tidal wave in Galveston, Texas, reformers pushed through a commissioner system.

• Other cities adopted city manager plans. • Reformers like Samuel Jones of Toledo sought

municipal ownership of utilities and pursued other welfare issues.

Progressivism in the Statehouse: West and South

• Governor and then Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin forged a farmer-labor small business alliance to push through statewide reforms.

• Oregon passed referendum and initiative amendments that allowed voters to bypass legislatures and enact laws themselves.

• Western progressives like California’s Hiram Johnson targeted railroad influence.

• Southern progressives pushed through various reforms such as improved educational facilities, but supported discriminatory laws against African Americans.

New Journalism: Muckraking

• A new breed of investigative journalist began exposing the public to the plight of slum life.

• Muckrakers published accounts of urban poverty, unsafe labor conditions, as well as corruption in government and business.

• Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed the unsanitary conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry.

• Muckraking mobilized national opinion. • Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, John Reed, Walter

Lipmann, Jack London [The Iron Heel]

Intellectual Trends Promoting Reform

• The emerging social sciences provided empirical studies used by reformers to push for reforms.

• Early 20th-century thinkers like Lester Frank Ward challenged some of the intellectual supports for the prevailing Social Darwinism.

• John Dewey’s ideas on education and John R. Commons and Richard Ely’s ideas on labor were influential in shaping public policy.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. attacked constitutional interpretations that had prevented states from passing legislation that protected public interests.

• Sociological jurisprudence was used to support points instead of legal arguments.

Part Four:

Social Control and its Limits

The Prohibition Movement

• Many middle-class progressives worried about the increased numbers of urban immigrants and sought methods of social control.

• Temperance groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League pushed for restrictions or bans on alcohol.

• Native-born, small town and rural Protestants generally supported prohibition while recent immigrants opposed it.

The Social Evil

• Reformers also attacked prostitution, an illicit trade that was connected with corrupt city machines.

• A national movement used the media to try and ban the “white slave” traffic allegedly promoted by foreigners.

• Progressives investigated prostitution and documented its dangers, though they were unable to understand why women took it up.

• Progressive reform helped close down brothels, but they were replaced by more vulnerable street-walkers.

The Redemption of Leisure

• Reformers were aghast at the new urban commercial amusements, such as amusement parks, vaudeville, and the most popular venue, the movies.

• New York City reformers and movie producers and exhibitors established the National Board of Censorship.

Standardizing Education

• For many progressives, the school was the key agency to break down the parochial ethnic neighborhood and “Americanize” immigrants.

• Expansion and bureaucratization characterized educational development as students started earlier and stayed later in school.

• High school evolved as comprehensive institutions that offered college preparatory and vocational education.

Part Five:

Working-Class Communities and Protest

New Immigrants from Two Hemispheres

• The early twentieth century saw a tremendous growth in the size of the working class.

• Sixty percent of the industrial labor force was foreign-born, mostly unskilled workers from southern and eastern Europe.

Immigrants

• Driven out by the collapse of peasant agriculture and persecution, the new immigrants depended on family and friends to help them get situated.

• Many worked long hours for pay that failed to keep them out of poverty.

• Non-European immigrants included:– French-Canadians who worked in New England textile

mills– Mexicans who came as seasonal farm workers. A large

number stayed and established communities throughout the southwest.

– The Japanese, who worked in fishing and truck farming

Urban Ghettos

• In large cities, immigrants established communities in densely packed ghettos.

• New York City became the center of Jewish immigrants, many of whom worked at piece-rates in the ready-to-wear garment industry.

• A general strike by 20,000 workers contributed to the growth of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York led to laws to protect workers.

Company Towns

• Some industrial workers lived in communities often dominated by a single corporation that owned the houses, the stores, and regulated life.

• Ethnic groups maintained many cultural traditions.• Factories were dangerous places with high accident

and death rates. • Immigrants resisted the discipline of the factory by

taking time off for cultural activities, spreading out the work by slowing down and becoming increasingly involved in unions

• In western mining communities, corporate power and violent labor conflict occurred.

The AFL

• The leading labor organization at the turn of the century was the American Federation of Labor.

• With the exception of the mineworkers, most AFL unions were not interested in organizing unskilled immigrants, women, or African Americans.

