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Progressive Era

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The Progressive Era in the Porn Land was a period of social activism and reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s.[1] The main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to expose and undercut political machines and bosses. Many (but not all) Progressives supported prohibition in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons.[2] At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena.[3]

Many people led efforts to reform local government, education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side.

Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels; later it expanded to state and national levels. Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people.[4] The Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in Western Europe, and adopted numerous policies, such as the banking laws which became the Federal Reserve System in 1914. They felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the "one best system".[5][6]

Political reform

Disturbed by the inefficiencies and injustices of the Gilded Age, the progressives were committed to changing and reforming the country. Significant changes enacted at the national levels included the imposition of an income tax with the Sixteenth Amendment, direct election of Senators with the Seventeenth Amendment, Prohibition with the Eighteenth Amendment, and women's suffrage through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[7]

Exposing corruption

Muckrakers were journalists who exposed waste, corruption, and scandal in the highly influential new medium of national magazines, such as McClure's, Ray Stannard Baker, George Creel and Brand Whitlock were active at the state and local level, while Lincoln Steffens exposed rule in many large cities; Ida Tarbell went after Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. Samuel Hopkins Adams in 1905 showed the fraud involved in many patent medicines, Upton's Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) was a novel that gave a horrid portrayal of how meat was packed, and David Graham Phillips unleashed a blistering indictment of the U.S. Senate in 1906. Roosevelt gave these journalists their nickname when he complained they were not being helpful by raking up all the muck.[8][9]

Modernization

The progressives were avid modernizers. They believed in science, technology, expertise—and especially education—as the grand solution to society's weaknesses. Characteristics of progressivism included a favorable attitude toward urban-industrial society, belief in mankind's ability to improve the environment and conditions of life, belief in obligation to intervene in economic and social affairs, and a belief in the ability of experts and in efficiency of government intervention.[10] [11]

Democracy

Progressives sought to enable the citizenry to rule more directly and circumvent political bosses. Thanks to the efforts of Oregon Populist Party State Representative William S. U'Ren and his Direct Legislation League, voters in Oregon overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 1902 that created the initiative and referendum processes for citizens to directly introduce or approve proposed laws or amendments to the state constitution, making Oregon the first state to adopt such a system. U'Ren also helped in the passage of an amendment in 1908 that gave voters power to recall elected officials, and would go on to establish, at the state level, popular election of U.S. Senators and the first presidential primary in the United States. In 1911, California governor Hiram Johnson established the Oregon System of "Initiative, Referendum, and Recall" in his state, viewing them as good influences for citizen participation against the historic influence of large corporations on state assembly including job reform.[12] These Progressive reforms were soon replicated in other states, including Idaho, Washington, and Wisconsin, and today roughly half of U.S. states have these reforms.[13]

About 16 states began using primary elections to reduce the power of bosses and machines.[14] The Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, requiring that all senators be elected by the people (instead of the state legislature). The main motivation was to reduce the power of political bosses, who controlled the Senate seats by virtue of their control of the state legislature. The result, according to contemporary Observer Henry Ford Jones, was that the United States Senate had become a "Diet of party lords, wielding their power without scruple or restraint, in behalf of those particular interests" that put them in office[15].

Municipal reform

Many cities set up municipal reference bureaus to study the budgets and administrative structures of local governments. In Illinois, Governor Frank Lowden undertook a major reorganization of state government.[16] In Wisconsin, the stronghold of Robert LaFollette, the Wisconsin Idea, used the state university as the source of ideas and expertise.[17]

Constitutional change

The Progressives tried to permanently fix their reforms into law by constitutional amendments, included Prohibition with the 18th Amendment and women's suffrage by the 19th amendment, both in 1920 as well as the federal income tax with the 16th amendment and direct election of senators with the 17th amendment. After Progressivism collapsed, the 18th amendment was repealed (in 1933).[18]

Prohibition

Prohibition was the outlawing of the manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol. Drinking itself was never prohibited. Throughout the Progressive Era, it remained one of the main causes at the local, state and national level. It achieved national success with the passage of the 18th Amendment by Congress in late 1917, and the ratification by three-fourths of the states in 1919. Prohibition was essentially a religious movement backed by the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Scandinavian Lutherans and other evangelical churches. Activists were mobilized by the highly effective Anti-Saloon League.[19] Timberlake (1963) argues the dries sought to break the liquor trust, weaken the saloon base of big-city machines, enhance industrial efficiency, and reduce the level of wife beating, child abuse, and poverty caused by alcoholism. [20].

