What is an empire?

The dictionary says an empire is, " An extensive group of states or countries
under a single supreme authority, formerly esp. an emperor or empress". Did America want an
empire? Many of America's friends and cultural allies in Europe had them, especially Great
Britain. By 1890, England had colonies and possessions on every continent except Antarctica.
They owned or controlled approximately one third of Africa, and India, Canada and Australia
were theirs. In some respects, America wanted her so called "piece of the world pie". Some of
our motivations were proper and just and some were not. This lesson, and unit, will present to
you information about a time when America had grown enough that it wanted and desired to be
a world power!

Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History, and today we're gonna to talk about a
subject near and dear to my white male heart: Imperialism. So here at Crash Course we
occasionally try to point out that the U.S., much as we hate to admit it, is actually part of a larger
world. [Past John] Mr. Green, Mr. Green! You mean like Alaska? No, Me-From-the-Past, for
reasons that you will understand after your trip there for your senior year of college, I do not
acknowledge the existence of Canada's tail. No, I'm referring to all the green parts of not
America, and the period in the nineteenth century when we thought maybe we could make all
those green parts like America, but you know, without rights and stuff. [Intro] So the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a period of expansion and colonization in Asia
and Africa, mostly by European powers. As you'll know if you watched Crash Course World
History, imperialism has a long, long history pretty much everywhere, so this round of empire
building is sometimes called, rather confusingly, "New Imperialism." Because the U.S. acquired
territory beyond its continental boundaries in this period, it’s relatively easy to fit American
history into this world history paradigm. But there's also an argument that the United States has
always been an empire. From very early on, the European settlers who became Americans
were intent on pushing westward and conquering territory. The obvious victims of this
expansion-slash-imperialism were the Native Americans, but we can also include the Mexicans
who lost their sovereignty after 1848. And if that doesn't sound like an empire to you, allow me
to draw your attention to the Russian empire. Russians were taking control of territory in Central
Asia and Siberia and either absorbing or displacing the native people who lived there, which
was the exact same thing that we were doing. The empires of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries were different because they were colonial in their own special way. Like
Europeans and Americans would rule other places, but they wouldn't settle them and more or
less completely displace the native people there. Well, except for you Australian New Zealand.
American historians used to try to excuse America's acquisitions of a territorial empire as
something of an embarrassing mistake, but that's misleading because one of the primary
causes of the phenomenon of American Imperialism was economics; we needed places to sell
our amazing new products. And at the time, China actually had all of the customers because
apparently it was opposite day. It's also not an accident that the U.S. began pursuing
imperialism in earnest during the 1890s, as this was, in many ways, the decade of crisis in
America. The influx of immigrants and the crowded cities added to anxiety and concern over
America's future. And then, to cap it all off in 1893, a panic caused by the failure of a British
bank led the U.S. into a horrible economic depression. A great depression, but not the Great
Depression. It did however, feature 15,000 business failures and 17% unemployment, so take
that 2008! According to American diplomatic historian, George Herring, imperialism was "just
what the doctor ordered" to help America get out of its depression depression. Other historians,
notably Kristin Hoganson, imply that America embarked on imperial adventures partly so that
American men could prove to themselves how manly they were. You know, by joining the Navy
and setting sail for distant waters. In 1890, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan published The
Influence of Sea Power Upon History and argued that to be a great power, like Great Britain, the
U.S. needed to control the seas and dominate international commerce. Tied into this push to
become a maritime power was the obsession with building a canal through Central America and
eventually the U.S. decided that it should be built in Panama because, you know, how else are
we gonna get malaria? In order to protect this canal we would need a man, a plan, a canal,
Panama. Sorry, I just wanted to get the palindrome in there somewhere. No, we would actually
need much more than a man and a plan. We would need ships, and in order to have a
functioning two-ocean navy, we would need colonies. Why? Because the steamships at the time
were powered by coal, and in order to refuel, they needed coal depots. I mean, I suppose we
could have rented harbor space, but why rent when you can conquer? Also nationalism and the
accompanying pride in one's country was a worldwide phenomenon to which the U.S. was not
immune. I mean, it's no accident that the 1890s saw Americans begin to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance and celebrate Flag Day. And what better way to instill national pride than by flying
the stars and stripes over...Guam. So pre-Civil War attempts to expand beyond what we now
know as the Continental United States included our efforts to annex Canada, which were sadly
unsuccessful, and also filibustering, which before it meant a senator talking until he or she had
to stop to pee, was a thing where we tried to take over Central America to spread slavery. But
the idea of taking Cuba persisted into the late nineteenth century because it is close and also
beautiful. The Grant administration wanted to annex it and the Dominican Republic, but
Congress demurred. But we did succeed in purchasing Canada's tail. You can see how I feel
about that. To be fair, the discovery of gold in the Yukon made Seward's icebox seem like less
of a Seward's Folly, and it did provide cooling stations in the Pacific. But we could have had rum
and Caribbean beaches. Aghhh, Stan all this talk about how much I hate Alaska has me
overheated; I gotta take off my shirt. Aghhh, my life. It's so hard to take off a shirt dramatically!
I'm angry! Anyway coal stations in the Pacific were important because in 1854 we opened
Japan to American trade by sending a flotilla of threatening black ships under Matthew Perry.
No Stan, not that Matthew Perry. You know better! By far America's best piece of imperial
business before 1898 was Hawaii. Like, I like oil and gold as much as the next guy, but Hawaii
has pineapples and also sugar, which were grown on American owned plantations by Chinese,
Japanese, Filipino, and native workers. Treaties between the U.S. and Hawaiian governments
exempted the sugar from tariffs, and America had also established a naval base at Pearl
Harbor, which seemed like a really good idea...then. We eventually annexed Hawaii in 1898,
and this meant it could eventually become a state, which it did in 1959, two years before Barack
Obama was born in Kenya. And this leads us nicely to the high tide of American Imperialism:
The Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War. The war started out because native Cubans were
revolting against Spain, which was holding on to Cuba for dear life as the remnant of a once
great empire. The Cuban's fight for independence was brutal. 95,000 Cubans died from disease
and malnutrition after Spanish General Valeriano Weyler herded Cubans into concentration
camps. For this, Weyler was called "butcher" in the American "yellow press," which sold a lot of
newspapers on the backs of stories about his atrocities. And at last we come to President
William McKinley, who responded cautiously with a demand that Spain get out of Cuba or face
war. Now Spain knew that it couldn't win a war with the U.S., but as George Herring put it, "they
preferred the honor of war to the ignominy of surrender." Let that be a lesson to you: always
choose ignominy! Oh it's time for the Mystery Document? The rules here are simple. I guess the
author of the Mystery Document; I'm either right or I get shocked. Alright, let's see what we got
today. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people
have such trade and business relations; when the lives and the liberty of our own citizens are in
constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels
are liable to seizure and are seized at our very doorstep by warships of a foreign nation, the
expeditions of filibustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether - all these and others that
I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace,
and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace. Thank
you Stan. This is obviously President William McKinley's war message to Congress. You can tell
it's a war message because it includes the word "peace" more than the word "war." By the way,
it's commonly thought that President McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war; he
didn't. He let Congress take the lead. That's the only time that's ever happened in all of
American history, which would be more impressive if we had declared war more than five times.
So the document shows us, that at least according to McKinley, we officially went to war for
American peace of mind and to end economic uncertainty. It was not to gain territory; at least
not in Cuba. How do we know? Because Congress also passed the Teller Amendment, which
forswore any U.S. annexation of Cuba. Perhaps because representatives of the U.S. sugar
industry, like Colorado senator, Henry Teller, feared competition from sugar produced in an
American Cuba. Or maybe not, but probably so. Also not the cause of the war was the sinking
of the USS Maine. The battleship which had been in Havana's harbor to protect American
interest, sank after an explosion on February 15th, 1898, killing 266 sailors. Now most historians
chalk up the sinking to an internal explosion and not to Spanish sabotage. But that didn't stop
Americans from blaming the Spanish with their memorable meme: "Remember the Maine; to
Hell with Spain." Let's go to the Thought Bubble. The actual war was one of the most successful
in U.S. history, especially if you measure success by brevity and relative paucity of deaths.
Secretary of State, John Hay, called it "a splendid little war," and in many ways it was. Fighting
lasted about four months and fewer than 400 American's were killed in combat. Although 5,000
died of, wait for it, disease. Disease always ruining everything. There weren't a ton of battles,
but those that happened got an inordinate amount of press coverage; like the July attack on San
Juan Hill at the Cuban city of Santiago led by future president Theodore Roosevelt. While it was
a successful battle, the real significance is that it furthered Roosevelt's career. He returned a
hero, promptly became governor of New York, and by 1900 was McKinley's Vice President.
Which was a good job to have because McKinley would eventually be assassinated. A more
important battle was that of Manila Bay, in which Commodore George Dewey destroyed a tiny
Spanish fleet and took the Philippines. This battle took place in May of 1898, well before the
attack on Cuba, which strongly suggests that a war that was supposedly about supporting
Cuban independence was really about something else. And what was that something else? Oh,
right, a territorial empire. As a result of the war, the U.S. got a bunch of new territories; notably
the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. We also used the war as an opportunity to annex
Hawaii to protect our ships that would be steaming toward the Philippines. We didn't annex
Cuba, but we didn't let it become completely independent either. The Platt amendment in the
Cuban Constitution authorized American military intervention whenever it saw fit, and gave us a
permanent lease for a naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So Cuba and
Puerto Rico were gateways to Latin American markets. Puerto Rico was particularly useful as a
naval station. Hawaii, Guam, and especially the Philippines, opened up access to China.
American presence in China was bolstered by our contribution of about 3,000 troops to the
multinational force that helped put down the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. But in the Philippines,
where Americans had initially been welcome, opinions soon changed after it became clear that
Americans were there to stay and exercise control. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipino
rebellion against Spain, quickly turned against the U.S. because his real goal was
independence, and it appeared the U.S. would not provide it. The resulting Philippine War
lasted 4 years, from 1899 to 1903, and 4,200 Americans were killed as well as over 100,000
Filipinos. The Americans committed atrocities, including putting Filipinos in concentration
camps, torturing prisoners, rape and executing civilians. And much of this was racially motivated
and news of these atrocities helped to spur anti-imperialist sentiment at home, with Mark Twain
being one of the most outspoken critics. Now there was some investment in modernization in
the Philippines in railroads, schools, and public health, but the interests of the local people were
usually subordinated to those of the wealthy. So, American Imperialism, in short, looked like
most other imperialisms. So Constitution nerds will remember that the U.S. Constitution has no
provision for colonies, only territory that will eventually be incorporated as states. Congress
attempted to deal with this issue by passing the Foraker Act in 1900. This law declared that
Puerto Rico would be an insular territory, its inhabitants would be citizens of Puerto Rico, not
the United States, and there would be no path to statehood. But this wasn't terribly
constitutional. Congress did extend U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917. Now, it's a
Commonwealth, with its own government that has no voice in the U.S. Congress or presidential
elections and no control over its own defense or environmental policy. The Philippians were
treated similarly to Puerto Rico in a series of cases between 1901 and 1904, collectively called
the Insular Cases. But Hawaii was treated differently, because it had a sizable population of
American settlers who happened to be white. Ergo, it became a traditional territory, with a path
to statehood, because white people. And also pineapples. Now lets briefly talk about anti-
imperialism. There were lots of people who objected to imperialism on racial grounds, arguing
that it might lead to like, diversity. But there were also non-racist anti-imperialists who argued
that empire itself, with its political domination of conquered people, was incompatible with
democracy. Which to be fair, it is. The Democratic Party, which had supported intervention in
Cuba in 1900, opposed the Philippine War and its platform. Some Progressives opposed
imperialism too, because they believe that America should focus on its domestic problems. Yet,
those who supported imperialism were just as forceful. Among the most vocal was Indiana
Senator Albert Beveridge, who argued that imperialism was benevolent and would bring a new
day of freedom. But make no mistake, underneath it all, imperialism was all about trade.
According to Beveridge, America's commerce "must be with Asia. The Pacific is our
ocean...where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question.
China is out natural customer." In the end, imperialism was really driven by economic necessity.
In 1902, Brooks Adams predicted in his book The New Empire that the U.S. would soon, quote,
"outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined." Within twenty years America would
be the world's leading economic power. We didn't have the most overseas territory, but
ultimately that didn't matter. Now, the reasons for imperialism, above all the quest for markets
for American goods, would persist long after imperialism became recognized as antithetical to
freedom and democracy. And we would continue to struggle to reconcile our imperialistic urges
with our ideals about democracy until...now. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Crash
course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The
associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher,
Raoul Meyer, Rosianna Rojas, and myself. And our graphics team is Thought Cafe. Every week
there's a new caption for the Libertage. You can suggest captions in comments, where you can
also ask questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks
for watching Crash Course, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome. This is
the part where Stan gets nervous, like is he gonna go this way, or this way, this way -- I'm going
this way!
Hi, it's Mr. Ramage and this lesson is going to go over the purchase of Alaska and the annexation of
Hawaii.
This is part two of a series of lessons on American imperialism. Feel free to go back and check out
part one.
Today, we are going to look at the purchase of Alaska in the annexation of Hawaii as America
expands, its borders and boundaries and enters this age of expansionism and imperialism.
Russia had laid claim to the area that is now Alaska calling it Russian America when the Russian
American company received its charter from the Tzar to hunt for fur back in 1799. Later on in 1821
Tzar Alexander the First claimed a huge section of land moving all the way down to the North
American border, but very quickly backed off as the United States was not happy with this. They
eventually signed the Russo-American Treaty of
1824 and ended their claims just north of parallel line 54/40. So Russian fur traders explored this
area but no permanent settlement was really made until 1784 but only a few hundred Russians ever
really committed to settling the area and they were never very self-sufficient.

