Progressivism: 1880-1920

To Do: Read and watch everything here and chapters 13 & 14 in H & W

Crash Course video on the Progressive Era

Progressivism: Promoting government action to help "regular" people

A. Anti-lynching, women's suffrage, child labor laws, environmental policies, national parks,

food safety, labor laws, etc........

I. Reaction to Social Darwinism: Poverty because of circumstances, not nature.

II. Unions

A. Collective Bargaining

B. KOL and AFL

C. Homestead Strike -1892

--Short Film on Homestead Strike

D. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire---1911

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Investigating Commission

In response to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the New York state legislature established a Factory Investigating Commission, which embarked on a study of labor conditions throughout the state of New York. As a result of their study, which included public hearings and factory inspections (visiting 1,836 factories in an unprecedented state-wide tour in the first year alone), almost 60 new labor laws were passed in the three years after the fire. The new laws regulated almost every aspect of labor, including fire safety codes and restrictions on the use of dangerous machinery, sanitation, and women's work conditions.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Investigating Commission's reform work reflects some of the main characteristics of the Progressive Era:

(1) Its work began with a local concern, in this case the Triangle Factory Fire, and then gained recognition at the state level. Its work resulted in state government legislation, which later influenced federal labor legislation during the New Deal in the 1930s.

(2) Its report used statistics, the scientific method, and professional expertise as evidence to lobby for legislation.

Listen to this short interview of a survivor of the fire: Link

III. . Middle class women's roles

i. middle class and working class.

A. Middle class gender roles

Men Women

Public Private

Smart Dumb

Tough Weak

Immoral Moral

D. Women's Clubs

--Social to Political

---Lobbyists

--FDA, OSHA, School Nurses, National Parks, Juvenile Court

E. Settlement Houses

Settlement houses were social service centers located in poor neighborhoods. Settlement houses did not house the poor; the "residents" of the settlement houses were what we would call social workers today, and many of these residents were women. The settlement house movement in fact led to the emergence of social work as an accepted profession for middle-class, college-educated, single women. Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House, justified women's settlement house work as "municipal housekeeping," simply an expanded version of "woman's sphere" in the home, to address issues in the neighborhood and city that concerned women, children, domesticity, and family. This "municipal housekeeping" argument was also used by Addams and others to campaign for woman's suffrage: the idea that women should have the vote in order to more effectively push for reform on issues that related to home, family, women, and children.

--Jane Addams and Hull House---1889

--Child Care, Health Care, Meeting Space, Playgrounds, Labor Unions for Women

-Link to Encyclopedia of Chicago History on Hull House

F. Suffrage Movement

This is a lecture I did for a few hundred Girl Scouts on the 19th Amendment. It is almost 2 hours (sorry girls), you are welcome to watch the whole thing which covers who can and cannot vote since the founding of the US, but for our class if you start watching from the 45 minute mark you will be good.

Lecture on the Suffrage Movement: Link

Captioned version of lecture on the Suffrage Movement:

Read: Suffragists inspired by Native women

Read: US Constitution Center: Suffrage Cartoons

African Americans

Watch this video on: The End of Reconstruction

A few things: Literacy tests required voters to prove that they were literate before they could vote, the proof for African Americans was much harder than for European Americans. Poll Taxes required people to pay to vote. And Plessy v. Ferguson was a Supreme Court case that said segregation was legal in the United States in 1896.

Watch the first 10 minutes of my video on: Progressivism #2

G. African American Education

1. Black Women's Clubs

2. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois

a. NAACP

Watch this video about Washington and DuBois: Link

H. Anti-Lynching---Ida B. Wells

Watch: Link

Watch this short video on the destruction of Greenwood