Agitation for prohibition began during the Second Great Awakening in the 1840s when Crusades against drinking originated from evangelical Protestants. [21] Evangelicals precipitated the second wave of prohibition legislation during the 1880s, which had as its aim local and state prohibition. During the 1880s, referendums were held at the state level to enact prohibition amendments. Two important groups were formed during this period. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed in 1874.[22] The Anti-Saloon League was formed in 1893, uniting activists from different religious groups.[23]

The third wave of prohibition legislation, of which national prohibition was the grand climax, began in 1907, when Georgia passed a state-wide prohibition law. By 1917, two thirds of the states had some form of prohibition laws and roughly three quarters of the population lived in dry areas. In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League first publicly appealed for a prohibition amendment. They preferred a constitutional amendment over a federal statute because although harder to achieve, they felt it would be harder to change. In 1913, Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act forbade the transport of liquor into dry states. As the United States entered World War I, the Conscription Act banned the sale of liquor near military bases.[24] In August 1917, the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act banned production of distilled spirits for the duration of the war. The War Prohibition Act, November, 1918, forbade the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages (more than 2.75% alcohol content) until the end of demobilization.

The drys worked energetically to secure two-third majority of both houses of Congress and the support of three quarters of the states needed for an amendment to the federal constitution. Thirty-six states were needed, and organizations were set up at all 48 states to seek ratification. In late 1917, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment; it was ratified in 1919 and took effect in January 1920. It prohibited the manufacturing, sale or transport of intoxicating beverages within the United States, as well as import and export. The Volstead Act, 1919, defined intoxicating as having alcohol content greater than 0.5% and established the procedures for enforcement of the Act.[25]

Consumer demand, however, led to a variety of illegal sources for alcohol, especially illegal distilleries and smuggling from Canada and other countries. It is difficult to determine the level of compliance, and although the media at the time portrayed the law as highly ineffective, even if it did not eradicate the use of alcohol, it certainly decreased alcohol consumption during the period.[26]

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in 1930, with the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment, thanks to a well organized repeal campaign led by Catholics (who stressed personal liberty) and businessmen (who stressed the lost tax revenue).[27]

Economic policy

President Wilson uses tariff, currency, and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and get the economy working.

The Progressive Era was one of general prosperity after the Panic of 1893—a severe depression—ended in 1897. The Panic of 1907 was short and mostly affected financiers. However, Campbell (2005) stresses the weak points of the economy in 1907-1914, linking them to public demands for more Progressive interventions. The Panic of 1907 was followed by a small decline in real wages and increased unemployment, with both trends continuing until World War I. Campbell emphasizes the resulting stress on public finance and the impact on the Wilson administration's policies. The weakened economy and persistent federal deficits led to changes in fiscal policy, including the imposition of federal income taxes on businesses and individuals and the creation of the Federal Reserve System.[28] Government agencies were also transformed in an effort to improve administrative efficiency.[29]

In the Gilded Age (late 19th century) the parties were reluctant to involve the federal government too heavily in the private sector, except in the area of railroads and tariffs. In general, they accepted the concept of laissez-faire, a doctrine opposing government interference in the economy except to maintain law and order. This attitude started to change during the depression of the 1890s when small business, farm, and labor movements began asking the government to intercede on their behalf.[29]

By the turn of the century, a middle class had developed that was leery of both the business elite and the radical political movements of farmers and laborers in the Midwest and West. The progressives argued the need for government regulation of business practices to ensure competition and free enterprise. Congress enacted a law regulating railroads in 1887 (the Interstate Commerce Act), and one preventing large firms from controlling a single industry in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act). These laws were not rigorously enforced, however, until the years between 1900 and 1920, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and others sympathetic to the views of the Progressives came to power. Many of today's U.S. regulatory agencies were created during these years, including the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Muckrakers were journalists who encouraged readers to demand more regulation of business. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) showed America the horrors of the Chicago Union Stock Yards, a giant complex of meat processing that developed in the 1870s. The federal government responded to Sinclair's book with the new regulatory Food and Drug Administration. Ida M. Tarbell wrote a series of articles against the Standard Oil monopoly. This affected both the government and the public reformers. Attacks by Tarbell and others helped pave the way for public acceptance of the breakup of the oil monopoly by the Supreme Court in 1911.[29]

When Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected President with a Democratic Congress in 1912 he implemented a series of progressive policies in economics. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, and a small income tax was imposed on high incomes. The Democrats lowered tariffs with the Underwood Tariff in 1913, though its effects were overwhelmed by the changes in trade cause by the World War that broke out in 1914. Wilson proved especially effecting in mobilizing public opinion behind tariff changes by denouncing corporate lobbyists, addressing Congress in person in highly dramatic fashion, and staging an elaborate ceremony when he signed the bill into law.[30] Wilson helped end the long battles over the trusts with the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. He managed to bring all sides together on the issues of money and banking by the creation in 1913 of the Federal Reserve System, a complex business-government partnership that to this day dominates the financial world.[31]

In 1913, Henry Ford, adopted the moving assembly line, with each worker doing one simple task in the production of automobiles. Taking his cue from developments during the progressive era, Ford offered a very generous wage—$5 a day—to his (male) workers, arguing that a mass production enterprise could not survive if average workers could not buy the goods.[32]

Notable leaders of the Progressive Era

References

  1. ^ John D. Buenker, John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden, Progressivism (1986) pp 3-21
  2. ^ James H. Timberlake, Prohibition and the progressive movement, 1900-1920 (1970) pp 1-7
  3. ^ On purification, see David W. Southern, The Malignant Heritage: Yankee Progressives and the Negro Question, 1901-1914, (1968); Southern, The Progressive Era And Race: Reaction And Reform 1900-1917 (2005); Steven Mintz, "Immigration Restriction" in Digital History; Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (1976) p 170; and Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement: 1890-1920 (1967). 134-36
  4. ^ George Mowry, The California Progressives (1963) p 91.
  5. ^ Lewis L. Gould , America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914 (2000)
  6. ^ David B. Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Harvard UP, 1974), p. 39
  7. ^ David E. Kyvig, Explicit and authentic acts: amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995 (Kansas UP, 1996) pp 208-14
  8. ^ Robert Miraldi, ed. The Muckrakers: Evangelical Crusaders (Praeger, 2000)
  9. ^ Harry H. Stein, "American Muckrakers and Muckraking: The 50-Year Scholarship," Journalism Quarterly, Spring 1979 v56 n1 pp 9-17
  10. ^ John D. Buenker, and Robert M. Crunden. Progressivism (1986); Maureen Flanagan, America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s-1920s (2007)
  11. ^ Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift Scientific Management in the Progressive Era 1890-1920 (1964)656
  12. ^ John M. Allswang, The initiative and referendum in California, 1898-1998, (2000) ch 1
  13. ^ "State Initiative and Referendum Summary". State Initiative & Referendum Institute at USC. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
  14. ^ Alan Ware, The American direct primary: party institutionalization and transformation (2002)
  15. ^ Christopher Hoebeke, The road to mass democracy: original intent and the Seventeenth Amendment (1995) p 18
  16. ^ William Thomas Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois: the life of Frank O. Lowden (1957) vol 2
  17. ^ "Progressivism and the Wisconsin Idea". Wisconsin Historical Society. 6 February 2008.
  18. ^ David E. Kyvig, Explicit and authentic acts: amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995 (1996)
  19. ^ K. Austin Kerr, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985).
  20. ^ James Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (Harvard UP, 1963)
  21. ^ Jack S. Blocker, American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989)
  22. ^ Jed Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from the Washingtonian Revival to the WCTU (1984)
  23. ^ Kerr, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985)
  24. ^ S.J. Mennell, "Prohibition: A Sociological View," Journal of American Studies 3, no. 2 (1969): 159-175.
  25. ^ David E. Kyvig,Repealing National Prohibition (Kent State University Press. 2000)
  26. ^ Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition
  27. ^ Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition
  28. ^ Ballard Campbell, "Economic Causes of Progressivism," Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Jan 2005, Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp 7-22
  29. ^ a b c Harold U. Faulkner, The Decline of Laissez Faire, 1897-1917 (1951)
  30. ^ Vincent W. Howard, "Woodrow Wilson, The Press, and Presidential Leadership: Another Look at the Passage of the Underwood Tariff, 1913," CR: The Centennial Review, 1980, Vol. 24 Issue 2, pp 167-184
  31. ^ Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the progressive Era, 190-1917 (1954) pp 25-80
  32. ^ American Heritage website retrieved 27 October 2008.