By the 1850s Russia was looking to offload this territory and approached the United States about
purchasing the rights. The negotiations were
cut short by the fact that the Civil War started but those negotiations continued after the war was
over as Secretary of State's, and really big
supporter of US expansionism and the idea of manifest destiny, William Seward reached out to the
Russian ambassador and started negotiations in secret for the territory.

Sewer agreed to purchase the territory from Russia for 7.2 million dollars and anticipated that the
ratification of the treaty would only take a day, but this dragged on for more than a week and a half
in the US Senate. A vocal minority in the press ridiculed the purchase calling it such things as
Johnson's Polar Bear Garden, WallRussia, and
Russian Fairyland. The term Steward's Folly which most people are familiar with, wouldn't be used
for a few years after the actual purchase.

Eventually on April 9th with a 37 to two vote in the Senate, the purchase was approved. Although
there was some drama later on as Congress,
hesitated to release the funds to pay for the purchase, but eventually that happened July of 1868 as
we paid Russia for the land and America officially took possession of the territory.

Seward's purchase of Alaska was far from folly. It gave the United States 370 million acres of new
land full of abundant natural resources, a window on Russia, spots for future military naval bases, as
well as access to the Arctic.

The next territory the US is going to take control of is the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii situated in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean was long sought after for its strategic location. First, the islands would
be an ideal refueling station for steamboats traveling from the US to ports in Asia.

Second. The US desired to establish a naval base giving them a stronger military presence in the
Pacific well as in the Southeast Asia. A base in Hawaii would also act as a first line of defense
against an attack along America's west coast.
Third Hawaii possessed natural resources not readily available in the continental US and a native
population that could perform the labor for cheap.

And fourth other nations were making moves to potentially take control of the islands, namely Japan
and England. Having two foreign powers take control of the islands of Hawaii will put the US at a
serious disadvantage.

In 1893 the Hawaiian monarchy under the leadership of Queen at Lilalulani was overthrown by small
group of American business owners calling themselves The Committee of Safety led by Sanford
Dole and with the support of 300 Marines sent by foreign minister to Hawaii , John Stevens, they
seized control of the government.

Stevens immediately recognized the new Republic of Hawaii which was established by Dole and his
supporters. In 1897, new President William McKinley negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii
in 1898. Thanks to the Spanish American War showing just how valuable having a naval base at
Pearl Harbor was the US formally annexed Hawaii on July 12, 1898 adding yet another strategic
piece of territory to the ever-growing US and its expansionist goals.

