Reforms
* Social Reform
o Child Labor and Education
+ First Child labor laws around 1913
o Women
o Tenements
+ Dumbbell tenements so that every room had a window
o Lynching
+ Killing, beating, and harassing black people by white people, generally though not exclusively in the south
+ Lynching laws = late crime laws
What Do You Think The Progressive Era Reformers Did To Try And Change Things?
Progressive Era reformers created underground unions that wouldn't necessarily strike but would share ideas. Among the most powerful of these were the farmers unions, also called the Grange. The Grange eventually organized people to vote for the Populist Party, which at its peak had more than 50 members in the house and senate and many governors. Though the party had little success on the national level, nearly their entire platform was implemented and when the party disintegrated, the Democratic Party took many of their ideas.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act
1. The creation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was caused by the monopolistic tendencies of the largest businesses in each sector. Trusts and holding companies controlled vast majorities of transportations, oil, steel, and communications.
2. The purpose of the Sherman Anti-Trust act was to break up trusts, but it actually had the opposite affect. The Anti-Trust act was used by the corporations to break up strikes and unions, as the act was set up to "break up all organizations that sought to halt fair production".
3. The act was intended to affect the trust corporations, but it actually ended up affecting the unions.
4. It was used against the workers so that they couldn't strike against the big corporations.
5. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was intended to cause good reform, but it ended up being disastrous.
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
1. According to Plunkitt, honest graft is finding an opportunity and seizing it. If he was tipped off about something and made moves so that he could financially benefit from whatever was happening, that was honest graft.
2. The difference between honest graft and dishonest graft was simply the industry in which the graft took place in. Dishonest graft involved liquor, gambling, and generally immoral businesses. Honest graft involved all other forms of business.
3. Honest graft helped Tammany men make money and get rich because those in power would not only help themselves with the opportunities that they knew would be forthcoming, but they would also help their friends in order to keep themselves in power and continue to get elected.
4. I do not agree with Plunkitt that honest graft is really honest.
Economic Abuses
* Economic
o Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller
o Trusts
o Monopolies
o Robber Barons
o Vertical Integration
o Horizontal Integration
o Unions
o Environment
o Andrew Carnegie and Steel
* Political abuses
o Boss tweed (William Marcy Tweed)
o Tammany Hall
o George Plunkitt
o Graft
o Political Machines
* Social Abuses
o Social Darwinism
o Eugenics, Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Puritanism
o Child labor
o Women Labor
o Tenements
o Abortions
o Segregation
o Immigrants
Immigration to the United States
* 1840-1860
o Until around 1880, nearly everyone in America had immigrated from Western/Northern Europe (England, Germany, Scandinavia)
* 1880-1900
o At around 1880, a lot of Polish and Slavic Jews and Catholics began immigrating, and they were discriminated against
* 1900-1920
o Eastern and Southern Europeans who are Jewish and Catholic massively immigrate, causing rampant racism
o 15-20% jump in population due to immigration
o World War I had just happened, scared us
o Influenza had just happened
o Communists took over Russia, we worried that immigrants would bring communism over
* 1924
o National quota act, % of people we will allow into our country from now on, that % is the % of that nationality in the country from census in 1880
* 1920-1940
o Shift back in immigration due to quota drops the level of eastern european immigration
* 1960s
o European immigration was not important, South American immigration became a point of worry
* 1970s
o Big bump of immigration from Asia due to Vietnam War
o Vietnamese helped us out, would have been killed once we left, so they immigrated
* 1980s
o South Americans retake the lead in American Immigration
* Americanization: new immigrants come here, we Americanize them. They give up everything they have and become Americans.
Who had the more American idea of Liberty and Equality, Capitalists or Workers?
The definition of American Liberty is the freedom to pursue happiness, the ability to work towards and do whatever you want. The definition of American Equality is that everybody receives equal opportunities to do what they want. The capitalists of the late 1800s and early 1900s had the more American idea of equality and liberty, whereas the workers of the 1950s-1970s had the more American idea of equality and liberty.
The Philosophy of Industrialists
1. Summarize
* Laissez-faire capitalism - The idea that the government should not regulate or tax businesses beyond what is absolutely necessary for a free society, that the economy will even itself out without any outside interference.
* Social Darwinism - The idea that those who are best suited to tasks will naturally rise to fulfill them, and that the best suited in an environment will rise to the top while the worst suited will fall to the bottom. In essence, this meant that rich people were thought of as better than poor people.
* Gospel of Wealth - The idea that those who are rich should not be over-extravagant, rather they should live well but modestly. No great shows of wealth should occur, and any money that they earn beyond what allows them and those close to them to live well should be given away to those who are worse off so that they can work to make life better for themselves.
2. I believe that, to a much lesser degree, social darwinism is absolutely correct. Those who are best suited to powerful and difficult jobs - not those who are better people, just those who are better suited - will gravitate towards those jobs and will eventually reach higher levels than those who are not well suited. In America, there are jobs that take a great deal of mental capacity and previous education to be done successfully such being a doctor or a lawyer. Those who are smarter and who have received better educations will end up being better doctors than those who are not as smart or who have not had a good education.
3. I disagree with the philosophy of Laissez-faire capitalism because it is the responsibility of the government to protect all of its people. The goal of capitalism is for the owner to make as much money as possible.