The Gilded Age and the Progressive Movement

The Gilded Age and the Progressive Movement

Chapter 21 Section 1

1. Political Corruption

1. Political Machines

1. City and county politics in the late 1800s were influenced by organizations called Political machines.
2. Political machines were corrupt because they bribed the new immigrants into voting for them.
3. Political machines also helped to solve immigration problems by giving them housing and jobs.

1. Cleaning up Political Corruption

1. The spoils system-During the Gilded Age, American reformers called for an end to the spoils system, the practice of giving government jobs to supporters after a candidate wins an election.
2. Politicians confronted corruption in Washington during the Gilded Age by passing laws that established a new system for granting federal jobs such as the Pendleton Civil Service Act.

1. Progressives Push for Reforms

1. Progressives= reformers who worked to change political and social problems in the 1800s
2. Muckrackers at work

1. Journalist who wrote about problems in society during the Progressive age.

1. Reform Success

1. Progressive reforms improved education for medical professionals.

1. Expansion of Voting Power

1. Voting Reforms

1. Seventeenth Amendment-helped to expand voting rights by allowing voters, and not state legislatures, to elect senators.
2. Initiative-allows voters to propose new laws by using petitions.
3. Referendum-allows voters to overrule a law that government had proposed or passed.

Reforming the Workplace

Chapter 21 Section 2

1. Improving conditions for Children

1. Children at Work

1. In 1900 more than 1.75 million children age 15 and younger worked in factories, mines, and mills, earning very low wages.
2. Negative effects of industrialization

1. Child labor
2. Low wages, long hours
3. Unsafe working conditions

1. Calls for Reform

1. The work-place laws passed during the Progressive Movement eased reformers’ mind, but were not always enforced
2. Child laborcontinued even after the reforms of the early 1900s because poor families needed the income, however little it was.

1. SaferWorking Conditions

1. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

1. The fire at the factory and other accidents led to passage of laws improving factory safety.

1. Workers’ compensation laws guaranteed a portion of lost wages to workers injured on the job.
2. Labor Organizations

1. Capitalism-an economic system in which private businesses run most industries and competition determines the price of goods.

1. Union membersclaimed that capitalism was unfair because its emphasis on competition caused managers to consider profits more important than safe working conditions.

The Rights of Women and Minorities

Chapter 21 Section 3

1. Women Fight for Temperance and Voting Rights

1. The Temperance Movement

1. Eighteenth Amendment-1919 An amendment to the US Constitution that banned the manufacturing, selling, and transporting alcoholic beverages.

1. The Right to Vote (The Suffrage Movement)

1. Suffrage= the right to vote
2. Business leaders opposed granting women the right to vote because they thought women voters would support minimum wage and child labor laws.
3. Alice Paul-founded the National Woman’s Party (NWP)

1. National American Woman Suffrage Association

1. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked for women’s suffrage.
2. Helped women gain the right to vote
3. Increased educational opportunities for women.

1. Nineteenth Amendment-1919

1. An amendment to the US Constitution that granted women the right to vote.

1. African Americans Challenge Discrimination

1. African American Responses to discrimination

1. Booker T. Washington- believed equality could be achieved through vocational education; accepted social segregation.

1. Washington encouraged African Americans to improve their economic and educational opportunities rather than fight discrimination directly.

1. W.E.B. DuBois-believed in full political, civil, and social rights for African Americans

1. Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with Jane Addams.
2. NAACP brought attention to racial inequality by using the courts to fight grandfather clauses that had been used to prevent African Americans in the South from voting.

1. Ida B. Wells-Wrote newspaper articles that drew attention to the lynching of African Americans.

1. “Jim Crow Laws”

1. Passed to discriminate against African Americans
2. Made discrimination practices legal in many communities
3. Were characterized by unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government.

1. Racial segregation

1. Based upon race
2. Directed primarily towards African Americans, but other groups were kept segregated.

1. Failures of Reform

1. American Indians

1. The Society of American Indians believed that integration into white society would end Native American poverty.
2. American Indians were not considered citizens until 1924.

1. Mexican Americans

1. The main reason for rise in Mexican immigration between 1901 and 1930 was Mexicans could cross the US border with relative ease.

The Progressive Presidents

Chapter 21 Section 4

1. Roosevelt’s Progressive Reforms

1. Roosevelt’s Square Deal-His idea for balancing the interests of consumers, laborers, and businesspeople. Fair and square.
2. Conservation-protecting nature and its resources.

1. To help the conservation movement, Theodore Roosevelt gained control of nearly 150 million acres of public land, doubled the number of national parks, created 18 national monuments, and started 51 bird sanctuaries.

1. Reforms of Taft and Wilson

1. Taft Angers Progressives

1. Taft’s main criticism of President Teddy Roosevelt was he claimed more power for his presidency than the Constitution allowed.
2. Taft’s reforms angered Progressives because they did not destroy trusts completely.

1. Election of 1912

1. Looking at the election map on p. 682, what conclusion can be drawn about a state’s electoral votes?

1. It was possible for a state to split its electoral votes rather than give them all to one candidate.