On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans.
Stephen Ives' documentary celebrates one of the world's most daring technological achievements.
The French began the canal in 1880, but were ultimately beaten by the enormity of the task and the
virulence of the endemic tropical diseases. They left behind not only a partially completed canal, but
also a mountain of debt. It was not until 1904 that America took over the project, having formally
recognized the new country of Panama. There followed ten years of ceaseless toil, costing over 350
million dollars and an estimated 5,000 lives. The story of the canal features a fascinating cast of
colorful characters, including Ferdinand De Lesseps, the French engineer who completed the Suez
Canal but was forced to admit defeat in Panama, and William Gorgas, the army doctor who
instituted a revolutionary public health campaign that virtually eradicated yellow fever. The film also
delves into the lives of the thousands of workers, rigidly segregated by race, who left their homes to
sign on for an unprecedented adventure. Using archive photographs and footage, rare interviews
with canal workers and first-hand accounts of life in the Canal Zone, this film recalls one of the
biggest construction projects in history.
It's 1850 and you're a New Yorker hearing about that sweet sweet
gold on the west coast.
You've three options: Across the country by mule, sail around Cape Horn, or a boat to Panama trek
through the jungle and hop on another the other side.
All going well, you'll be a Disneyland within two months.
But the Panama track was incredibly deadly, so using Irish and Chinese laborers the Panama
railroad was built.
Half a million people traveled it in the first ten years. It became a major artery for the US Postal
Service and was soon the
highest-priced stock on the New York exchange.
Transcontinental travel was big business.
50 miles of land was the only thing stopping the Atlantic for meeting the Pacific. And all the
trade, politics and power that came with it.
After completing the Suez Canal Ferdinand de Lesseps returned to Europe a hero. He'd brought
India
6,000 miles closer and made Africa an island.
30,000 people came out to congratulate the Frenchman, in London. His reception in Paris was one
of royalty.
His new friends included Jules Verne Victor Hugo and Gustave Eiffel. So when he announced his
next project was to cut through Central America
few people doubted him. The Americans had already done surveys of the area and were convinced
of a lock system at Nicaragua.
However de Lesseps was set on a sea-level canal at Panama.
It was the shortest route, and that's all that mattered.
But Panama had mountains, rivers, jungles, volcanic rock, a continental divide, malaria, yellow fever,
jaguars, snakes, and was still technically a region of Colombia.
Godin de Lépinay the French engineer pointed out that Suez have been easy for de Lesseps
because it was a flat desert.
Re-routing the Chagres River in Panama would be an impossible task. He suggested bridging the
land with artificial lakes and locks.
Everyone laughed.
The all respected de Lesseps had spoken. It would be at sea level. An international conference was
held to decide the final route.
Everyone but the few engineers who had actually been to Panama voted with de Lesseps. A French
company was set up,
they bought the railroad and agreed to give Colombia 5% of any revenue.
Using Caribbean and Indian workers the jungle began to be chopped back in 1881.
Annual rainfall in Panama could be three meters, soon the monumental scale of the task became
apparent.
Mudslides meant any progress would be undone after the next big storm. To stop the canal walls
from sliding in, a new slope of one to
four had to be cut. Doubling the amount of excavation. At the highest point along the canal the new
width would have to be
three-quarters of a mile
Laborers were armed with nothing but a machete and a pickaxe. The death toll was at times
40 a day. Yellow fever and malaria spread like wildfire in the swampy inhumane conditions.
Bodies of black workers will often just rolled from where they died into the dumping grounds. People
spoke of ghost ships
arriving from the Caribbean, the crew dead even before reaching Panama.
In 1889 the French company went bankrupt and work came to a halt.
800,000 investors lost their money and
23,000 people their lives
The canal sat untouched until Theodore Roosevelt was elected a decade later.
He was convinced the US Navy needed quick access to the Pacific Ocean and a canal would be the
only way.
So the Panama versus Nicaragua debate resurfaced, Panama winning again. Though ever hadn't
been for the French attempt
It's likely the canal today would be at Nicaragua.
But a lot of the work was already started and the young ambitious
America couldn't resist in succeeding where the mighty French Empire had failed. The slight problem
was that Panama was a region of and owned by Colombia.
But the US refused to sign any treaty where they didn't have complete sovereignty over the Canal
Zone, and Colombia weren't willing to give that up.
In 1903 Colombia was in political unrest so the US turned to Panama directly...
And Panama signed a treaty giving America total control over the canal once they became
independent.
A lot of people weren't happy with the US intervention at Panama, so Roosevelt asked Attorney
General Knox to form a legal defense.
In 1904 work began.
The US plan by Joseph Ripley and Alfred Noble would be an adaptation of de Lépinay's from 25
years earlier. A series of locks on either ocean
to raise ships 26 metres above sea level. And then dam the Chagres river to flood huge areas of
central Panama.
164 square miles of jungle, town and railroad would be lost underwater.
Creating Gattun lake. The Chagres River, so
difficult and obstacle for a sea-level passage, would become the lifeline of the lock canal - feeding it
with a constant water supply.
Yet the engineering required would still be immense.
The Culebra mountains must still be cut through. Gatun dam would have to be one of the largest in
the world. As would the locks themselves.
Roosevelt himself visited in 1906 becoming the first president to leave the country while in office.
Not resigned to pickaxe and shovel the Americans brought dynamite with them. The project became
not one of digging but of Earth removal.
And this meant miles and miles of continuously moving railroads.
Health care, accommodation and food were all provided for. Government run hotels and shops were
making a steady profit, while
subsidizing the expenses of Canal workers. Papers back home warned of the political threat these
people would be when they returned.
Americans who had thrived into socialism.
But if you'd gone to Panama looking for a socialist utopia. You'd have been disappointed.
There was no shared ownership or democracy in action.
And you'd better have been white. Because segregation still existed in all walks of life. An estimated
200,000 people migrated from the Caribbean, making up the vast majority of the workforce.
Black workers were given appalling food and accommodation, if any at all.
Single men often lived in converted boxcars along the canal line, and families were forced to fend for
themselves in Colon, Panama City or the jungle.
Despite all the medical and safety
advancements made a black worker was four times more likely to die than a white worker. Being
struck by falling rock caught in machinery or
blown apart by dynamite.
33 years, 180 million cubic meters of earth, a new country and
27,000 lives later. The canal was finished. It's completion book marked the end of a global era, on
August the 3rd
1914, the Cristobal made the first ocean to ocean crossing.
But there was no fanfare or celebration in Panama. As night fell that same day, half a (now slightly
smaller) world away
Germany declared war on France.
Trade, politics, and power would never be the same again.
In the coming years it became a lifeline of global travel. 5% of all world trade passes through the
canal. It's political and financial
importance became hard to overestimate.
Tensions between the US and Panama continued to rise.
Panamanians believed that control of the canal was rightfully theirs. After the US pressured the UK
and France to give up their claim to Suez,
many in Panama saw this as hypocritical. There were riots and deaths throughout the sixties,
building international pressure on the US.
In 1977 Jimmy Carter signed a treaty granting Panama future ownership and control of the canal, as
long as it remained in neutral waterway.
Carter: "Your own strong feelings about the Panama Canal Treaty of 1903."
"Drafted in a world so different from ours today."
"Has become an obstacle to better relations with Latin America."
After a quick US invasion in '89 to overthrow general Noriega. The Panama Canal
officially became the property of Panama, on the last day of the 20th century.
But by then it had started to become more economical to build ships larger than the canal and start
sailing around Cape Horn again.
In 2007 Panama began expansion of their canal, two new sets of locks were built parallel to the old
ones, increasing the maximum size and capacity.
The expansion itself was a massive project, taking almost as long as the Americans did.
So the issue of who built the canal is complicated.
It was the US that built the railroads with Irish and Chinese workers. The French excavated 50
million cubic meters of rock with Indians and Jamaicans. The US
finished the project using Caribbean and Central American workers. Yet most of the canal
[infrastructure] you actually see today was built by Panamanians.
Yet it would be remembered as the achievement of a single president, while actually
completed under several others, all while standing on the shoulders of other nations.
Human progress requires scale and ambition that exceeds generations.
Not just terms of office. This canal and later projects were built by many people and nations working
together across continents.
And sometimes centuries.
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On the evening of February 15, 1898, a massive explosion tore through the battleship U.S.S. Maine
in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The explosion sank the vessel, killed over 260 sailors and shocked the
American public. Days later, William Randolph Heart’s newspaper, The New York Journal, ran a
sensational headline. But how did Hearst know Spain was to blame? Well, he didn’t. Unverified
sensationalism was Hearst’s stock-in-trade. This was “yellow journalism,” born out of the New York
newspaper circulation wars of the 1890s. By the mid-1890s, the Spanish empire had lost nearly all of
its colonial possessions in the Western Hemisphere besides Puerto Rico and Cuba. With the
Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the U.S. had declared European assertions of power in the Americas as
"dangerous to our peace and safety." In 1895, Cuban revolutionaries rose up against Spanish rule.
[Andie Tucher, Historian:] The United States is also beginning to feel that here is a people who have
been colonized by a brutal imperial power. It feels so resonant to their own experience, to the United
States' own experience, its own birth. [David Nasaw, Author: The Chief:] Hearst sees a developing
story in Cuba, where the bad guys are the Spanish, the damsel in distress is the Cuban people and
the hero is going to be William Randolph Hearst and the American government that’s going to
rescue these poor Cubans. In 1895, the same year as the Cuban rebellion, Joseph Pulitzer’s New
York World began publishing a satirical cartoon about New York’s slums, called "Hogan’s Alley." The
bright, colorful cartoon featured a memorable character, “Yellow Kid,” outfitted in an oversized,
yellow nightshirt. [Mitchell Stephens, Professor NYU:] The audience for newspapers was expanding
as the cities were expanding. A lot of these people were immigrants. A lot of these people didn't read
English all that well or speak English all that well. In 1896, in an effort to spur sales of his New York
Journal, Hearst hired the Hogan’s Alley cartoonist away from Pulitzer and continued a fierce war for
talent between the two publishers. [Stephens:] This is before radio and certainly before television,
before films were really catching on. Comics brought color to these printed forms of entertainment
that were arriving in people's homes. Critics began calling the publishers’ methods “yellow-kid
journalism,” or “yellow journalism” for short. Yellow journalism gave rise to a new form of
newspapering. [Tucher:] It usually meant lots of sensation, lots of screaming headlines and
enormous type, lots of illustrations, drawings, cartoons, lots of pages of cartoons. [Stephens:] It was
wild, loud, brash, that it was jingoistic. These were years where newspapers in New York City start
to accumulate circulations that reached a million. This is a new mass audience And the approach
worked. Flashy presentation and sensationalized reporting increased circulation for both publishers.
As the Cuban rebellion swelled, the intensity of yellow journalism was increasing. [Stephens:] And
with yellow journalism and competition between Pulitzer and Hearst came large headlines, big
illustrations, more photographs in newspapers. Some Americans called for the Spanish to withdraw
from the island and even sent material support to the Cuban revolutionaries. [Tucher:] The Spanish
have been ruling Cuba with enormous brutality for quite some time. Cuba is very close, Cuba is 90
miles off of Florida. There are a lot of interests at stake here. There are economic interests. There's
agricultural interest. Cuba provides crops that are important for the United States. With tensions
between the U.S. and Spain mounting, the American Navy ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Havana
harbor in January 1898. By February, yellow journalism was peaking and tensions with Spain were
at a boiling point. Then, the explosion. [Nasaw:] Hearst immediately publishes on his front pages a
variety of stories going after the Spanish, all made up. [Stephens:] His reporting was sensational. It
was exaggerated. It was, in many cases, distorted. One Hearst headline even offered a $50,000
reward for information leading to who caused the explosion. Pulitzer’s New York World also
published similar sensational coverage. [Stephens:] And it was effective in helping drive the United
States to war with Spain over Cuba. On April 25, the U.S. declared war on Spain. Yellow Journalism
helped foster a political climate that was conducive to war. [Tucher:] Hearst's competition with
Pulitzer became the defining moment of journalism in the late 19th century. It really just went
beyond. Neither one could step back. Neither one could control it. It came to its head with the
Spanish-American war. The two countries fought the Spanish-American war for eight months, in
Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. By the time Spain and America signed the peace treaty on
December 10, 1898, over 3,000 Americans and an estimated 55,000 Spaniards had died. In 1976,
American naval investigators concluded that the Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that
ignited its ammunition stocks.

