PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT (PROGRESSIVISM)

A reform movement born in the last decade of the 1800 and will affect almost every area of American life.  Born out of the discontent due to industrialization and its effects.

A.  Quote:  "Believed in direct control of the government by the people."  Believed more
                   democracy was necessary for this to happen.

B. Some accomplishments of the Progressives:

     IN GOVERNMENT AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY:  Australian (secret) Ballot, Direct Primary,
     Initiative, Referendum, Recall, Popular Election of U.S. Senators, Woman Suffrage, Sixteenth
     Amendment (1913)

     IN GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS:  Hepburn Act-1906, Mann-Elkins Act-1910, Meat
     Inspection Act-1906, Pure Food and Drug Act, Federal Reserve Act, Clayton Act, Keating-Owen
     Law, Prohibition

C.  WHO WERE THE PROGRESSIVES?
      1. Urban movement
      2. Wanted social and political reform in the nation's cities

D. AREAS OF REFORM:  working conditions, discrimination, direct government, better living      
     conditions, weaken power of special interest groups, end to corruption in government, better
     housing, equal rights for women

E.  TYPICAL PROGRESSIVES:  Middle class, White, Protestant, Near middle age, democrats and 
      republicans

F.  MUCKRAKERS:   group of journalists and novelists who aided the progressive movement by
     exposing corruption in politics and in the business world and who helped to energize public
     demands for reform. 

G.  SOME MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPERS, ARTICLES,  AND INDIVIDUALS WHO WOULD
      HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED AS  
      MUCKRAKERS
      1. "McClure's Magazine", "Cosmopolitan", "New York World"
      2. Lincoln Steffens:  The Shame of the Cities--dealt with corruption in city governments
      3. Ida Tarbell:  "History of the Standard Oil Company"
      The next 3 deal with social injustices:
      4. John Spargo:  The Bitter Cry of the Children--dealt with abuses in child labor
      5. Bessie and Marie Van Vorst:  The Woman Who Toils--life of poor working women
      6. Ray Stannard Baker:  Following the Color Line--attacked lynching and mob violence
          against blacks in the North and South
      7. Upton Sinclair:  The Jungle--deals with the plight of the immigrant worker in the meat-packing
          industry.
      8. Frank Norris:  The Octopus--railroad abuses
      9. Jack London:  The Iron Heel, The War of the Classes--abuses of industrial capitalism
     10.Theodore Dreiser:  The Financier

H.  NEW TYPES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESULTING FROM THE PROGESSIVE MOVEMENT

• Commission System:  elected officials, each in charge of a single department of city government
• City-manager system:  a city hires a professional administrator to head its government

I.  STATE GOVERNMENT REFORMS

• Initiative:  voters in a state can initiate or propose bills that the state legislature will have to consider
• Referendum:  required state legislatures to refer certain bills to the voters for approval when a certain number of people signed a petition in favor or a specific pied of legislation.
• Recall;  the people could remove public officials who abused the public trust.  After a petition was signed by a percentage of the voters then an election was held.

I.  VOTING REFORMS RESULTING FROM PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

• Direct Primary Elections: elections held prior to a general election in which voters from each party choose the people who will run as their party's candidates in the general election
• Direct Election of Senators:  the people themselves elect their senators  rather than the state legislatures electing the U.S. senators. (17th Amendment)
• Secret Ballot:  voting secretly

J.   ROBERT LaFOLLETTE:  Strong progressive governor of Wisconsin;  responsible for many 
      reforms known as the WISCONSIN IDEA.  He led the progressive movement at the STATE LEVEL.

• Wisconsin known as the "laboratory of reform."
• OTHER reform governors and reform efforts
• Hiram Johnson, governor or California; took on the Southern Pacific Railroad and its influence in California politics.
• Charles Evans Hughes:  reform governor of New York.
• In other states, secured the enactment of safety and sanitation codes for industry and stopped youth from working in certain jobs;  responsible for laws that set maximum hours and minimum wages.

K.  WOMEN'S MOVEMENT results in the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in state and national elections;  ratified in 1920. 

• Carrie Chapman Catt founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1900.
• By 1910,  nine states in the West had granted women the right to vote in state elections.
• The Progressive Party, founded in 1912, made women's suffrage a part of its platform.
• Emma Goldman:  Russian Jewish immigrant; worked for sexual liberation for women;  deported in 1919.
• Margaret Sanger:  advocated birth control
• Charlotte Gilman:  fought for a woman's right to work outside the home.

