1. Chapter 13 Sec.1
Progressive Era
What does the word
“reform” mean?

2. To make better

3. What does the word “progress” mean?

4. To move forward

5. A series of reform efforts
transformed the American society
between 1890-1920
This period is known as the Progressive Era.
Why?
Because of the social problems that had resulted
during this time- the poverty of the working class
and the filth and crime of the urban society.

6. A Cry for Reform

7. Who were the Progressives?
• They were journalists, social
workers, educators, politicians,
and members of the clergy.

8. Muckrakers
• Among the first people to articulate
Progressive ideas was a group of crusading
journalists who investigated social conditions
and political corruption-they were called
muckrakers. Newspapers started to complete-
who could expose the most corruption and
scandal.

9. How were the muckrakers different
from Yellow journalist?

10. Famous Muckrakers
• Ida Tarbell- Standard Oil
• “they never played fair”

11. Muckrakers
• Jacob Riis

12. • http://youtu.be/EACoIbokOcc

13. Lincoln Steffens- The Shame of the
Cities
• Wrote on corrupt practices of urban political
machines

14. Upton Sinclair
• He wrote a famous book called The Jungle—
about the horrors of the meat packing plants
in Chicago. Became a best seller and changed
the industry.

16. Progressives worked on Making
Government Efficient
• One group of progressives focused on making
government more efficient. They believed
many problems could be solved by the
government if the government worked
properly.
To force state legislators to respond to voters,
three new reforms were introduced in many
states.

17. • Initiative—allowed citizens to introduce
legislation
• Referendum—allowed proposed legislation to
to be submitted to the voters for approval
• Recall—allowed voters to demand a special
election or remove an elected official from
office.

18. • Direct Election of Senators
• 17th amendment –people in the states elected
their own senators.

19. The Suffrage Movement
• Suffrage—the right to vote
• Women suffrage was an important issue for
progressives
• Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott worked hard for the right to
vote. Finally in 1920, the 19th amendment was
added to the constitution guaranteeing
women the right to vote.

21. Anthony and Stanton

22. • Some focused on the social problems such as
crime, literacy, alcohol abuse, health and
safety and child labor.
• John Spargo- The Bitter Cry of the Children
presented details evidence on child labor
conditions.
• http://youtu.be/rDN3X-WORI4

23. • Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and
dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys
sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate
and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to
the washers. From the cramped position they
have to assume, most of them become more or
less deformed and bent-backed like old men.
When a boy has been working for some time and
begins to get round-shouldered, his fellows say
that “He’s got his boy to carry round wherever he
goes.”

24. • I once stood in a breaker for half an hour and tried to do
the work a twelve-year-old boy was doing day after day, for
ten hours at a stretch, for sixty cents a day. The gloom of
the breaker appalled me. Outside the sun shone brightly,
the air was pellucid [clear], and the birds sang in chorus
with the trees and the rivers. Within the breaker there was
blackness, clouds of deadly dust enfolded everything, the
harsh, grinding roar of the machinery and the ceaseless
rushing of coal through the chutes filled the ears. I tried to
pick out the pieces of slate from the hurrying stream of
coal, often missing them; my hands were bruised and cut in
a few minutes; I was covered from head to foot with coal
dust, and for many hours afterwards I was expectorating
some of the small particles of anthracite I had swallowed.

25. • Many adult workers also worked in dangerous
and difficult conditions as well.
• Triangle shirtwaist factory fire
• http://youtu.be/UdNYqBP_5q4
• http://youtu.be/Pi7XD2AasxY

26. •
The Ballad of the Dead Girls
• SCARCE had they brought the bodies down
• Across the withered floor,
• Than Max Rogosky thundered at The District Leader’s door.
• Scarce had the white-lipped mothers come
• To search the fearful noon,
• Than little Max stood shivering
• In Tom McTodd’s saloon!
• In Tom McTodd’s saloon he stood,
• Beside the silver bar,
• Where any honest lad may stand, And sell his vote at par.
• “Ten years I’ve paid the System’s tax,” The words fell, quivering, raw;
• “And now I want the thing I bought— Protection from the law!”
• The Leader smiled a twisted smile: “Your doors were locked,” he said.
• “You’ve overstepped the limit, Max— A hundred women.… dead!”
• Then Max Rogosky gripped the bar And shivered where he stood.
• “You listen now to me,” he cried, “Like business fellers should!
•

27. • “I’ve paid for all my hundred dead, I’ve paid, I’ve paid, I’ve paid.
• ”His ragged laughter rang, and died— For he was sore afraid.
• “I’ve paid for wooden hall and stair, I’ve paid to strain my floors,
• I’ve paid for rotten fire-escapes, For all my bolted doors.
• “Your fat inspectors came and came— I crossed their hands with gold.
• And now I want the thing I bought, The thing the System sold.
• ” The District Leader filled a glass With whiskey from the bar,
• (The little silver counter where He bought men’s souls at par.)
• And well he knew that he must give The thing that he had sold,
• Else men should doubt the System’s word, Keep back the System’s gold.
• The whiskey burned beneath his tongue: “A hundred women dead!
• I guess the Boss can fix it up, Go home—and hide,” he said.. . . . . . . .
• All day they brought the bodies down From Max Rogosky’s place—
• And oh, the fearful touch of flame On hand and breast and face!
• All day the white-lipped mothers came To search the sheeted dead;
• And Horror strode the blackened walls, Where Death had walked in red.
• But Max Rogosky did not weep. (He knew that tears were vain.)
• He paid the System’s price, and lived
• To lock his doors again.

28. Prohibition Movement
• Many believed that alcohol was responsible
for many of the problems in American society.
• Amendment 18—Prohibition-anning the
manufacturing, sale and consumption of
alcohol.