Progressive MovementResponse to Industrial Revolution

The Gilded Age Term coined by Mark Twain

satirized an era of serious social problems disguised by a thin gold gilding

Great wealth alongside poverty and difficult living conditions

Money led to corruption and dishonesty

Political Corruption

Political Machines Ballot box stuffing Bribery Allowed groups to gain control of and influence local

governments

Tammany Ring in New York City Run by “bosses” such as Boss Tweed Exchanged jobs for support Stole money to line own pockets

Corruption at ALL levels Political corruption extended to the Washington

Ulysses S. Grant Federal officials took bribes from whiskey makers in

exchange for not paying taxes

Congress took bribes from Union Pacific Railroad

Ended the ‘spoils system’

Progressives Respond

Fought to eliminate CAUSES of problems Crime Disease Poverty Better working conditions Education Improve sanitation

Muckrakers

Thomas Nast Political Cartoonist Attacked Boss Tween

Lincoln Steffens Wrote for McClure’s Magazine “The Shame of the Cities”

Exposed corruption in many major cities in America

Upton Sinclair “The Jungle” Unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry

Successes

City planning Safer buildings and public

parks

Civil engineering Improved transportation

Sanitation engineers Pollution, waste disposal and

clean water

Education Kindergarten Medical Schools

Central Park-New York City

Voting Reform

Seventeenth Amendment – 1913

Recall ability Collect signatures of ~25% of people who voted FOR

official being “recalled” Mayors, Governors (2 all time), Senators etc.

Initiative Way to bypass legislature

Referendum Way to approve or repeal legislature

City Government Many local governments were

reformed

Commission Government Elected officials run each system

Council-Manager City is run like a business People elect a city council or

“board of directors” City Council appoints a

manager to run the city

Child labor Boys would sell newspapers and shine shoes Girls worked at home cooking, cleaning and sewing Children provided cheap labor for manufacturers In 1900 1.75 MILLION kids under 15

Textile mills Mining Factories

Reforming the workplace

Work place conditions Are you safe?

No protection against fires and machines

Physical labor was actually PHYSICAL

No Air Conditioning or heat

No air filters

Long hours = little pay

Rights of Women and Minorities Women fought for suffrage and

Temperance Suffrage means ____________ Women were getting educated 1890 Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Utah

granted suffrage to women 1919 the 19th Amendment passed

Temperance: avoidance of alcohol Many people blamed alcohol for the ills of

society Carry Nation: axe wielding prohibitionist who

smashed salons and liquor bottles in Kansas