L.  NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP):  created in 1909

• When progressives spoke of equality, it was not speaking of equality for African-Americans. 
• Some progressive did work for and end to discrimination as some white progressives did join the NIAGARA MOVEMENT in 1910 and helped to form the NAACP.  Its purpose was to end SEGREGATION, GUARANTEEING EQUAL EDUCATION, AND GIVING THE RIGHT TO VOTE TO ALL AFRICAN-AMERCANS. 
• Many African Americans moved to the north to escape southern discrimination during this period.
• BOOKER T. WASHINGTON and W.E.B. DuBOIS were the leading voices to end discrimination.  The two men did not agree on the approach that should be taken to achieve equality.
• Washington's approach was known as the ATLANTA COMPROMISE.  He emphasized that African Americans should  focus on developing vocational skill rather than push for political power and social equality.  He believed these areas would be achieved once African Americans became strong economically.  DuBois disagreed with this approach.

M. RADICAL GROUPS OF THE PERIOD

• SOCIALIST PARTY:  Socialists did not like capitalism and wanted public ownership of industry.  Divisions within the socialist movement prevented them from becoming powerful.
• IWW (International Workers of the World) also called "Wobblies.": 
• Most radical of the radical groups
• Founded in Chicago when radical unionists and political leaders joined forces
• Led by William Haygood, also known as "Big Bill" Haygood. 
• Wanted a utopian state
• Advocated class warfare, revolution, worker control of industry
• Membership at its height was 100,000
• Had little influence

WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND SETTLEMENT OF THE FAR WEST, 1862-1900

WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND SETTLEMENT OF THE FAR WEST, 1862-1900

The area we are studying about here consisted of THE GREAT PLAINS, THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, AND THE GREAT BASIN.  Hardly any white people lived in this area by the end of the Civil War with the EXCEPTION of the MORMONS in Utah.  Was described as “1000 miles on all four sides; mountains, plateaus, deserts, plains inhabited by the Indian, buffalo, wild horses, prairie dogs, and coyote.”  This was the area into which those rugged mountain men went as the first non-Indian Americans.

·         Very colorful period of American history

·         Homestead Act, 1862

o   Federal government passed  this to entice Americans to move west

o   Citizen or immigrant who applied for citizenship could claim 160 acres by paying $10.00.  Had to live on the land or cultivate it for 5 years and the land would be theirs

o   Could buy it and own it after 6 months by paying $1.25/acre

 

·         Congress  organized the area into territories for states to be eventually established

·         Settlement became more rapid with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 after Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862. 

·         Prior to the railroad, steamships had taken passengers from the east coast to the west coast and took a minimum of 30 days.  Also took mail; faster service needed.

·         1857, gov’t. awarded contract to John Butterfield to take mail from St. Louis to San Francisco; would be by stagecoach.  Wells Fargo bought this out in 1866 and continued it until railroad completed in 1869.

·         PONY EXPRESS:  started by Russell Majors, and Waddell in 1860, purpose being to cut mail delivery time.  Route:  St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco; 190 stations approx. 10 miles apart.  Took 10 days to deliver the mail.  Lasted 19 months due to the telegraph being introduced to the west.

·         INDIANS AND INDIAN WAR

o   Estimated that approximately 240,000 Indians in the West by 1860

o   Some tribes resisted very little except for the PLAINS TRIBES.  They resisted:  Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Apache, Nez Perce

o   Plains Indians were the lifeblood of the Plains Indian:  15,000,000 on the plains in 1860, approximately 1000 by 1880s.

o   1850s, federal gov’t. tried to get the Indians to stay north and south of where white settlement would be and made guarantees to the Indians of land, food, clothing, etc.  This did not happen as there were corrupt Indian agents. 

o   1860-1890 saw almost constant warfare between Whites and Indians

o   Federal government used army (cavalry) to protect settlers.  This included Black cavalry units such as the Tenth Cavalry.  About 1/5 of all soldiers there were black.

o   1851:  Treaty of Fort Laramie with Northern Plains tribes in which these tribes agreed to stay in a defined area and promised not to attack wagons that remained in the specified routes.  Gov’t would give $50,000 per year for 50 years.  Similar treaty negotiated with the Southern Plains tribes.  Will not be successful as settlers and miners crossed lines. 

o   Major Indian Confrontations with Whites

§  1862, Sioux of Minnesota went on warpath, murdering a number of settlers;  was crushed by federal troops and over 300 Sioux hanged after a short trial.

