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Social Justice Reforn: YMCA
During the progressive era, many public service reforms were put in place to make sure everyones needs were met. The Young Mans Christan Association was set up to offer activites and fun things to do for people that lived in the city and didn't have the opportunity to go outside and play all these sports and activities compared to if you lived in the suburbs or country. This was import to the progressive era because it improved the lives and happiness of people living in the city. -
Muckraker: Thomas Nast.
While the majority of muckrakers wrote about the problems they found, Nast drew political cartoons to express his opinions and also drew the American icons of the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey, Uncle Sam, Santa Claus, and Columbia. His most famous political cartoon was about political corruption by NYC's political machine, Tammany Hall, led by Boss Tweed. After this cartoon was published, Tweed was convicted of embezzlement and died in prison. -
Jane Addams
On September 18, 1889, Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois. Hull House served as a place where immagrints and people suffering in poverty could recieve many of the helpful services they provided. These services include providing food, English classes, and ways to adapt to the American culture. Hull House served as a standard for all other settlement houses to live up to. -
Bussiness Reform: Fostering Efficiency.
In order to make a compromise with bussiness owners, progressives pushed for fostering efficiency. This meant that the workers hours got cut down but they had to do the same exact amount of worker in less time. This made workers vulnerable because with the one step jobs they were given, they were easily replacable. Once progressives realized this didn't improve the lives of the worker they back off on the policy. -
Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt served as president from September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1909, and is most commonly know for his progessive views in politics. He demonstrated this through setting aside national conservation land, the majority still remaining today. He supported women's suffrage. He also wanted to use his position as president to break up big bussiness monopoly. -
Upton Sinclair
After publishing his most famous book, The Jungle, in 1905, Upton Sinclair became one of the most well-known muckrakers of his time. The novel uncovered the once concealed horrors of the meat packing industry. All men and women alike that read the story's stomachs were turned and soon demanded refom which eventually led to passing of the Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act. -
H.G Wells
In 1909, author Herbert Georges Wells published his autobiography called Tono-Bungay. After previously writting many science fiction novels before this, Tono-Bungay was Wells's most famous yet controversial works. It involved sexual content, which was never really written about in this time period because people were so much more conservative when it came to disscussing 'private matters' than they are today. -
16th Ammendment
This ammendment authorized congress to collect income tax from the people. Income tax is when they take the amount of moeny the person or family is earning and take a certain percent from their yearly income and it centrilized where every state had a different income tax percentage and now under congress it was unified. This ammendment was important for its time, as well as today, because it took power away from the states and gave it to congress/the government. -
Corrupt Practices Reform: Corrupt Practice Act
The corrupt practice refrom was a restriction on companies trading outside of the country. This prevented bussinesses from bribing foreign officials to receive new or continuing business from those officials' countries. It also limited how much money candidates could spend during election time and banned the buying of food or drink for voters. This was a progressive idea because it leveled the playing field for those who were running and didn't have as much money as the other candidates. -
Public Service Reform: Public Heath Service
This orginization provided food, gave natural disaster victims medical help, controlled the spread of fatal diseases for those who needed it. This effected the progressive era because it kept the people that needed medical attention, but couldn't recieve it, alive. -
17th Amendment
This ammendment was put in place so that senators would have to be appointed by the people instead of representives or others in positions of government power chosing them. This was very important to the progressive era because the prospective senators would now have to earn the approval of the people instead of trying to win over government officials. -
Labor Reform: Child Labor
One of the most persistent causes of Progressive Era reformers was child labor reform. They believed that child labor was extremely damaging to children and to society because if they weren't brought up like regular kids, they wouldn't grow up to be healthy and normal. The progressive party's goals were to develop programs that would end children's working in industry and increase their involvement in education and extracurricular activities, which they eventually met. -
18th Amendment
This ammendment was put in place to prohibit the consumption of alcohol but was also the only ammendment that was ever repealed. The reason it was initially was brought up to the govt. was because many women didn't wanted their husbands to get off of work and go straight to the bar to get drunk when they should be home with their family instead of wasting their paychecks on alcohol. The passing of this ammendment did little good because many were bootlegging alchol and the crime rate went up. -
Eugene Debs
An outspoken leader of the labor movement, Eugene Debs went against Woodrow Wilson as the Socialist Party candidate in the Presidential Election in 1912. His main contribution to the progessive era was his he founded the Socialist party and traveled across the country to defend workers on strikes and industrial disputes. -
19th Amendment
This ammendment stated that women were allowed to vote and shouldn't be denied this right based on their gender. The main reason a majority of the men that didn't vote for women's suffrage feared that based on their progressive ideas on wanting to vote, it would totally change the end result of the polls but they later found out nothing really changed in that regard. This is so important to the progressive era because it allowed women and men finally had equal rights. -
Hiram Johnson
It was originally thought that after Teddy Roosevelt, the head of the progressive/bull moose party, died Hiram Johnson would take over, which he did buthe later relized his political views were more conservative than he thought. He was one of the first men in politics to not vote for whatever their party supported but voted for what he personally believed and the majority of the people liked and respected him for it. -
Robert La Follette
Also known as, 'Fighting Bob', Robert La Follette was a Wisconsin senator and a notable leader of the progressive movement. His main contribution were the speeches that he implemented in the effort to keep bussiness out of politics. -
William Jennings Bryan
For most of his life, Bryan was a leading democratic politicition who also ran for President in 1896, 1900, and 1908. William Jennings Bryan was also a lawyer and one of the most famous cases he was involved in was the Scopes trial over teaching evolution in Tennessee, as the prosicution, and later won. This was important to progessivism because many people were still heavily religious and the fact that a differnent view on how people got on earth and was being presented to students. -
Charles Evan Hughes
Charles Evan Hughes was the Supreme Court Justice from 1930-1941. During FDR's presidency, he fought with him over many issues, the most notable being the argument over FDR's 'Court-Packing' plan in 1937. Hughes fought against the plan that if passed would expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges. Hughes defended that FDR only wanted to get this plan passed because it would cancel out Supreme Court justices that didn't agree with his "New Deal".
