Fourth Party System [1890s–1932] VI Flashcards
Review - Timeline: Leading the Way - The Progressive Movement, 1890-1920
1901: President William McKinley assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt assumes presidency. 1906: Meat Inspection Act passes; Pure Food and Drug Act enacted. 1910: Interracial coalition forms NAACP. 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire triggers first factory inspection laws. 1912: Roosevelt founds Progressive Party. 1913: Sixteenth Amendment authorizes federal income tax; Seventeenth Amendment subjects U.S. senators to popular vote. 1920: Eighteenth Amendment prohibits manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; Nineteenth Amendment guarantees women right to vote.
Timeline: Americans and the Great War, 1914-1919
1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo; World War I begins in Europe. 1915: German U-boat sinks RMS Lusitania. 1916: Pancho Villa’s forces attack Columbus, New Mexico. 1917: Germany sends the secret Zimmermann telegram; Woodrow Wilson delivers ‘Peace Without Victory’ speech; U.S. declares war on Germany. 1918: U.S. soldiers engage Germans in the Argonne Forest; Wilson issue his ‘Fourteen Points’. 1919: ‘Treaty of Versailles’ officially ends World War I.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported.
While initially differing from Theodore Roosevelt on the direction of Progressivism, Wilson later advocated many of his ideas. He supported measures that expanded the role of the national government in regulating the economy. He confronted what he referred to as the ‘triple wall of privilege’: the tariff, the banks, and the trusts.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported - Underwood Tariff.
The Underwood Tariff (1913) lowered the tax on imported goods from 40% to 25%. The decreased tariff was passed by Congress in an effort to lessen the power of large trusts, promote competition, and open American markets to foreign products.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported - Federal Reserve Act.
The Federal Reserve Act (1913) created a publicly controlled banking system resistant to financial panic. Twelve regional district reserve banks were created. Each bank was independent, but they were regulated by the Federal Reserve Board, who oversaw national fiscal policy. The Federal Reserve issues paper money and controls the amount of money in circulation through money reserves and interest rates. The new Federal Reserve System provided a reliable, flexible currency system with a decentralized money supply.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported - The Clayton Anti-Trust Act.
The Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) identified specific, illegal practices and business combinations that were against the law if they tended to lessen competition or create a monopoly. The act also exempted farm cooperatives and legitimate labor union activities, such as picketing, strikes, and boycotts, from anti-trust prosecution.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported - Federal Trade Commission Act.
The Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) provided regulatory oversight of big business by establishing the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and to issue cease and desist orders to stop unfair business practices.
Summarize four of the acts passed under President Wilson, as well as some of the laws he supported - Other laws and acts.
American workers also benefitted from a series of laws supported by Wilson in 1915 and 1916. These included a federal workmen’s compensation law, a federal child labor law, the Adamson eight-hour law for railroad workers, and the Seamen’s Act, which granted sailors the same rights held by other workers. Wilson also approved the Federal Farm Loan Act, which offered low-interest loans to farmers.
The four constitutional amendments were passed during Wilson’s two terms in office.
- The Sixteenth Amendment allowed Congress to collect a graduated income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment allowed voters to directly elect U.S. senators. - The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. This amendment was later repealed, or cancelled, by the Twenty-First Amendment. - And finally, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.
Remember that African Americans were still left behind during the Progressive Era.
Racism towards blacks was common throughout the country and was perpetuated by the likes of Plessy V. Ferguson and Jim Crow laws. D.W. Griffith’s movie, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915) glorified the KKK, dehumanized blacks, and led to a resurgence in KKK membership. Blacks were also excluded from direct primaries and the ‘grandfather clause’ required that citizens didn’t have to pass voting requirements if their grandfather was a voter before 1867. Many blacks moved to the North to avoid racism in the South, but still found it in the North, such as being excluded from unions. Police largely ignored hate crimes against blacks, such as lynchings.