American Imperialism - Part 1

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Key Takeaways
American Imperialism

● The late nineteenth century was known as the "Age of Imperialism," a time when the United
States and other major world powers rapidly expanded their territorial possessions.
● American imperialism is partly based on American exceptionalism, the idea that the United
States is different from other countries because of its specific world mission to spread liberty
and democracy.
● One of the most notable instances of American imperialism was the annexation of Hawaii in
1898, which allowed the United States to gain possession and control of all ports, buildings,
harbors, military equipment, and public property that had belonged to the Government of the
Hawaiian Islands.
● Some groups, such as the American Anti-Imperialist League, opposed imperialism on the
grounds that it conflicted with the American ideal of Republicans and the "consent of the
governed."

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.
Expansion and Power

"American imperialism" is a term that refers to the economic, military, and cultural influence of the

United States on other countries. First popularized during the presidency of James K. Polk, the

concept of an "American Empire" was made a reality throughout the latter half of the 1800s. During

this time, industrialization caused American businessmen to seek new international markets in which

to sell their goods. In addition, the increasing influence of social Darwinism led to the belief that the

United States was inherently responsible for bringing concepts such as industry, democracy, and

Christianity to less developed "savage" societies. The combination of these attitudes and other

factors led the United States toward imperialism.

American imperialism is partly rooted in American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States is

different from other countries due to its specific world mission to spread liberty and democracy. This

theory often is traced back to the words of 1800s French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who

concluded that the United States was a unique nation, "proceeding along a path to which no limit can

be perceived."

Pinpointing the actual beginning of American imperialism is difficult. Some historians suggest that it

began with the writing of the Constitution; historian Donald W. Meinig argues that the imperial

behavior of the United States dates back to at least the Louisiana Purchase. He describes this event

as an, "aggressive encroachment of one people upon the territory of another, resulting in the

subjugation of that people to alien rule." Here, he is referring to the U.S. policies toward Native

Americans, which he said were, "designed to remold them into a people more appropriately

conformed to imperial desires."

Whatever its origins, American imperialism experienced its pinnacle from the late 1800s through the

years following World War II. During this "Age of Imperialism," the United States exerted political,
social, and economic control over countries such as the Philippines, Cuba, Germany, Austria, Korea,

and Japan. One of the most notable examples of American imperialism in this age was the

annexation of Hawaii in 1898, which allowed the United States to gain possession and control of all

ports, buildings, harbors, military equipment, and public property that had formally belonged to the

Government of the Hawaiian Islands. On January 17, 1893, the last monarch of the Kingdom of

Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani, was deposed in a coup d'état led largely by American citizens who were

opposed to Liliuokalani's attempt to establish a new Constitution. This action eventually resulted in

Hawaii's becoming America's 50th state in 1959.

Opposition to Imperialism

The American Anti-Imperialist League was an organization established in the United States on June

15, 1898, to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area. The League also

argued that the Spanish-American War was a war of imperialism camouflaged as a war of liberation.

The anti-imperialists opposed the expansion because they believed imperialism violated the credo of

republicanism, especially the need for "consent of the governed." They did not oppose expansion on

commercial, constitutional, religious, or humanitarian grounds; rather, they believed that the

annexation and administration of third-world tropical areas would mean the abandonment of

American ideals of self-government and isolation—ideals expressed in the U.S. Declaration of

Independence, George Washington's Farewell Address, and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg

Address. The Anti-Imperialist League represented an older generation and was rooted in an earlier

era; they were defeated in terms of public opinion, the 1900 election, and the actions of Congress

and the president because most younger Progressives who were just coming to power supported

imperialism.

Key Takeaways
The Spanish-American War
 ● The Spanish-American War was the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban
War of Independence with Spain.
● The war served to further repair relations between the American North and South. The war
gave both sides a common enemy for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1865,
and many friendships were formed between soldiers of Northern and Southern states during
their tours of duty.
● The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since then, the United States has had a
significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and has entered into many treaties and
agreements.
● The defeat of Spain marked the end of the Spanish Empire.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
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Overview

The Spanish-American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States. It was the

result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence. American attacks on

Spain's Pacific possessions led to U.S. involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately to the

Philippine-American War.

Background

Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by

Americans. With the abolition of slavery in 1886, former slaves joined the ranks of farmers and the

urban working class, many wealthy Cubans lost their property, and the number of sugar mills

declined. Only companies and the most powerful plantation owners remained in business, and

during this period, U.S. financial capital began flowing into the country. Although it remained Spanish

territory politically, Cuba started to depend on the United States economically. Coincidentally,

around the same time, Cuba saw the rise of labor movements.

Following his second deportation to Spain in 1878, revolutionary José Martí moved to the United

States in 1881. There he mobilized the support of the Cuban exile community, especially in southern
Florida. He aimed for a revolution and independence from Spain, but also lobbied against the U.S.

annexation of Cuba, which some American and Cuban politicians desired.

By 1897–1898, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After

the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from

the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war

he had wished to avoid. Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an

ultimatum to Spain that demanded it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish

rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.

The War

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the 10-week war was fought in both the

Caribbean and the Pacific. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary

forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already reeling from nationwide insurgent

attacks and wasted by yellow fever.

The Spanish-American War was swift and decisive. During the war's three-month duration, not a

single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the declaration of war,

Commodore George Dewey of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron (then based at Hong Kong)

steamed his fleet to the Philippines. Dewey caught the entire Spanish armada at anchor in Manila

Bay and destroyed it without losing an American life.

Cuban, Philippine, and American forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila as

a result of their numerical superiority in most of the battles and despite the good performance of

some Spanish infantry units and spirited defenses in places such as San Juan Hill. Madrid sued for

peace after two obsolete Spanish squadrons were sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay. A third

more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.
The Treaty of Paris

The result of the war was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United

States. It allowed temporary American control of Cuba and indefinite colonial authority over Puerto

Rico, Guam, and the Philippines following their purchase from Spain. The defeat and collapse of the

Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche, and provoked a movement of

thoroughgoing philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the "Generation of

'98." The victor gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which caused a rancorous

new debate over the wisdom of expansionism.

Legacy of the War

The war marked American entry into world affairs. Before the Spanish-American War, the United

States was characterized by isolationism, an approach to foreign policy that asserts that a nation's

interests are best served by keeping the affairs of other countries at a distance. Since the Spanish-

American War, the United States has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world,

and has entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the

United States entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth and

technological innovation that lasted through the 1920s. The war redefined national identity, served

as a solution of sorts to the social divisions plaguing the American mind, and provided a model for all

future news reporting.

The war also effectively ended the Spanish Empire. Spain had been declining as an imperial power

since the early nineteenth century as a result of Napoleon's invasion. The loss of Cuba caused a

national trauma because of the affinity of peninsular Spaniards with Cuba, which was seen as

another province of Spain rather than as a colony. Spain retained only a handful of overseas
holdings: Spanish West Africa, Spanish Guinea, Spanish Sahara, Spanish Morocco, and the Canary

Islands.

Key Takeaways
Markets and Missionaries

● The Social Gospel was the religious wing of the Progressive movement, which aimed to
combat injustice, suffering, and poverty in society.
● The American Missionary Association established schools and colleges for African
Americans in the post-Civil War period.
● The Social Gospel movement was not a unified and well-focused movement, as there were
disagreements among members.

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each one by clicking the + sign and title.

The Social Gospel Movement

The Social Gospel was a Protestant movement that was most prominent in the early twentieth-

century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems,

especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial

tensions, slums, unclean environments, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the

danger of war.

In the United States, prior to World War I, the Social Gospel was the religious wing of the

Progressive movement, which aimed to combat injustice, suffering, and poverty in society. Denver,

Colorado, was a center of Social Gospel activism. Thomas Uzzell led the Methodist People's

Tabernacle from 1885 to 1910. He established a free dispensary for medical emergencies, an

employment bureau for job seekers, a summer camp for children, night schools for extended

learning, and English language classes. Myron Reed of the First Congregational Church became a

spokesman for labor unions on issues such as worker's compensation. His middle-class
congregation encouraged Reed to move on when he became a Socialist, and he organized a

nondenominational church. Baptist minister Jim Goodhart set up an employment bureau, and

provided food and lodging for tramps and hobos at the mission he ran. He became city chaplain and

director of public welfare of Denver in 1918. In addition to these Protestants, Reform Jews, and

Catholics helped build Denver's social welfare system in the early twentieth century.