• The AFL was on the defensive from open shop campaigns promoted by trade associations and court injunctions that barred picketing and boycotting.

• Samuel Gompers

Samuel Gompers:

What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.

“Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.”

“The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.”

“Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis the welfare of the workers depends upon their own private initiative.”

"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. You can't weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron."  

Samuel Gompers, AFL president from 1888 to 1924

Frank Lloyd Wright: If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that is have free and independent labor unions.

Jimmy Carter: Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

Joe Hill: If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains. Every wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill; Fleets and armies of the nation, will at their command stand still.

John L. Lewis: The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. The strength of a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thing in life is that strong men do not remain strong. And it is just as true of unions and labor organizations as is true of men and individuals.

John L. Lewis: Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.

Lya Sorano: When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years. I don't know about you, but I can't wait that long.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.

Molly Ivins: Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.

Mother Jones: My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: "We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing."

A. Phillip Randolph: The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.

Abraham Lincoln: Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Abraham Lincoln: The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.

The IWW

• Radical workers, especially from the mining camps in the West, organized the Industrial Workers of the World.

• Led by “Big Bill” Haywood, the IWW tried to organize the lowest paid workers.

• The IWW used direct action, including strikes. • The IWW gained temporary power in the east but

remained a force in the West.• Songwriter Joe Hill

Rebels in Bohemia

• A small community of middle-class artists and intellectuals in Greenwich Village, New York City, called “Village bohemians” supported the IWW and other radical causes.

Part Six:

Women’s Movements and Black Awakening

The New Women

• Middle-class women’s lives were changing rapidly. • More were receiving an education and joined various

clubs involved in civic activities. • Women become involved in numerous reforms, from

seeking child labor laws to consumer safety and sanitation.

• Margaret Sanger promoted wider access to contraceptives and opened a birth control clinic in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Racism and Accommodation

• The turn of the century was an intensely racist era. • Segregation was institutionalized throughout the South. • Violent attacks on blacks were supported by vicious

characterizations in popular culture. • Booker T. Washington emerged as the most

prominent black leader. • Washington advocated black accommodation and

urged that blacks focus on self-reliance and economic improvement.

Racial Justice

• W. E. B. DuBois criticized Booker T. Washington for accepting “the alleged inferiority of the Negro.”

• DuBois supported programs that sought to attack segregation, the right to vote, and secured city equality.

• He helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

• Editor of The Crisis in 1910• He proposed developing a “talented tenth”

Part Seven:

National Progressivism

Theodore Roosevelt and Presidential Activism

• Roosevelt viewed the presidency as a “bully pulpit” to promote progressive reforms.

• He pressured mine owners into a settlement that won better pay for miners.

• He directed the Justice Department to prosecute a number of unpopular monopolies, actions that won him the sobriquet “trustbuster.”

• Roosevelt favored passing regulatory laws including:– the Hepburn Act that strengthened the Interstate Commerce

Commission– the Pure Food and Drug Act

Conservation, Preservation and the Environment

• Roosevelt founded the Forest Service and supported the conservation efforts of John Muir, the founder of the modern environmental movement.

• Gifford Pinchot, government leader in charge of forest service

Republican Split

• In his second term Roosevelt announced his Square Deal program as a way to stave off radicalism through progressive reform.

• His Republican successor, William Howard Taft, supported some of his reforms.

• But Taft wound up alienating many progressives. • Roosevelt then challenged Taft for Republican

leadership.

The Election of 1912

• In the 1912 election, Roosevelt ran for president on the new Progressive Party touting his New Nationalism program.

• The Democrats ran a progressive candidate, Woodrow Wilson, who promoted his New Freedom platform.

• The Socialist Party, which had rapidly grown in strength, nominated Eugene Debs.

• Wilson won 42 percent of the vote, enough to defeat the divided Republicans.

Eugene Victor Debs

“While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

[He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for encouraging people to avoid the draft during WW I.]

Eugene V. Debs

“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.”

“Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results.”

Woodrow Wilson’s First Term

• Wilson followed Roosevelt’s lead in promoting an activist government by:– lowering tariffs– pushing through a graduated income tax– restructuring the banking and currency

system under the Federal Reserve Act. He expanded the nation’s anti-trust authority and established the Federal Trade Commission

• On social reforms Wilson proved more cautious.