Ch. 11 Terms to Know
Progressive Era Wkst.
The Progressive Movement Worksheet
The rapid growth of industry in the U.S. brought about such problems as business monopolies, dishonest politicians, crowded city slums, and miserable working conditions. During the 1870s and 1880s, reformers spoke out against these evils and demanded improvements in the quality of life for the middle class and the poor. But little progress was made until the 1890s when the public and the government gave widespread support to the reform movement.
The people who led the fight for change called themselves “progressives”. They attacked the abuses of monopolies and trusts, the rate-fixing practices of railroads, the use of child labor in factories and mines, and the corruption of big-city political machines. They supported women’s suffrage, conservation programs, civil service, and better pay and shorter hours for workers.
The Progressive Movement of the 1890s and early 1900s was urged on by a group of writers called the “muckrakers”. This name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th century attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term derives from the word muckrake used by President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech in 1906, in which he agreed with many of the charges of the muckrakers but asserted that some of their methods were sensational and irresponsible. He compared them to a character from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress who could look no way but downward with a muckrake in his hands and was interested only in raking the filth. Since the 1870s there had been recurrent efforts at reform in government, politics, and business, but it was not until the advent of the national mass-circulation magazines such as McClure’s, Everybody’s, and Collier’s that the muckrakers were provided with sufficient funds for their investigations and with a large enough audience to arouse nationwide concern. All aspects of American life interested the muckrakers, the most famous of whom are Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, David Graham Phillips, Ray Stannard Baker, Samuel Hopkins Adams, and Upton Sinclair. Lincoln Steffens wrote about dishonest politicians in The Shame of the Cities. Ida Tarbell published History of the Standard Oil Company, in which she exposed the ruthless methods by which Standard Oil won almost total control of U.S. oil production. In his book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair told a shocking story about the unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry. In the early 1900s magazine articles that attacked trusts—including those of Charles E. Russell on the beef trust, Thomas Lawson on Amalgamated Copper, and Burton J. Hendrick on life insurance companies—did much to create public demand for regulation of the great combines. The muckraking movement lost support in about 1912. Historians agree that if it had not been for the revelations of the muckrakers the Progressive movement would not have received the popular support needed for effective reform. (The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.)
Reformers won control of many city and some state governments. The also succeeded in getting numerous candidates elected to Congress. Both the Democrats and the Republicans voted for reform legislation. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Woodrow Wilson supported various reform laws. The result was that many changes were made at the local, state, and federal levels.
Matching:
Match the problems the country faced before the reforms were made with the changes that were made after reform from the word bank. Include the problems with the reforms on a separate sheet of paper.
A. Congress passed the Hepburn Act. This law gave more power to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The result was a broad reduction in railroad rates.
B. While Theodore Roosevelt was President, the government sued more than 40 companies for violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. One suit broke up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Roosevelt earned the nickname “trust-buster”. During Woodrow Wilson’s administration, the Clayton Act gave the government additional power to break up monopolies.
C. Laws were passed requiring safety precautions in factories. Some states passed minimum wage laws. Working hours were shortened. “Workmen’s compensation laws” required employers to carry insurance on their workers. Many states passed legislation that restricted child labor. The American Federation of Labor bargained for better wages and working conditions.
D. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act gave the government power to take action against companies whose products were impure, unsafe, or wrongly labeled.
E. More and more government jobs were filled using the civil service system, or merit system. Persons had to prove they were qualified for a job by passing a civil service test.
F. The women’s suffrage movement succeeded in getting the 19th Amendment added to the Constitution. It gave women the right to vote.
G. The Australian ballot, or “secret ballot”, was introduced. It was printed by the government on paper of the same color. The ballot contained a list of candidates and the positions they wished to fill. The voter marked his ballot in the privacy of a curtained booth.
H. The Forest Reserve Act set aside wilderness areas. Other “conservation” measures saved mineral, water, and fuel resources. Congress established the National Park Service to run existing national parks and start new ones.
I. The “direct primary” was used to select candidates for office. In a “primary election”, registered voters from each party chose the candidates that they wanted to run in the upcoming regular election.
J. Progressive mayors and state lawmakers introduced numerous political reforms. The initiative enabled citizens to propose laws; the referendum allowed them to vote for or against laws already passed by state legislatures; a recall let them vote to remove corrupt politicians from office.
K. The 16th Amendment gave the federal government the power to collect “income taxes.” The more money a person earned, the more taxes he paid.
L. The 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of Senators by the voters of each state.
1. _____Victorious candidates used the spoils system to give government positions to friends and supporters. But many of these people lacked the qualifications necessary for doing a good job.
2. _____Candidates running for office were usually chosen by a small group of party leaders. Voters had no say in who the candidates would be.
3. _____Political leaders often lined up voters who were willing to be bought and gave them ballots on easily identifiable colored paper. Counterfeiting ballots, stuffing ballot boxes, the graveyard vote, and other illegal practices were widespread.
4. _____In New York City and other large urban areas, party bosses controlled strong political machines. Favors were done for people in return for their votes. Bribes were regularly accepted. “Boss” William Tweed of New York was the worst fo the corrupt politicians, stealing an estimated $30 million or more of the taxpayer’s money.
5. _____In spite of the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act, railroad rates remained excessively high. Railroad companies found ways to avoid paying lower rates set by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).
6. _____Workers, including women and children, were frequently on the job 12 to 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week. Wages were terribly low. Bad working conditions often caused illness and accidents.
7. _____Many big businesses became monopolies or trusts. One company, or several companies working together, gained control of an industry, such as oil. They charged high prices because there was no competition to hold prices down.
8. _____Terrible conditions existed in the food processing industry. Upton Sinclair, a muckraker, told how packing houses often kept meat on dirty floors. He found that chopped meat sometimes contained rat hairs, wood splinters, bits of rope, or pieces of spoiled meat.
9. _____Wilderness areas were being ruined. Great buffalo herds disappeared, the passenger pigeon became extinct, and other forms of wildlife were threatened. Government land and mineral resources were either sold cheaply or given away.
10. _____Taxes were usually based on the amount of property a person owned. But many wealthy people hid some of their property from the government. Consequently, they did not pay their fair share of the taxes being collected.
11. _____The two Senators that each state sent to Congress were chosen by the members of the various state legislatures.
12. _____Only male citizens 21 or older could vote. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association which campaigned for the right of women to vote.
No comments:
Post a Comment