Walter Rauschenbusch and Dwight Moody

One of the defining theologians for the Social Gospel movement was Walter Rauschenbusch, a

Baptist pastor of a congregation located in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. Rauschenbusch railed

against what he regarded as the selfishness of capitalism and promoted a form of Christian

Socialism that supported the creation of labor unions and cooperative economics.

While pastors such as Rauschenbusch were combining their expertise in Biblical ethics and

economic studies and research to preach theological claims around the need for social reform,

others such as Dwight Moody refused to preach about social issues based on personal experience.

Pastor Moody’s experience led him to believe that the poor were too particular in receiving charity.

Moody claimed that concentrating on social aid distracted people from the life-saving message of the

Gospel.

Rauschenbusch sought to address the problems of the city with Socialist ideas that proved to be

frightening to the middle classes, the primary supporters of the Social Gospel. In contrast, Moody

attempted to save people from the city and was very effective in influencing middle-class Americans

who were moving into the city with traditional-style revivals.

The American Missionary Association

The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on

September 3, 1846, in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish

slavery, educate African Americans, advocate for racial equality, and promote Christian values. Its

members and leaders were both black and white and chiefly affiliated with Congregationalist,

Methodist, and Presbyterian churches.

The AMA started The American Missionary magazine, which was published from 1846 through

1934. Among its efforts was the founding of antislavery churches. For instance, the abolitionist Owen

Lovejoy was among the Congregational ministers of the AMA who helped plant 115 antislavery

churches in Illinois before the American Civil War, aided by the strong westward migration of

individuals from the East. While the AMA became notable in the United States for its work in

opposition to slavery and in support of education for freedmen, it also worked in missions in

numerous nations overseas. The nineteenth-century missionary effort was strong in China and east

Asia.

Legacy

While the Social Gospel was short-lived historically, it had a lasting impact on the policies of most of

the mainline denominations in the United States. Most began programs for social reform, which led

to ecumenical cooperation in 1910 during the formation of the Federal Council of Churches

(although cooperation regarding social issues often led to charges of Socialism). It is likely that the

Social Gospel's strong sense of leadership by the people led to women's suffrage, and that the

emphasis it placed on morality led to prohibition. Biographer Randall Woods argues that Social

Gospel themes learned from childhood allowed Lyndon B. Johnson to transform social problems into

moral problems. This helps explain his longtime commitment to social justice, as exemplified by the

Great Society, and his commitment to racial equality. The Social Gospel explicitly inspired his

foreign-policy approach of a sort of Christian internationalism and nation-building.

American Imperialism - Part 2
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Key Takeaways
The Open Door Policy

● The Open Door Policy was established in 1899 and stated that all European nations and the
United States could trade with China with equal standing.
● The Monroe Doctrine stated that efforts by European nations to colonize or interfere with
states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression toward the United
States and that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor
meddle in internal European affairs.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

The "Open Door Policy" refers to a U.S. doctrine established in the late nineteenth century and the

early twentieth century, as expressed in Secretary of State John Hay's "Open Door Note," dated

September 6, 1899, and dispatched to the major European powers. The policy proposed to keep

China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, keeping any one power from total control of

the country, and calling upon all powers, within their spheres of influence, to refrain from interfering

with any treaty port or any vested interest, to permit Chinese authorities to collect tariffs on an equal

basis, and to show no favors to their own nationals in the matter of harbor dues or railroad charges.
The Open Door policy was rooted in the desire of U.S. businesses to trade with Chinese markets,

though the policy's pledging to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity from partition also

tapped the deep-seated sympathies of those who opposed imperialism. In practice, the policy had

little legal standing; it was mainly used to mediate competing interests of the colonial powers without

much meaningful input from the Chinese, which created lingering resentment and caused it to be

seen later as a symbol of national humiliation by many Chinese historians.

Formation of the Policy

During the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China faced an imminent threat of being partitioned

and colonized by imperialist powers such as Britain, France, Russia, Japan, and Germany. After

winning the Spanish-American War of 1898, and with the newly acquired territory of the Philippine

Islands, the United States increased its Asian presence and was expecting to further its commercial

and political interest in China. The United States felt threatened by other powers' much larger

spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the

country be partitioned.

As a response, William Woodville Rockhill formulated the Open Door Policy to safeguard American

business opportunities and other interests in China. On September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State

John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia),

asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity

and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China.

The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access

to the Chinese market.

In reply, each country tried to evade Hay's request, taking the position that it could not commit itself

until the other nations had complied. However, by July 1900, Hay announced that each of the
powers had granted consent in principle. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to the Open Door

Policy, competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad

rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated.

The Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the Americas in 1823. It

stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or

South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time,

the doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor

meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued in 1823 at a time

when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved, or were at the point of

gaining, independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires.

President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh-annual State of the Union

Address to Congress. The term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was coined in 1850. By the end of the

nineteenth century, Monroe's declaration was seen as a defining moment in the foreign policy of the

United States and one of its longest-standing tenets. It would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen

and several U.S. presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy,

Ronald Reagan, and many others.

The intent and impact of the Monroe Doctrine persisted with only minor variations for more than a

century. Its stated objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from

European intervention and avoid situations that could make the New World a battleground for the

Old World powers, so that the United States could exert its own influence undisturbed. The doctrine

asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of

influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations.
Inherent in the Monroe Doctrine are the themes of American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny,

two ideas that refer to the right of the United States to exert its influence over the rest of the world.

Under these conditions, the Monroe Doctrine was used to justify American intervention abroad

multiple times throughout the nineteenth century, most notably in the Spanish-American War and

with the annexation of Hawaii.

Key Takeaways
The Philippine-American War

● The Philippine-American War was part of a series of conflicts in the Philippine struggle for
independence, preceded by the Philippine Revolution (1896) and the Spanish-American
War.
● The conflict arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence
following annexation by the United States.
● The war and U.S. occupation changed the cultural landscape of the islands. Examples of this
include the disestablishment of the Catholic Church as the Philippine state religion and the
introduction of the English language as the primary language of government and business.
● The United States officially took control of the Philippines in 1902. In 1916, the United States
promised some self-government, a limited form of which was established in 1935. In 1946,
following World War II, the United States gave the territory independence through the Treaty
of Manila.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

The Philippine-American War, also known as the "Philippine War of Independence" or the "Philippine

Insurrection" (1899–1902), was an armed conflict between the United States and Filipino

revolutionaries. The conflict arose after the Philippine Revolution of 1896, from the First Philippine

Republic's struggle to gain independence following annexation by the United States.

The conflict arose when the First Philippine Republic objected to the terms of the Treaty of Paris,

under which the United States took possession of the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-

American War.

Fighting erupted between U.S. and Filipino revolutionary forces on February 4, 1899, and quickly

escalated into the 1899 Battle of Manila. On June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic officially

declared war against the United States. The war officially ended on July 2, 1902, with a victory for

the United States. However, some Philippine groups led by veterans of the Katipunan continued to

battle the American forces. Among those leaders was General Macario Sakay, a veteran Katipunan

member who assumed the presidency of the proclaimed "Tagalog Republic," formed in 1902 after

the capture of President Emilio Aguinaldo. Other groups, including the Moro people and Pulahanes

people, continued hostilities in remote areas and islands until their final defeat a decade later at the

Battle of Bud Bagsak on June 15, 1913.

Impact and Legacy

The war with and occupation by the United States would change the cultural landscape of the

islands. The war resulted in an estimated 34,000 to 220,000 Philippine casualties (with more

civilians dying from disease and hunger brought about by war); the disestablishment of the Roman

Catholic Church as the state religion; and the introduction of the English language in the islands as

the primary language of government, education, business, and industry, and increasingly in future

decades, of families and educated individuals.

Under the 1902 "Philippine Organic Act," passed by the U.S. Congress, Filipinos initially were given

very limited self-government, including the right to vote for some elected officials such as a

Philippine Assembly. But it was not until 14 years later, with the passage of the 1916 Philippine

Autonomy Act (or "Jones Act"), that the United States officially promised eventual independence,
along with more Philippine control in the meantime over the Philippines. The 1934 Philippine

Independence Act created in the following year the Commonwealth of the Philippines, a limited form

of independence, and established a process ending in Philippine independence (originally scheduled

for 1944, but interrupted and delayed by World War II). Finally in 1946, following World War II and

the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the United States granted independence through the

Treaty of Manila.

American Opposition

Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ernest Crosby,

and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of

the Philippines. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had become a colonial

power by replacing Spain as the colonial power in the Philippines. Other anti-imperialists opposed

annexation on racist grounds. Among these was Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who

feared that annexation of the Philippines would lead to an influx of nonwhite immigrants into the

United States. As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United

States, support for the war flagged.

Key Takeaways
The Banana Wars

● The Banana Wars were a series of conflicts and military interventions in Latin America and
the Caribbean caused or influenced by the United States to protect its commercial interests.
Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic were all venues
of conflicts.
● The United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company had significant commercial
stakes and influence in Latin America and were behind many of the conflicts.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
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Background

The Banana Wars, also known as the "American-Caribbean Wars," were a series of occupations,

police actions, and interventions involving the United States in Central America and the Caribbean.