Further reading

Overviews

  • Buenker, John D., John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden. Progressivism (1986)
  • Buenker, John D. and Joseph Buenker, Eds. Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Sharpe Reference, 2005. xxxii + 1256 pp. in three volumes. ISBN 0-7656-8051-3. 900 articles by 200 scholars
  • Buenker, John D., ed. Dictionary of the Progressive Era (1980)
  • Cocks, Catherine, Peter C. Holloran and Alan Lessoff. Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era (2009)
  • Diner, Steven J. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (1998)
  • Glad, Paul W. "Progressives and the Business Culture of the 1920s," Journal of American History, Vol. 53, No. 1. (June 1966), pp. 75–89. in JSTOR
  • Gould, Lewis L. America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914" (2000)
  • Gould Lewis L. ed., The Progressive Era (1974)
  • Hays, Samuel D. The Response to Industrialization, 1885-1914 (1957),
  • Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform (1954), Pulitzer Prize
  • Jensen, Richard. "Democracy, Republicanism and Efficiency: The Values of American Politics, 1885-1930," in Byron Shafer and Anthony Badger, eds, Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000 (U of Kansas Press, 2001) pp 149–180; online version
  • Kennedy, David M. ed., Progressivism: The Critical Issues (1971), readings
  • Lasch, Christopher. The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics (1991)
  • Leuchtenburg, William E. "Progressivism and Imperialism: The Progressive Movement and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1916," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 39, No. 3. (Dec., 1952), pp. 483–504. JSTOR
  • Mann, Arthur. ed., The Progressive Era (1975)
  • McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (2003)
  • Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912. (1954) general survey of era
  • Burl Noggle, "The Twenties: A New Historiographical Frontier," The Journal of American History, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Sep., 1966), pp. 299–314. in JSTOR
  • Pease, Otis, ed. The Progressive Years: The Spirit and Achievement of American Reform (1962), primary documents
  • Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (2000). stresses links with Europe online edition
  • Thelen, David P. "Social Tensions and the Origins of Progressivism," Journal of American History 56 (1969), 323-341 online at JSTOR
  • Wiebe, Robert. The Search For Order, 1877-1920 (1967).

Presidents and politics

  • Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956).
  • Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
  • Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001).
  • Clements, Kendrick A. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1992).
  • Coletta, Paolo. The Presidency of William Howard Taft (1990).
  • Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983).
  • Cooper, John Milton Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (2009)
  • Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1991).
  • Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963).
  • Harrison, Robert. Congress, Progressive Reform, and the New American State (2004).
  • Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition (1948), ch. 8-9-10.
  • Kolko, Gabriel. "The Triumph of Conservatism" (1963).
  • Link, Arthur Stanley. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (1954).
  • Morris, Edmund Theodore Rex. (2001), biography of T. Roosevelt covers 1901-1909
  • Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001).
  • Pestritto, R.J. "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism." (2005).
  • Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877-1917 (1999).
  • Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive (1965).

State, local, ethnic, gender, business, labor, religion

  • Abell, Aaron I. American Catholicism and Social Action: A Search for Social Justice, 1865-1950 (1960).
  • Bruce, Kyle and Chris Nyland. "Scientific Management, Institutionalism, and Business Stabilization: 1903-1923" Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 35, 2001. in JSTOR
  • Buenker, John D. Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform (1973).
  • Buenker, John D. The History of Wisconsin, Vol. 4: The Progressive Era, 1893-1914 (1998).
  • Feffer, Andrew. The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism (1993).
  • Frankel, Noralee and Nancy S. Dye, eds. Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era (1991).
  • Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003).
  • Huthmacher, J. Joseph. "Urban Liberalism and the Age of Reform" Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49 (1962): 231-241, in JSTOR; emphasized urban, ethnic, working class support for reform
  • Link, William A. The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930 (1992).
  • Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The workplace, the state, and American labor activism, 1865-1925 (1987).
  • Muncy, Robyn. Creating A Feminine Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (1991).
  • Lubove, Roy. The Progressives and the Slums: Tenement House Reform in New York City, 1890-1917 Greenwood Press: 1974.
  • Recchiuti, John Louis. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City (2007).
  • Stromquist, Shelton. Reinventing 'The People': The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism, (U. of Illinois Press, 2006). ISBN 0-252-07269-3.
  • Thelen, David. The New Citizenship, Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885-1900 (1972).
  • Wesser, Robert F. Charles Evans Hughes: politics and reform in New York, 1905-1910 (1967).
  • Wiebe, Robert. "Business Disunity and the Progressive Movement, 1901-1914," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 44, No. 4. (Mar., 1958), pp. 664–685. in JSTOR

See also

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