Chapter 6

Question 1

What was the Progressive Movement?

Answer 1

A plethora of reform agendas that became popular around 1900-1920.

Question 2

How have historians seen the Progressive Movement over time?

Answer 2

A. 1940-1950s - “status revolt” thesis: Americans who thought they were losing their power in a rapidly changing America tried to preserve their socio-economic status with reform initiatives.

B. 1960-1970s - “search for order” thesis: an attempt to impose organization and promote efficiency in what seemed to be a society in flux.

C. Modern - “intervention” thesis: all
Progressives agreed that someone (or something) had to intervene in 1900-1916 America to make sense of what seemed to be a brand new social, political, and economic landscape.

Question 3

Who advanced the modern, “intervention” interpretation of the Progressive Movement?

Answer 3

John Whiteclay Chambers

Question 4

Why did the Progressive Movement begin?

Answer 4

A.It was a response to the many changes wrought by
industrialization, urbanization, and immigration

B. “Bigness” was replacing familiar and trusted “smallness.”

C. The old pillars of society—father, pastor, farmer, small shopkeeper—seemed to be losing while the robber barons, machine politicians, and amoral “men on the make” seemed to be winning.

Question 5

How much change did the Progressive Movement want?

Answer 5

They wanted to tweak and fine tune, not

revolutionize or transform.

Question 6

What was the Progressive worldview?

Answer 6

1. A strong dose of Christian presuppositions, which results in a desire to do what is morally right.
2. A faith in science and scientific methods, especially if it will promote efficiency and organization.
3. A conviction that rational, orderly, structured management (like in big corporations or other large
   organizations) is good.
4. Optimism that humans can solve their most vexing socio-economic problems, especially via
   prudent regulation, policing, and management.
5. A belief in democratic methods, especially if this meant taking political power away from “the
   interests” (e.g., big business, bankers, urban machines) and giving it back to “the people.”

Question 7

Was Progressivism compatible with a laissez faire worldview?

Answer 7

The Progressives did NOT reject laissez faire approaches or rugged individualism, but they did reject extreme don’t-budge-an-inch understandings of these concepts. Progressives thought at least some interventionism was necessary.

Question 8

List the categories of Progressive reforms.

Answer 8

1. Business regulation
2. Good government reforms
3. Social justice measures
4. Social control measures

Question 9

What was the Progressive movement like in the south?

Answer 9

Extremely weak. They mostly used the Progressive movement to disenfranchise blacks if they used it at all.

Question 10

What was the western Progressive movement like?

Answer 10

Very strong. Railroad companies were regulated, virgin forests were protected, women were given the right to vote and the political process was democratized with the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. (These political reforms may have been a strategy to entice more settlers to re-locate
to the West.)

Question 11

What characteristics did regions that embraced the Progressive movement usually have?

Answer 11

1. Urban growth
2. Industrial growth
3. Numerous immigrants
4. A sizeable and articulate middle class

Question 12

Where was the Progressive movement strongest?

Answer 12

The Northeast and the Midwest.

Question 13

How did the 1896 Presidential election crush the populist movement?

Answer 13

1. Bryan was defeated
2. Populist ideas were now carried forward by the minority Democratic Party
3. Fusion with the Democrats stripped the populists of their energy and appeal.

Question 14

Was Progressivism similar to populism?

Answer 14

Yes. Many of the Populists’ ideas were toned down and re-expressed with more restrained rhetoric by Progressives.

Question 15

What were some proto-progressive acts of legislation passed in the late 1880’s?

Answer 15

1. The Pendleton Act (which launched widespread civil service reform, hence removing many federal jobs from the spoils system)
2. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act
3. The Interstate Commerce Commission.

Question 16

What were some private sector reform projects that pre-dated the Progressive Movement?

Answer 16

1. Ida Wells’ anti-lynching campaign
2. The settlement house movement (which was led by Jane Addams)
3. Francis Willard’s temperance movement as embodied in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

Question 17

What entity triggered the Progressive movement?

Answer 17

Investigative journalist (or muck-rakers) who reported on real and alleged (but usually real) injustices in business and politics.

Question 18

What are some examples of muck-raking?