This period of conflict started with the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the subsequent Treaty of

Paris, which gave the United States control of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Thereafter, the United States

conducted military interventions in Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the

Dominican Republic. The series of conflicts ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti in 1934

under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Reasons for these conflicts were varied but were largely

economic in nature. The conflict was called the "Banana Wars" because of the connections between

U.S. interventions and the preservation of American commercial interests in the region.

Most prominently, the United Fruit Company had significant financial stakes in the production of

bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other products throughout the Caribbean, Central

America, and northern South America. The United States also was advancing its political interests,

maintaining a sphere of influence and controlling the Panama Canal, which it had recently built and

which was critically important to global trade and naval power.

Panama and the Canal

In 1882, Ferdinand de Lesseps started work on a canal, but by 1889, the effort had experienced

engineering challenges caused by frequent landslides, slippage of equipment, and mud, and

resulted in bankruptcy. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt convinced Congress to take on the

abandoned works in 1902, while Colombia was in the midst of the Thousand Days' War. During the

war, Panamanian Liberals made at least three attempts to seize control of Panama and potentially

achieve full autonomy. Liberal guerrillas such as Belisario Porras and Victoriano Lorenzo were

suppressed by a collaboration between conservative Colombian and U.S. forces under the
Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty. The Roosevelt administration proposed to Colombia that the United States

should control the canal, but by mid-1903, the Colombian government refused. The United States

then changed tactics.

Less than three weeks later, on November 18, 1903, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed

between Frenchman Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, who had promptly been appointed Panamanian

ambassador to the United States (representing Panamanian interests), and the U.S. Secretary of

State John Hay. The treaty allowed for the construction of a canal and U.S. sovereignty over a strip

of land 10-miles wide and 50-miles long on either side of the Panama Canal Zone. In that zone, the

United States would build a canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it "in perpetuity."

Honduras and American Fruit Companies

Honduras, where the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company dominated the country's

key banana export sector and associated land holdings and railways, saw the insertion of American

troops in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925. The writer O. Henry coined the term

"banana republic" in 1904 to describe Honduras.

The first decades of Honduras's history were marked by instability in terms of politics and economy.

Indeed, the political context gave way to 210 armed conflicts between independence and the rise to

power of the Carias government. This instability was due in part to American involvement in the

country.

The first company that concluded an agreement with the Honduras government was the Vaccaro

Brothers Company (Standard Fruit Company). The Cuyamel Fruit Company then followed that lead.

The United Fruit Company also agreed to a contract with the government, which was attained

through its subsidies (the Tela Rail Road Company and Truxillo Rail Road Company).
Different avenues led to the signature of a contract between the Honduras government and the

American companies. The most popular avenue was to obtain a grab on a piece of land in exchange

for the completion of railroads in Honduras; this explains why a railroad company conducted the

agreement between the United Fruit Company and Honduras. The ultimate goal in the acquisition of

a contract was to control the bananas, from production to distribution. Therefore, the American

companies would finance guerrilla fighters, presidential campaigns, and governments.

Mexico

The U.S. military involvements with Mexico in this period are related to the same general commercial

and political causes, but stand as a special case. The Americans conducted the Border War with

Mexico from 1910 to 1919 for additional reasons: to control the flow of immigrants and refugees from

revolutionary Mexico (pacificos), and to counter rebel raids into U.S. territory. The 1914 U.S.

occupation of Veracruz, however, was an exercise of armed influence, not an issue of border

integrity; it was aimed at cutting off the supplies of German munitions to the government of Mexican

leader Victoriano Huerta, whom U.S. President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize. In the years

prior to World War I, the United States also was sensitive to the regional balance of power against

Germany. The Germans were actively arming and advising the Mexicans, as demonstrated by the

1914 SS Ypiranga arms-shipping incident, the establishment of German saboteur Lothar Witzke's

base in Mexico City, the 1917 Zimmermann Telegram, and the presence of German advisors during

the 1918 Battle of Ambos Nogales. Only twice during the Mexican Revolution did the U.S. military

occupy Mexico: during the temporary occupation of Veracruz in 1914 and between the years 1916

and 1917, when U.S. General John Pershing and his army came to Mexico to lead a nationwide

search for Pancho Villa.

Other Countries
Other Latin American nations were influenced or dominated by American economic policies and/or

commercial interests to the point of coercion. Theodore Roosevelt declared the Roosevelt Corollary

to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, asserting the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the

economic affairs of states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their

international debts. From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State

Philander C. Knox asserted a more "peaceful and economic" Dollar Diplomacy foreign policy,

although that, too, was backed by force. The U.S. Marine Corps most often carried out these military

interventions. The Marines were called in so often that they developed a Small Wars Manual, The

Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars, in 1921. On occasion, U.S. Naval gunfire and U.S. Army troops

were also used.

Down in Cuba, the people were

Oppressed by Spain and the General Weyler
And the U.S., they saw this mess
As a chance to expand and spread business

Hearst and Pulitzer spread war fever with Yellow Journalism

Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain, we want war

Though there’s no evidence to pin blame on Spain for
The explosion, the public is still in uproar
Calling for
The Spanish-American War
Dewey beats Spain at Manilla Bay
Once again a Spanish Armada is filleted
Because wooden ships are no match for our navy
The crowd roars
It’s a splendid little war
Oh, oh
Spanish-American War

You want a thrill, take San Juan Hill

After Buffalo Soldiers, get credit still
The war was quick, and Spain got licked
Less of our troops died fighting than getting sick

Cuba, Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico

Are ours now what could go wrong
We don’t keep Cuba ‘cause of the Teller Amendment
But can intervene for peace without their consent
And have Guantanamo Bay for imprisonment
All because
The Spanish-American War
No self-rule goes to Puerto Rico
A territory, they get citizenship though
They have a limited voice ‘cause they cannot vote
There’s still more
The Spanish-American War

Remember the Maine, and to Hell with Spain

Remember the Maine
Remember the Maine, and to Hell with Spain
Remember the Maine

The Philippines fought, wanting their independence

Guerilla war waged between them and the US
4,000 American troops died, that is ten
Times more than
The Spanish-American War
We kept them and Guam so we’d gain access
To China’s markets, Europe’s spheres of influence
Better open the door, our empire’s commenced
The crowd roars
It’s a splendid little war
Oh, oh
It’s a splendid little war
Oh, oh
Spanish-American War
In the crystal-blue waters of the Pacific lies an archipelago of over 7,000 islands. This is the
Philippines, a nation with a rich history and a hard-fought path to independence. Today, we delve
into a critical yet often overlooked chapter of that journey: The Philippine-American War.
For over three centuries, the Philippines had endured Spanish colonial rule. But
by the late 19th century, the winds of change were blowing,
bringing with them hopes of freedom – and the shadow of a new imperial power.
Filipino intellectuals and revolutionaries, inspired by ideas of nationalism and
self-determination, began to push for reforms and independence. Figures like José Rizal, now
considered a national hero, used their writings to awaken a sense of Filipino national identity.
In 1896, the Philippine Revolution erupted. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipino rebels
fought bravely against Spanish forces, their dreams of an independent nation within reach.
But events across the Pacific were about to dash these hopes. In 1898,
the United States, driven by its own imperial ambitions, went to war with Spain.
The American Spanish War
On May 1, 1898, the U.S. Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George
Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Filipino rebels,
initially welcoming the Americans as liberators, intensified their fight against the Spanish.
By August, Filipino forces had surrounded Manila,
The American Takeover
poised to finally claim their independence. But they were about to face a bitter betrayal.
American troops began to arrive, ostensibly to fight the Spanish. But their true intentions
soon became clear. On August 13, in a prearranged battle, Spanish forces surrendered Manila to
the
Americans, deliberately excluding Filipino forces from the city they had fought so hard to liberate.
The war with Spain ended with the Treaty of Paris in December 1898. To the shock
and dismay of Filipinos, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States
for $20 million, trading one colonial master for another.
President William McKinley, cloaking American expansionism in noble rhetoric, spoke of
America's duty to "uplift and civilize" the Filipino people. This "benevolent assimilation"
policy was a thinly veiled justification for colonial control, ignoring the fact
that Filipinos had already established their own government and were capable of self-rule.
Tensions between American forces and Filipino nationalists grew. The dream of independence,
so close to realization, was being stolen away by a new invader.
The Philippine American War
On February 4, 1899, the spark ignited. American troops fired on Filipino soldiers near Manila,
beginning a conflict that would last for years and cost countless lives.
What followed was a brutal and complex war. The initial phase saw conventional battles,
with American forces, armed with superior weapons and training,
gradually pushing back the determined but outgunned Filipino troops.
Emilio Aguinaldo, now president of the First Philippine Republic,
led the resistance against the new occupiers. Other key figures like Apolinario Mabini and
Antonio Luna played crucial roles in the Filipino struggle for freedom.
As American forces advanced, the conflict transformed into a guerrilla war. Filipino
fighters, though outmatched in firepower, used their knowledge of the terrain and
support from local communities to wage a determined resistance against the invaders.
The American response was often brutal, revealing the dark side of their "civilizing" mission.
Tactics included the use of concentration camps, burning of villages, and torture
methods like the "water cure." These actions, justified as necessary to quell the insurgency,
led to widespread civilian suffering and revealed the true nature of American imperialism.
A turning point came in March 1901 with the capture of Aguinaldo. On April 1, 1901,
Aguinaldo swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. He issued a proclamation calling
The Philippine Defeat
on his fellow countrymen to end their resistance and accept American rule. While some fighters laid
down their arms, other many Filipinos fought on, unwilling to submit to yet another foreign power.
The conflict officially ended in 1902, but sporadic fighting continued for years,
especially in regions like Mindanao and Sulu, as Filipinos continued to resist American rule.
The cost of the war was staggering. Over 4,000 American soldiers, 20,000 Filipino combatants,
and an estimated 200,000 Filipino civilians lost their lives. Disease, famine, and the destruction
Consequences
of infrastructure added to the toll – a heavy price paid for America's imperial ambitions.
The Philippine-American War remains a complex and often overlooked chapter in both nations'
histories. It stands as a testament to the Filipino people's resilience
in the face of foreign invasion and raises challenging questions about imperialism,
Closing
self-determination, and the true costs of nation-building.
As we reflect on this conflict, we're reminded of the importance of understanding our shared past,
the sacrifices made in the pursuit of freedom, and the lasting impact of decisions
made over a century ago.