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was a schoolteacher who led a suit against a railroad company for removing her from a train after she refused to give up her seat because she was black. When several of her friends were lynched by a white mob, she began a journalistic crusade against lynching. Wells became an editor of ‘Free Speech and Headlight’, a black newspaper in Memphis, TN. She used fiery rhetoric to demand an end to lynching, full equality and the end of white supremacy. She played a key role in the development of black women’s clubs and she helped establish the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. She became an early member of the NAACP and worked to promote women’s suffrage, or the right to vote.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington emerged as a leading spokesman for the plight of African Americans in the 1890s, up until his death in 1915. In 1895, he gave a speech at the ‘Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition’, which later became known as the ‘Atlanta Compromise’. Essentially, Washington spoke of not antagonizing race relations between blacks and whites. He wrote ‘Up from Slavery’ (1901) and it was consulted by Northern business leaders on technical and vocational training for blacks. He also visited with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House to discuss race relations. Washington believed that once blacks advanced themselves through work and rose to the middle-class professions, white Americans would naturally begin to accept the need for change and improvement in the civil and political rights for blacks. As the Progressive movement evolved, more blacks began to grow impatient with what they saw as an ‘accommodationist’ stance promoted by Washington.
W.E.B. Du Bois
Du Bois began openly challenged Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist approach. Du Bois, author of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ (1903), demanded immediate social and political equality, ending disenfranchisement, and legalized segregation. He demanded African Americans receive the same educational opportunities as whites and called for ‘ceaseless agitation’ against racism in any form. He also insisted that laws aimed at protecting African Americans be enforced. William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston Guardian, along with Du Bois, formed the ‘Niagara Movement’ in 1905, which brought leading black intellectuals together to promote and encourage black pride and demand full political and civil equality. By 1909, most of the black activists of the Niagara Movement joined the newly-formed NAACP.
Recall the NAACP as the source of many suits demanding civil rights during this time.
The NAACP successfully used the court system to begin overturning unjust laws discriminating against African Americans and would continue to be a driving force in demanding civil rights for African Americans for years to come. It was instrumental in stopping President Woodrow Wilson from segregating the federal workforce and campaigned to allow African Americans to serve as military officers during World War I. The NAACP also won early civil rights victories between 1915 and 1917 when the Supreme Court declared several state laws unconstitutional, including the grandfather clause, which excused white men from certain voting requirements that were imposed on blacks, and segregated housing laws that outlawed the sale of property to African Americans in certain residential areas.
Recognize that as early as 1848, the Women’s Movement was at work.
Many historians point to the ‘Seneca Falls Convention’ in 1848, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as the start of the women’s suffrage movement. Early feminist leaders brought attention to women’s rights by calling for improved legal status, economic opportunity, and the right to vote. Another early women’s rights leader who challenged existing social norms and inequalities between the sexes was Susan B. Anthony. Anthony and Stanton first proposed a national women’s suffrage amendment granting women the right to vote in 1878. Lucy Stone worked at the state level for many years using a state-by-state approach to achieve voting rights for women.
Describe how women’s clubs challenged traditional women’s roles.
During the Progressive Era, ‘women’s clubs’ helped expand middle-class women’s roles outside of the home, such as with education and alleviating socioeconomic problems. The ‘settlement house movement’ provided assistance to immigrant communities and led to the rise of social work. Women’s organizations supported labor laws regarding women and children. Women’s activism during the Progressive Era was a way many women began to enter public life. The idea of separate spheres for men and women was challenged as women became more involved in civic matters.
Examine the work of the NAWSA and NWP in pushing for Women’s Suffrage during the Progressive Era.
It was not until 1920 when the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and National Woman’s Party (NWP) finally secured the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. By the turn of the century, only four western states allowed women full suffrage. As with many controversial political issues, there was substantial opposition. Under Carrie Chapman Catt, the NAWSA worked steadily to gain women suffrage state by state, and slowly but surely, additional states joined the women’s suffrage ranks. Suffragists used modern publicity tactics, parades and protests in D.C., and even more militant tactics under Alice Paul and Lucy Burns.
Progressive Era (1900-1917) - Constitutional Amendments - The Nineteenth Amendment.
