UNITED STATES HISTORY AND THE

CONSTITUTION

South Carolina Standard USHC-4.6

Mr. Hoover, Abbeville High School

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER What are the accomplishments and

limitations of the women’s suffrage movement?

How did the Progressive Movement affect social and political reforms in America, including the roles of the media and of reformers such as Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Jane Addams, and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson? 

PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT The Progressive Movement developed as

concerned citizens organized into civic groups in response to the problems of the city and the workplace in the late nineteenth century.

Progressivism was essentially a movement of the middle class who objected to paying taxes to corrupt city governments and who desired better city services.

MUCKRAKERS! Progressivism was also the result of role of the media.

“Muckrakers” investigated the corporations and conditions of the times and pointed out the corruption of machine politics, the power of the monopolists and the plight of the Native American, the worker and the immigrant.

THE JUNGLE Their writing was made

available to the general public through inexpensive newspapers and books.

The most famous muckraker was Upton Sinclair whose book The Jungle exposed the meat packing industry.

SENECA FALLS CONVENTION During the progressive era, many young educated

women took a role in promoting social reform. The movement for women’s rights which had been

initiated at the Seneca Falls Convention and focused on suffrage since the Civil War, intensified.

Women had the opportunity for higher education at new women’s colleges and new opportunities in factories and offices.

The movement west also had an impact on gaining the right of women to vote.

Wyoming was the first state to grant women suffrage; western states generally allowed women to vote before eastern states did.

Historians attribute this to appreciation for the role that women played as pioneers.

MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN Middle class women were increasingly

frustrated by their inability to have political influence in solving the problems of city life and the workplace.

African-American women formed an association [the National Association of Colored Women] to secure the civil rights of African-Americans which included women’s suffrage.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT In 1890, Carrie Chapman Catt helped

to found another woman’s group [the National American Women’s Suffrage Association] to lobby for the vote.

Women campaigned on the idea that they would clean up society and government. Therefore they were opposed by the liquor industry and political bosses.

NATIONAL WOMAN’S PARTY A split over tactics disrupted the

movement as Catt’s organization lobbied state legislatures while other women supported a national amendment to the Constitution.

This group [National Woman’s Party], led by feminist Alice Paul, engaged in marches and picketed the White House during World War I.

19TH AMENDMENT Suffragettes were attacked by angry

men, arrested and held in prison where they engaged in hunger strikes and were force fed by their jailers.

The 19th Amendment was finally passed in 1920 in part as a result of this activism and of the contribution women made to the war effort as nurses, public workers and factory laborers.

ALICE PAUL Democracy was

extended as women gained the right to vote.

However, few women ran for political office or were treated equally in the work place.

In the 1920s, Alice Paul campaigned for an equal rights amendment.

HULL HOUSE

Jane Addams was an educated woman who should be associated with her introduction of the settlement house, the Hull House in Chicago, where her immigrant neighbors were able to take vocational classes and receive childcare.

CHILD LABORERS Addams and other

progressives advocated protection for child laborers.

State laws limited hours and conditions and a federal child labor act was passed.

However, progress was limited by the Supreme Court which ruled the federal child labor legislation unconstitutional.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT The progressive movement started at the

city and state level with progressive mayors and governors and gained support at the national level with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was the first president to give any support to the rights of workers when he used his office as a ‘bully pulpit’ and required that the coal mine owners negotiate with their workers in order to avoid a strike.

“TRUST-BUSTER.” During Roosevelt s administration,

legislation enhancing the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission over the railroads was passed.

He supported government regulation of the corporation through the application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in a series of cases that won him the appellation of “trust-buster.”

PURE FOOD AND DRUG ACT He also protected the consumer with his

championing of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, prompted by the publication Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle.

NATIONAL PARKS Roosevelt also promoted conservation

of natural resources by creating national parks. He was the founding force behind and candidate of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party in 1912 which split the Republican Party and gave the election to Woodrow Wilson.

WOODROW WILSON Woodrow Wilson was a progressive

governor during whose presidency a number of progressive measures were passed.

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act [which the AFL’s Samuel Gompers referred to as the ‘Magna Carta of Labor’] allowed labor unions to be exempt from the anti-trust laws.

INCOME TAX, BUMMER

The 16th amendment authorized a progressive income tax and the 17th amendment provided for the direct election of Senators.

It was during Wilson’s administration that the first federal child labor act was passed.

However, the Supreme Court later ruled that act unconstitutional, thus limiting the progressive’s impact on this problem.

FEDERAL RESERVE ACT The Federal Reserve Act, although

prompted by the financial markets fear in the Panic of 1907, addressed the farmers’ demand for a more elastic money supply

The Federal Reserve is still active today as a bankers’ bank, providing a safety net to prevent bank failures due to market conditions by regulating the amount of money in circulation.

8 HOUR DAY Other actions made credit more

available to farmers, protected the 8 hour day for some workers, as well as providing some workman’s compensation for injury on the job.

WORLD WAR I World War I limited the continuation

and effectiveness of progressive reforms.

Little significant progressive legislation was passed after the war broke out and the rights of individuals were limited because of wartime fears.

PROHIBITION Wartime grain

shortages and anti- German propaganda prompted the passage of the 18th amendment, establishing Prohibition, long a goal of reformers.

DISILLUSIONMENT Support for women’s rights grew as a

result of their contribution to the war effort and the 19th amendment was passed granting women the right to vote.

Disillusionment with the progressive idealism of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the very unprogressive Treaty of Versailles undermined the commitment of American voters to progressivism

LIMITS OF PROGRESSIVISM During the 1920s the limits of progressivism were

evident. The 18th amendment was impossible to enforce. The 19th amendment did not result in any

significant political changes. The traditional Republican Party won the election of

1920 and the enforcement of progressive legislation lapsed.

The idea that government is responsible for the welfare of all of the people would be revived in the New Deal

COMPARISONS Any comparison of the movement for

women’s suffrage and the progressive movement would include the following factors.

Both were essentially middle class movements that employed the tactics of persuasion in order to pass legislation.

Both employed the talents of many educated supporters, particularly women. Both experienced significant opposition.

PRESIDENT WILSON While presidents championed the goals

of progressivism, they did not advocate women’s suffrage.

Indeed Wilson openly opposed it. Women eventually took more aggressive actions and marched and picketed to achieve their goal.