The Spanish-American War

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Key Takeaways
The Spanish-American War

● The Spanish-American War was the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban
War of Independence with Spain.
● The war served to further repair relations between the American North and South. The war
gave both sides a common enemy for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1865,
and many friendships were formed between soldiers of Northern and Southern states during
their tours of duty.
● The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since then, the United States has had a
significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and has entered into many treaties and
agreements.
● The defeat of Spain marked the end of the Spanish Empire.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Overview

The Spanish-American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States. It was the

result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence. American attacks on

Spain's Pacific possessions led to U.S. involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately to the

Philippine-American War.
Background

Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by

Americans. With the abolition of slavery in 1886, former slaves joined the ranks of farmers and the

urban working class, many wealthy Cubans lost their property, and the number of sugar mills

declined. Only companies and the most powerful plantation owners remained in business, and

during this period, U.S. financial capital began flowing into the country. Although it remained Spanish

territory politically, Cuba started to depend on the United States economically. Coincidentally,

around the same time, Cuba saw the rise of labor movements.

Following his second deportation to Spain in 1878, revolutionary José Martí moved to the United

States in 1881. There he mobilized the support of the Cuban exile community, especially in southern

Florida. He aimed for a revolution and independence from Spain, but also lobbied against the U.S.

annexation of Cuba, which some American and Cuban politicians desired.

By 1897–1898, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After

the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from

the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war

he had wished to avoid. Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an

ultimatum to Spain that demanded it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish

rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.

The War

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the 10-week war was fought in both the

Caribbean and the Pacific. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary
forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already reeling from nationwide insurgent

attacks and wasted by yellow fever.

The Spanish-American War was swift and decisive. During the war's three-month duration, not a

single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the declaration of war,

Commodore George Dewey of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron (then based at Hong Kong)

steamed his fleet to the Philippines. Dewey caught the entire Spanish armada at anchor in Manila

Bay and destroyed it without losing an American life.

Cuban, Philippine, and American forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila as

a result of their numerical superiority in most of the battles and despite the good performance of

some Spanish infantry units and spirited defenses in places such as San Juan Hill. Madrid sued for

peace after two obsolete Spanish squadrons were sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay. A third

more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.

The Treaty of Paris

The result of the war was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United

States. It allowed temporary American control of Cuba and indefinite colonial authority over Puerto

Rico, Guam, and the Philippines following their purchase from Spain. The defeat and collapse of the

Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche, and provoked a movement of

thoroughgoing philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the "Generation of

'98." The victor gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which caused a rancorous

new debate over the wisdom of expansionism.

Legacy of the War

The war marked American entry into world affairs. Before the Spanish-American War, the United

States was characterized by isolationism, an approach to foreign policy that asserts that a nation's

interests are best served by keeping the affairs of other countries at a distance. Since the Spanish-

American War, the United States has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world,

and has entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the

United States entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth and

technological innovation that lasted through the 1920s. The war redefined national identity, served

as a solution of sorts to the social divisions plaguing the American mind, and provided a model for all

future news reporting.

The war also effectively ended the Spanish Empire. Spain had been declining as an imperial power

since the early nineteenth century as a result of Napoleon's invasion. The loss of Cuba caused a

national trauma because of the affinity of peninsular Spaniards with Cuba, which was seen as

another province of Spain rather than as a colony. Spain retained only a handful of overseas

holdings: Spanish West Africa, Spanish Guinea, Spanish Sahara, Spanish Morocco, and the Canary

Islands.

The Philippine-American War

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Key Takeaways
The Philippine-American War

● The Philippine-American War was part of a series of conflicts in the Philippine struggle for
independence, preceded by the Philippine Revolution (1896) and the Spanish-American
War.
 ● The conflict arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence
following annexation by the United States.
● The war and U.S. occupation changed the cultural landscape of the islands. Examples of this
include the disestablishment of the Catholic Church as the Philippine state religion and the
introduction of the English language as the primary language of government and business.
● The United States officially took control of the Philippines in 1902. In 1916, the United States
promised some self-government, a limited form of which was established in 1935. In 1946,
following World War II, the United States gave the territory independence through the Treaty
of Manila.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

The Philippine-American War, also known as the "Philippine War of Independence" or the "Philippine

Insurrection" (1899–1902), was an armed conflict between the United States and Filipino

revolutionaries. The conflict arose after the Philippine Revolution of 1896, from the First Philippine

Republic's struggle to gain independence following annexation by the United States.

The conflict arose when the First Philippine Republic objected to the terms of the Treaty of Paris,

under which the United States took possession of the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-

American War.

Fighting erupted between U.S. and Filipino revolutionary forces on February 4, 1899, and quickly

escalated into the 1899 Battle of Manila. On June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic officially

declared war against the United States. The war officially ended on July 2, 1902, with a victory for

the United States. However, some Philippine groups led by veterans of the Katipunan continued to

battle the American forces. Among those leaders was General Macario Sakay, a veteran Katipunan

member who assumed the presidency of the proclaimed "Tagalog Republic," formed in 1902 after

the capture of President Emilio Aguinaldo. Other groups, including the Moro people and Pulahanes

people, continued hostilities in remote areas and islands until their final defeat a decade later at the

Battle of Bud Bagsak on June 15, 1913.

Impact and Legacy

The war with and occupation by the United States would change the cultural landscape of the

islands. The war resulted in an estimated 34,000 to 220,000 Philippine casualties (with more

civilians dying from disease and hunger brought about by war); the disestablishment of the Roman

Catholic Church as the state religion; and the introduction of the English language in the islands as

the primary language of government, education, business, and industry, and increasingly in future

decades, of families and educated individuals.

Under the 1902 "Philippine Organic Act," passed by the U.S. Congress, Filipinos initially were given

very limited self-government, including the right to vote for some elected officials such as a

Philippine Assembly. But it was not until 14 years later, with the passage of the 1916 Philippine

Autonomy Act (or "Jones Act"), that the United States officially promised eventual independence,

along with more Philippine control in the meantime over the Philippines. The 1934 Philippine

Independence Act created in the following year the Commonwealth of the Philippines, a limited form

of independence, and established a process ending in Philippine independence (originally scheduled

for 1944, but interrupted and delayed by World War II). Finally in 1946, following World War II and

the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the United States granted independence through the

Treaty of Manila.

American Opposition

Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ernest Crosby,

and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of

the Philippines. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had become a colonial

power by replacing Spain as the colonial power in the Philippines. Other anti-imperialists opposed

annexation on racist grounds. Among these was Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who
feared that annexation of the Philippines would lead to an influx of nonwhite immigrants into the

United States. As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United

States, support for the war flagged.

