CHAPTER 22:  THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

ISSUES TO UNDERSTAND

After reading the chapter, you should be able to discuss the following:
1. The changes and problems in American society and the u.s. economy that set the stage for the progressive
        movement
2. The radical movements that were growing in the United States between 1900 and 1917 and the reasons for their
        growth
3.    The nature of the progressive movement; its similarities to and differences from the earlier populist movement
4. The way the ideas of certain thinkers in the social sciences, philosophy, education, and law prepared the way for
        progressivism
5.    The role of the muckrakers in the progressive movement
6.    Who the municipal reformers were and what they accomplished
7.    Progressive reforms enacted by state governments
8.    The repressive, illiberal, and racist elements in progressivism
9.    The founding of the NAACP
10.  The accomplishments of the women's movement between 1900 and 1920
11.  Theodore Roosevelt as progressive reformer
12.  William Howard Taft and the split in the Republican party
13.  Woodrow Wilson as progressive reformer
14. The accomplishments, failures, and legacy of progressivism

VOCABULARY

The following terms are used in Chapter 22. To understand the chapter fully, it is important that you know what each of them means.
pogroms physical attacks on Russian Jews made by anti-Semitic Russian mobs, often encouraged by the tsarist government
behemoth huge and powerful institution, person, or beast
capitalism a system under which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are mostly privately owned and directed
socialism a system under which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community as a whole and administered by the government
pragmatism the philosophy that truth is not determined by fixed universal laws but by the practical test of what works (it comes from philosopher William James's 1907 book Pragmatism )
direct primary an election in which the registered members of a political party vote on who their party nominees for office should be
initiative procedure by which a specified number of voters may propose a law and compel a popular vote on its adoption
recall the right to remove a public official from office by a vote of the people taken upon petition of a specified number of the registered voters
eugenics the manipulation of reproductive processes to improve the characteristics of a plant or animal species, especially human beings
diatribe a bitter and violent denunciation
arbitration the hearing and deciding of a dispute between parties by a person or persons agreed to by the disputing parties
nostrums patent medicines
workers' compensation law a law requiring employers to take out an insurance policy on their employees so that if a worker is hurt on the job, the insurance company will pay medical and living expenses until the worker can return to work (in case of the worker's death, the payments are made to his or her dependents)
cease and desist order an order by a court or government regulatory agency to stop and refrain thereafter from actions that the agency believes are illegal (if the order is complied with, no punitive action is taken)

Chapter 22
IDENTIFICATIONS
 

After reading Chapter 22 you should be able to identify and explain the historical significance of each of the following:

Triangle Shirtwaist fire
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
William Haywood and the Industrial Workers of the World
Margaret Sanger and birth control
Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party of America
Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, and the New Republic
John Dewey
Uncoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and the muckrakers
Tom Johnson and the progressive reform mayors
constitutional amendments of the Progressive Era: sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth
Robert La Follette
Anti-Saloon League and Woman's Christian Temperance Union
Booker T. Washington in contrast to William Monroe Trotter, Ida Wells-Bamen, W. E. B. Du
Bois, and the Niagara Movement
Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, and the NAACP
Carrie Chapman Can and the National American Woman Suffrage Association
Alice Paul and the Woman's party
Florence Kelley
Theodore Roosevelt and the coal miners' strike of 1902
Northern Securities Company case
Hepburn Act
Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act
Gifford Pinchot and the conservationists
John Muir, the Sierra Club, and the preservationists
Payne-Aldrich Tariff
the Insurgents and Joseph Cannon
Ballinger-Pinchot Mfair
New Nationalism and New Freedom
Underwood-Simmons Tariff
Federal Reserve Act, Federal Reserve Board, and Federal Reserve notes
Federal Trade Commission
Clayton Antitrust Act
Louis Brandeis and Muller v. Oregon
 

Analyzing Data

Look at the tables on the elections of 1904 and 1908 in your text. Compare these with the election tables in Chapter 21. What happened to the balance of power between the two major parties between the 1880s and the early 1900s? William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic candidate in the elections of 1896, 1900, and 1908.
Using the information in Chapter 21 and the election tables for 1900 and 1908, can you tell in which year he came
closest to winning the presidency? Why do you think that was? In many of the elections between 1880 and 1920, the prohibitionists ran a presidential candidate. judging from the election tables, can you find any evidence that their appeal to the electorate was growing?
Look at the table "Children in the Labor Force, 1880-1930" in your textbook. In what
year did the problem of child labor seem to be most severe? Judging from the data in this
chart, do you think the progressive movement had any impact on child labor in the United
States? Can you offer any other explanations for the percentage differences between 1880 and 1930?

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