§  Sand Creek Massacre, 1864:  After attacks by the Cheyenne and Arapaho along the trails used by settlers going west along the South Platte River, The Cheyenne and Apache were to meet with the territorial governor at Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado.  CHIEF BLACK KETTLE took his tribe to the meeting.  On the morning of November 29, 1864, Colonel J.M. Chivington, out of revenge, ordered his Colorado militia to “Kill and scalp al, big and little.”  98 women, children, and older men murdered by Chivington’s men.  War resulted and led to the Fetterman Massacre.

§  Fetterman Massacre:  1866, Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 men killed by the Sioux.

§  1868, Battle of Washita:  George Armstrong Custer and his men killed Chief Black Kettle and over 100 Cheyenne.

§  1874-75:   Red River War with the southern Plains Indians

§  1876, Battle of Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876:  Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota on land that had been reserved for the Dakota Sioux.  Gold hunters ignored the Indian rights and crossed into land sacred to the Sioux.  Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull led the Sioux and other tribes to resist.  George Armstrong Custer, the “White chief with the yellow hair,”  and 700 troops killed by approximately 2500 warriors.  THIS BATTLE IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE INDIANS.  This resulted in the army committing to end the Indian problem. 

§  1877, Nez Perce uprising.  The Nez Perce were under the leadership of CHIEF JOSEPH.  Tried to escape to Canada but caught and surrendered.  Chief Joseph is quoted as saying, “I am tired of fighting.  My heart is sick and sad.  From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

§  Apaches and GERONIMO continued to fight in southwest and will surrenderin 1886.

§  Battle of Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890:  This is where the end of the Indian problem occurs.  (GOOGLE THIS.)

·         CATTLE KINGDOM

o   Cattle roamed on the open range.  After the Civil War, ranchers began driving their cattle to the railheads. 

o   4 Cattle Trails

§  Goodnight-Loving Trail:  Fort Concho,Texas to Pueblo, Colorado to Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming

§  Western Trail:  Bandera, Texas to Dodge City, Kansas to Ogallala, Nebraska

§  Chisholm Trai:  San Antonio, Texas to Wichita, Kansas to Abilene, Kansas

Shawnee Trail:  San Antonio, Texas to Austin to Ft. Worth, to Kansas City, Missouri (also split and went to Abilene)

o   Winter of 1886-87 was devastating to the open-range cattle industry.  That plus farmers, sheepherders, overexpansion, and overgrazing and barbed wire ended the open-range cattle industry.

o   JOSEPH GLIDDEN had invented barbed wire.

·         Helen Hunt Jackson, 1881, published CENTURY OF DISHONOR .  It exposed how badly the Indian had been treated by the federal government.  This resulted in strong calls for reform regarding the Indians.

·         DAWES SEVERALTY ACT or DAWES ACT:  1887, Congress passed this and it was to give 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land to the head of each Indian family.  This was an effort to change the Indian’s concept of the tribe and tribal ownership of land and their culture.  Remained in effect until 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed.  (Google it)

MINING FRONTIER

·         1848: First major gold discovery….was at Sutter’s Mill on the American River near Sacramento, California and was discovered by James Marshall who was building a mill for John Sutter.  Tried to keep the discovery secret but obviously failed to do so

o   Europeans, Asians came, Canadians, whites from across the country, blacks from Massachusetts,, Indiana, Alabama

o   Those who came were known as “Forty-niners.”  +

o    

·         1858:  Gold discovered at Pike’s Peak area which would be part of Colorado territory…..Not as successful as the California discovery, but some fortunes were made

·         1860:  Comstock Lode discovery in Nevada….one of the richest veins of gold in the world…..yielded 306,000,000 dollars in bullion ,gold and silver+

·         Black Hills discovery which resulted in Custer’s Last Stand

·         Other discoveries in Idaho, Montana, Washington Terrritory, Wyoming, New Mexico Territory.

·         Other metals will also be mined such as copper, tungsten, coal, and petroleum deposits.

·         Mining camps that developed around these discoveries would grow into towns (Boom Towns) and cities.  Saloons seemed to be the main business….The Boom Towns would be referred to as “Helldorados.”  Term taken from the term,  “Eldorado,” a legendary city of gold. 

The U.S. Census Bureau declared in 1890 that there was no longer a frontier in the United States.

Frederick Jackson Turner wrote a paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.”  In it, he argued that the frontier shaped the American character which in turn helped explain the development of America.  This was due to the individualism needed by those who went west;  he also maintained that the frontier allowed the development of democracy.  Others will disagree with his thesis.