Answer 18

1. Ida Tarbell’s exposure
   of Standard Oil Company’s rapacious business practices
2. Upton Sinclair’s disclosure of life inside a Chicago meatpacking plant in The Jungle.
3. Lincoln Steffens exposed political corruption and rampant undemocratic practices
   (which often meant exposing the workings of the urban political machines) in his famous series “The Shame of the Cities.”
4. Ray Stannard Baker investigated ways that black Americans were deprived of their full citizenship rights.
5. The photojournalist Jacob Riis prowled the New York City streets and captured the horrendous living conditions there in thousands of photographs. He then published the photos in one of America’s most
   famous books: How the Other Half Lives.
6. Other famous muckrakers included Henry Demarest Lloyd and Frank Norris

Question 19

What is Progressivism with an emphasis on private intervention and a mistrust of government intervention called?

Answer 19

Voluntarism.

Question 20

What were some examples of Voluntarism?

Answer 20

1. Urban ministries of Christians.
2. The Salvation Army.
3. The YMCA.

Question 21

What was the Social Gospel movement?

Answer 21

A movement that redefined the Christian message so that it was physical (and not a spiritual) that lasted from 1880-1929.

Question 22

What did the Social Gospel movement push for?

Answer 22

Social justice, humanitarian assistance, and

attacks on economic oppression to the forefront; the call for conversion experiences disappeared

Question 23

What did the Social Gospel movement often produce?

Answer 23

An emphasis on relieving earthly suffering through faith.

Question 24

What caused the Social Gospel movement to become popular?

Answer 24

1. The Civil War sufficiently cracked people’s faith as people were unable to use the Bible to judge the slavery issue with any finality.
2. Darwinism and evolution further caused people to question whether the Genesis account was true.

Question 25

What was the orthodox response to the Social Gospel movement?

Answer 25

Fundamentalism.

Question 26

What is Reform Darwinism (or Collectivist Social Darwinism)?

Answer 26

A belief that held that humans could help the evolutionary process with well-placed interventions.

Question 27

What is pragmatism?

Answer 27

A belief championed by William James that asserted that truth is only whatever works (or yields desirable
outcomes) at that time.

Question 28

How did John Dewey use pragmatism to revolutionize public schools?

Answer 28

He convinced teachers to abandon liberal arts and instead teach practical and socially useful courses. The purpose of education became the inculcation of correct and useful attitudes, not the cultivating of an inquisitive and disciplined mind.

Question 29

What was Progressivism like in cities?

Answer 29

Reformers wanted to take down the local political machines, but these attempts were ultimately short-lived and reforms found that implementing Progressive policies in cities was very difficult.

Question 30

What was Progressivism like in states?

Answer 30

A. Purging the electorate of unqualified voters (e.g., new immigrants and blacks) and then giving the
remaining electorate more power

B. Independent regulatory commissions (which were frequently captured by the very interests they
were designed to regulate, thus becoming “businessmen’s unions”)

C. Minimal workers’ compensation laws (businessmen and industrialists supported this; they preferred
predictable and limited compensation for all on-the-job injuries to unpredictable and often
exorbitant compensation for a few especially horrendous injuries)

D. Modest gains in labor legislation (like protective labor laws for women and children)

E. Penal reform, the invention of parole boards, and the creation of juvenile courts

F. Initial public safety regulations (e.g., licensing cars and imposing speed limits)

G. Prohibition legislation (which was linked to immigration issues)

H. Anti-narcotics laws

I. Anti-prostitution laws

Question 31

What was Progressivism like on the national level?

Answer 31

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson all embraced Progressivism and their policies illustrated that.

Question 32

What are some of Theodore Roosevelt’s policy decisions while President?

Answer 32

1. Refusing to side with businesses when strikes occurred.
2. Supported the Elkins and Hepburn Acts: laws that increased regulation of railroads and other businesses.
3. Supported passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act
4. Created national parks
5. Enforced anti-trust laws to better regulate monopolies.

Question 33

What are some defining aspects of the Taft administration?

Answer 33

1. Political ineptitude
2. Increase in anti-trust regulation compared to the TR administration
3. Legislation like the 16th (federal income tax) and 17th amendment (direct election of US senators), strengthening the ICC, the passage of the Manns-Elkins act.
4. Lack of bold action.

Question 34

What are some defining aspects of the Wilson administration?

Answer 34

1. Lowering of the protective tariff
2. After initially refusing to embrace broader progressive reforms, Wilson reversed course and championed them in 1916.
3. Trust-busting (made common strategies for creating monopolies illegal)
4. Creation of the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Farm Loan Board
5. Enactment of the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act and Adamson Act
6. 18th Amendment: prohibition
7. 19th Amendment: women’s suffrage