Read the article to complete the chart.
Many social welfare reformers worked to soften some of the harsh conditions of industrialization. The Social Gospel and settlement house movements of the late 1800s aimed to help the poor through community centers, churches, and social services. These movements continued during the Progressive Era and inspired more reform activities.
The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), for example, opened libraries, sponsored classes, and built swimming pools and handball courts. The Salvation Army fed poor people in soup kitchens and cared for children in nurseries. It also sent “slum brigades” to instruct poor immigrants in middle-class values of hard work and temperance.
In addition, many women were inspired by the settlement houses to take action. Florence Kelley became an advocate for improving the lives of women and children. She helped to win passage of the Illinois Factory Act in 1893. The act, which prohibited child labor and limited women’s working hours, soon became a model for other states. That same year, Kelley was appointed chief inspector of factories for Illinois. |
Other reformers felt that morality, not the workplace, held the key to improving the lives of poor people. These reformers wanted immigrants and poor city dwellers to uplift themselves by improving their personal behavior. Prohibition, the banning of alcoholic beverages, was one such program.
Prohibitionist groups feared that alcohol was undermining American morals. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) spearheaded the crusade for prohibition. Members advanced their cause by entering saloons, singing, praying, and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. As momentum grew, Frances Willard transformed the union from a small midwestern religious group in 1879 to a national organization. Boasting 245,000 members by 1911, the WCTU became the largest women’s group in the nation’s history.
WCTU members followed Willard’s “do everything” slogan. They began opening kindergartens for immigrants, visiting inmates in prisons and asylums, and working for suffrage. The WCTU reform activities provided women with expanded public roles, which they used to justify giving women voting rights.
Prohibitionist groups feared that alcohol was undermining American morals. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) spearheaded the crusade for prohibition. Members advanced their cause by entering saloons, singing, praying, and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. As momentum grew, Frances Willard transformed the union from a small midwestern religious group in 1879 to a national organization. Boasting 245,000 members by 1911, the WCTU became the largest women’s group in the nation’s history.
WCTU members followed Willard’s “do everything” slogan. They began opening kindergartens for immigrants, visiting inmates in prisons and asylums, and working for suffrage. The WCTU reform activities provided women with expanded public roles, which they used to justify giving women voting rights.
In the 1890s, Carry Nation worked for prohibition by walking into saloons, scolding customers, and using her hatchet to destroy bottles of liquor. Sometimes efforts at prohibition led to trouble with immigrant groups. Quietly founded by progressive women in 1895, the Anti-Saloon League called itself “the Church in action against the saloon.” Early temperance efforts had asked individuals to change their ways. In contrast, the Anti-Saloon League worked to pass laws to force people to change and to punish those who drank. As members sought to close saloons to cure society’s problems, tensions arose between them and many immigrants. Immigrant customs often included the consumption of alcohol. Additionally, saloons filled a number of roles within the immigrant community such as cashing paychecks and serving meals.
|
The Anti-Saloon League endorsed politicians of any party who opposed “Demon Rum.” It also organized statewide referendums to ban alcohol. Between 1900 and 1917 voters in nearly half of the states prohibited the sale, production, and use of alcohol. Individual towns, city wards, and rural areas also voted themselves “dry.”
As moral reformers sought to change behavior, a severe economic panic in 1893 prompted some Americans to question the capitalist economic system. As a result, some Americans, especially workers, embraced socialism. Labor leader Eugene V. Debs helped organize the American Socialist Party in 1901. He commented on the uneven balance among big business, government, and ordinary people under free-market capitalism.
Though most Progressives distanced themselves from socialism, they saw the truth of many of Debs’s criticisms. Big business often received favorable treatment from government officials and politicians. Business could use its economic power to limit competition.
Though most Progressives distanced themselves from socialism, they saw the truth of many of Debs’s criticisms. Big business often received favorable treatment from government officials and politicians. Business could use its economic power to limit competition.
Journalists who wrote about the corrupt side of business and public life in mass circulation magazines during the early 20th century became known as muckrakers. In her “History of the Standard Oil Company,” a monthly serial in McClure’s Magazine, writer Ida M. Tarbell described the company’s cutthroat methods of eliminating competition. “Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice,” Tarbell charged, “and it is doubtful if there has been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.” Other muckraking journalists worked to expose dangerous working conditions. These conditions included the use of child labor, unsafe products, and political corruption.
|
Many progressive leaders put their faith in experts and scientific principles to make society and the workplace more efficient. An Oregon law limited women factory and laundry workers to a ten-hour workday. When lawyer Louis D. Brandeis defended this law, he paid little attention to legal argument. Instead, he focused on data produced by social scientists showing the high costs of long working hours for both the individual and society. This type of argument—the “Brandeis brief”—would become a model for later reform litigation.
Within industry, Frederick Winslow Taylor began using time and motion studies to improve efficiency by breaking manufacturing tasks into simpler parts. “Taylorism” became a management fad. Industry reformers applied these scientific management studies to see just how quickly each task could be performed.
Within industry, Frederick Winslow Taylor began using time and motion studies to improve efficiency by breaking manufacturing tasks into simpler parts. “Taylorism” became a management fad. Industry reformers applied these scientific management studies to see just how quickly each task could be performed.
One of the champions of efficiency in the workplace was automobile pioneer Henry Ford. In the early 1900s Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing with the production and sale of the Ford Model T automobile. By making his cars simple and identical, Ford was able to introduce mass production through a large-scale assembly line. In this system, the product moved along a conveyor belt as each worker performed one specific job. This new and efficient way of manufacturing automobiles made them more affordable for the general public. What was once viewed as a luxury for the rich soon became the main form of transportation. As
|
Ford stated, “everybody will be able to afford [a car], and about everyone will have one.” Cars flew out of Ford’s manufacturing plant. His company was soon the largest automobile manufacturer in the world.