Lecture: The Progressive Era - Social Justice and Labor Reform
Timeframe
- Progressive Era: 1900 to post-WWI (1920)
Focus Areas
- Social justice and labor reform
- Economic reforms previously discussed
- Emphasis on the working poor, jobless, and homeless
Leadership
- Led by educated, middle/upper-middle-class women
- Focus on alcohol prohibition
Alcohol Prohibition Movement
- Excessive alcohol consumption seen as a threat to social progress and family stability
- Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
- Christian-based, supported temperance movement
- Anti-Saloon League
- Militant actions by educated women against alcohol establishments
- 1917: Congress approved prohibition (18th Amendment)
- Prohibited manufacture, transport, sale (not consumption) of alcohol
Labor Reforms
- Child labor laws implemented at state level
- 1910: Most states had laws against child labor
- 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
- Led to fire safety and working condition laws
Progressive Income Tax
- Tax rates increase with income
- Goal: Redistribute wealth
- 1913: 16th Amendment enabled federal income tax
Health and Medicine Reforms
- Muckraking journalists exposed abuses
- Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"
- Exposed unsanitary conditions in meatpacking
- Meat Inspection Act of 1906
- Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
- Led to the establishment of the FDA
Environmental Conservation
- Theodore Roosevelt's initiatives
- Opposed unregulated logging/mining
- Establishment of National Parks, wildlife refuges
Legacy of the Progressive Era
- Increase in direct democracy
- Direct election of senators, initiative, recall
- Expansion of federal, state, and local government power
- Ended laissez-faire approach, increased government role in public welfare
Next Topic
- Origins and U.S involvement in WWI
This summary captures the key points and historical significance of the Progressive Era's social justice and labor reform efforts, along with illustrating the broader cultural and political shifts during this period.