The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, is considered to be the most significant democratic achievement of the entire Progressive Era. President Woodrow Wilson endorsed women’s suffrage initiatives at the state level in the 1916 Presidential Democratic platform. In that same year, Jeannette Rankin from Montana was the first woman to be elected to Congress. It was not until 1918 that President Wilson finally supported the 19th Amendment, partly due to women’s contributions during World War I. The U.S. Senate adopted the 19th Amendment by a close vote on June 4, 1919. It took 14 months for the states to ratify the amendment, which happened on August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment granting nationwide women’s suffrage was nicknamed the Susan B. Anthony amendment in her honor.
Recall that the movement passed the ERA in Congress in 1972 and the fact that it stalled out in local state houses.
After the 19th Amendment was ratified, Alice Paul went on to write the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She believed that the 19th Amendment would never truly protect women’s rights and prevent discrimination based on sex. The ERA became known as the Alice Paul Amendment and was a part of the 1923 National Women’s Party platform. Other former suffrage leaders did not support the ERA because they thought its demands went too far and could potentially damage previous gains for women in terms of labor legislation. Congress eventually adopted the ERA in 1972, but the states failed to ratify it.
American Isolationism and the European Origins of War
President Wilson had no desire to embroil the United States in the bloody and lengthy war that was devastating Europe. His foreign policy, through his first term and his campaign for reelection, focused on keeping the United States out of the war and involving the country in international affairs only when there was a moral imperative to do so. After his 1916 reelection, however, the free trade associated with neutrality proved impossible to secure against the total war strategies of the belligerents, particularly Germany’s submarine warfare. Ethnic ties to Europe meant that much of the general public was more than happy to remain neutral. Wilson’s reluctance to go to war was mirrored in Congress, where fifty-six voted against the war resolution. The measure still passed, however, and the United States went to war against the wishes of many of its citizens.
The United States Prepares for War
Wilson might have entered the war unwillingly, but once it became inevitable, he quickly moved to use federal legislation and government oversight to put into place the conditions for the nation’s success. First, he sought to ensure that all logistical needs—from fighting men to raw materials for wartime production—were in place and within government reach. From legislating rail service to encouraging Americans to buy liberty loans and “bring the boys home sooner,” the government worked to make sure that the conditions for success were in place. Then came the more nuanced challenge of ensuring that a country of immigrants from both sides of the conflict fell in line as Americans, first and foremost. Aggressive propaganda campaigns, combined with a series of restrictive laws to silence dissenters, ensured that Americans would either support the war or at least stay silent. While some conscientious objectors and others spoke out, the government efforts were largely successful in silencing those who had favored neutrality.
A New Home Front (A)
The First World War remade the world for all Americans, whether they served abroad or stayed at home. For some groups, such as women and blacks, the war provided opportunities for advancement. As soldiers went to war, women and African Americans took on jobs that had previously been reserved for white men. In return for a no-strike pledge, workers gained the right to organize. Many of these shifts were temporary, however, and the end of the war came with a cultural expectation that the old social order would be reinstated.
A New Home Front (B)
Some reform efforts also proved short-lived. President Wilson’s wartime agencies managed the wartime economy effectively but closed immediately with the end of the war (although they reappeared a short while later with the New Deal). While patriotic fervor allowed Progressives to pass prohibition, the strong demand for alcohol made the law unsustainable. Women’s suffrage, however, was a Progressive movement that came to fruition in part because of the circumstances of the war, and unlike prohibition, it remained.
From War to Peace
American involvement in World War I came late. Compared to the incredible carnage endured by Europe, the United States’ battles were brief and successful, although the appalling fighting conditions and significant casualties made it feel otherwise to Americans, both at war and at home. For Wilson, victory in the fields of France was not followed by triumphs in Versailles or Washington, DC, where his vision of a new world order was summarily rejected by his allied counterparts and then by the U.S. Congress. Wilson had hoped that America’s political influence could steer the world to a place of more open and tempered international negotiations. His influence did lead to the creation of the League of Nations, but concerns at home impeded the process so completely that the United States never signed the treaty that Wilson worked so hard to create.