Hey it’s, Professor Dave, I wan na tell you about Teddy Roosevelt. Theodore. Roosevelt was one of
the most remarkable personalities ever to inhabit the White House, an irrepressible dynamo of a
man.. He was a cowboy historian New York City Police, Commissioner Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, Spanish-American War hero governor of New York, Vice President Nobel Prize winner,
conservationist explorer and President of the United States., And yet his greatest achievement was
the creation of Theodore Roosevelt.. Tr was truly a self-made man. Born a sickly asthmatic child. He
willed himself to be strong by embracing a strenuous lifestyle.. His debilitating asthma attacks had
the effects of being smothered to death, terrifying, Theodore and his parents, but he was energetic
and mischievously inquisitive. His lifelong interest. In zoology began at age seven when he saw a
dead seal at a local market, he obtained the seal’s head and formed the “Roosevelt Museum of
Natural History”.. He learned the rudiments of taxidermy preparing various animals for display. At
age. Nine. He recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled “The Natural History of Insects”.
Hiking with his family in the Alps. In 1869, Roosevelt was encouraged when he saw that he could
keep up with his father.. He discovered that physical exertion minimized his asthma and bolstered
his spirits, so young Teddy began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older
boys on a camping trip. He found a boxing coach to teach him to fight and in this way he
strengthened his body.. He attended Harvard College where he had a reputation for asking too many
questions and graduated cum laude in 1880.. He then enrolled in law school at Columbia, University,
but dropped out after one semester due to boredom.. Roosevelt was a lifelong bibliophile and drew
inspiration from reading about the heroes of history.. He later articulated the abiding influence of the
courageous men he read about, including those in his family “I was nervous and timid.. Yet, from
reading of the people, I admired, I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could
hold their own in the world, and I had a great desire to be like them.”. He integrated his exuberant
personality, vast range of interests and world-famous achievements into a “cowboy” persona defined
by robust masculinity.. His first of many books, “The Naval War of 1812”, was published in 1882
when he was just 24 establishing his reputation as a learned historian, and it remains a standard
study of the war to this day.. After leaving law, school Roosevelt threw himself into the political arena
and he was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he made a name for himself battling
corruption.. He successfully nominated an African-American delegate, John R. Lynch for the position
of Chairman of the 1884 GOP convention, but was disappointed when James G. Blaine was
nominated as the party’s candidate instead of a progressive.. However, he was devastated when his
beloved wife, Alice and his mother tragically died on precisely the same day. February 14th 1884.. In
his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large X on the page and then simply “The light has gone out of my life.”,
He retired, to his ranch. In the Dakota territories to become a cowboy working for a brief time as a
rancher. There, he learned to ride western style rope and hunt earning the respect of the authentic
cowboys men, whom he said “possess to a very high degree. The stern manly qualities that are
invaluable to a nation.” He reoriented and began writing about frontier life for national magazines
and published three books – “Hunting, Trips of a Ranchman, ” “Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail ”
and “The Wilderness Hunter.” Volunteering, as a deputy sheriff Roosevelt captured Three outlaws
who had stolen his boat and he conveyed the thieves to Dickinson North Dakota for trial.. He
successfully led efforts to organize ranchers to address the problems of overgrazing and other
shared concerns and coordinated efforts for the conservation of large game animals and their
habitats.. After a severe winter wiped out his herd of cattle and with it over half of his eighty
thousand dollar investment, Roosevelt returned to the East and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New
York City.. When the new mayor of New York offered Roosevelt a position on the board of the New
York City Police Commissioners, he accepted and quickly became president of the board.. He
radically reformed the NYPD reputedly, one of the most corrupt police departments in America., The
NYPD’s history division states that Roosevelt was “an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty,
who brought a reforming zeal to the New York City, Police Commission in 1895.”. Roosevelt
implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, he appointed sixteen
hundred recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications, regardless of political affiliation,
established, Meritorious Service Medals and closed corrupt police hostelries. He also had
telephones installed in station houses.. In 1898, Roosevelt was made Assistant Secretary of the
Navy under William McKinley, but resigned after one year to fight in the Spanish-American war.. He
served with the Rough Riders an army cavalry unit where he gained national fame for his courage
and his victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba.. Returning as a war hero, he was elected
governor of New York in 1898.. The state party leadership distrusted him, so Senator Thomas Platt
took the lead in moving him to the prestigious but powerless role of vice. President.. In the election
of 1900, Roosevelt campaigned vigorously all across the country helping McKinley’s re-election to a
landslide victory, based on a platform of peace, prosperity and conservatism.. Following the
assassination of President McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt succeeded to the office at age
42 becoming the youngest United States, President in history. Leading his party and country into the
Progressive Era. He championed his “Square Deal” domestic policies, promising the average citizen,
fairness, regulation of railroads and pure food and drugs.. He also promised to continue trust-busting
the practice of preventing monopolies and limiting corporate power amassed through commerce-
restriction agreements.. He also made conservation a top priority, establishing a multitude of new
national parks, forests and monuments intended to preserve the nation’s natural resources..
Roosevelt was an ardent imperialist.. He vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the
Philippines in the 1900 election campaign, but after the rebellion ended in 1901, he largely lost
interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion.. Instead, he turned his imperialist ambitions towards
Latin America.. This included his pet project, the Panama Canal., A canal traversing Central America
was greatly desired for shipping and there were two possible routes proposed one through
Nicaragua and the other through Panama, which at the time was still a rebellious district within
Colombia.. Roosevelt convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian option and a treaty was
approved only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this
a rebellion followed supported by Roosevelt and it succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama
government for construction of the canal was Reached in 1903 and the canal would be completed in
1913., Following the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War, Teddy viewed the nation as an
emerging world power.. He greatly expanded the United States Navy and sent a portion of the navy
dubbed the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project US naval power around the globe. Building
on McKinley’s, effective use of the press. Roosevelt turned the White House into the center of news,
providing ample interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the
White House in the rain one day he gave them their own room inside effectively inventing the
presidential press briefing. The grateful press with unprecedented access To the White House,
rewarded Roosevelt with substantial coverage. Roosevelt was also the first President to issue over
1,000 Executive Orders.. The first 25 Presidents collectively issued a total of 1,262 executive
orders., Roosevelt alone issued 1,081 indicative of a trend toward greater reliance on executive
orders that lasted through the Carter administration. Elected in 1904 to a full term. Roosevelt
continued to promote progressive policies, but much of his effort was blocked by Congress.
Roosevelt successfully groomed his close friend, William Howard Taft, to succeed him in the
presidency. After leaving office, Roosevelt went on safari in Africa and toured around Europe.
Returning to the US. He became frustrated with Taft’s performance and TR tried, but failed to win
the presidential nomination in 1912., Roosevelt founded his own party, the Progressive “Bull Moose”
Party, and called for wide-ranging, progressive reforms.. The split, among Republicans, enabled the
Democrats to win both the White House and a majority in the Congress in 1912.. Republicans
aligned with Taft would control the Republican Party for decades. Frustrated at home. Roosevelt led
a two-year expedition in the Amazon Basin, nearly dying of tropical disease.. During World War, I he
opposed President Woodrow Wilson for keeping the US out of the war against Germany and offered
his military services, which were never summoned.. Although planning to run again for president in
1920, Roosevelt suffered deteriorating health and died in early 1919., Teddy Roosevelt’s,
remarkable energy ambition, drive and whirling dervish-like personality made him a legend in his
own time.. As Mark Twain, who was not an admirer said of him, “Mr. Roosevelt is the Tom Sawyer of
the political world of the twentieth century, always showing off always hunting for a chance to show
off. In his frenzied imagination. The Great Republic is a vast, Barnum circus with him for a clown and
the whole world for audience. He would go to Halifax for half a chance to show off and he would go
to hell for a whole one.”, While campaigning in 1912. He was shot in an assassination attempt, but
suffering only a flesh wound. He pulled the bloodstained speech from his breast pocket and declared
“You see it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose”. To uproarious applause. He continued
delivering his speech for another 70 minutes.. Roosevelt is consistently ranked as one of the
greatest US presidents and his face adorns Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson and
Lincoln.

DAVID NASAW: Teddy Roosevelt was a perpetual motion machine. He never stopped.

KATHERINE SIBLEY: Teddy Roosevelt was not well when he was young. He was sickly. And one of
the results of that was he overcompensated in some ways to prove how strong he was.

JENNIFER MITTELSTADT: He believes that leading the strenuous life brought him sort of personal
health, personal achievement. And he extrapolates that into a philosophy that's good not only for him
personally but for the nation.

KATHERINE SIBLEY: Teddy Roosevelt is a very energetic person, a very active person. He comes
into the White House with this active presence.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JENNIFER MITTELSTADT: Teddy Roosevelt is the person who changes the American presidency.
And he does so by bringing into the Oval Office powers which no one who'd occupied that office
before thought they had.
DAVID NASAW: He believed that the presidency and the government had a role to play in the
economy. He set out after the corporations that he believed were too big to do good for the
American people. He was the great trust buster.

JENNIFER MITTELSTADT: He uses executive orders to secure probably one of his most important
legacies, which is conservation. All of the work in securing the land for the national parks and
creating this beautiful environmental legacy is all done through executive power. So that kind of
amassing of executive power is one of the ways, I think, that Teddy Roosevelt really changes the
presidency.

DAVID NASAW: Teddy Roosevelt is not only the most active president since Lincoln domestically
but also in foreign policy. He understands, like no one had before him, that America was now grown
up. We were a power he was the first imperialist president, I think it's fair to say.

JENNIFER MITTELSTADT: I think the second way that he changes the presidency is by connecting
the president to the American people in a way they probably had never been connected before.

DAVID NASAW: He believed that it was his task to use the presidency as, what he called, the bully
pulpit to say what was right, what was wrong, where we were going as a nation. And he did it
brilliantly.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JENNIFER MITTELSTADT: He uses really personal charisma and energy to get things done. That's
really the key to Teddy Roosevelt's leadership. It's that force of personality that allows him to bust
trusts, to settle strikes.

DAVID NASAW: Theodore Roosevelt was his own man. And he redefined the presidency. He was
the first strong, active, vibrant president after a number of nondescript presidents. We don't
remember much about Chester A Arthur or Garfield. But we can all remember Teddy Roosevelt and
what he did.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 1: Here's my question about TR. Hunter? A conservationist? Both? Both?

SPEAKER 2: A good hunter is also a conservationist. Cause otherwise you quickly run out of things
to hunt.

SPEAKER 1: Hans is only half joking. But hunting was a part of TR's life. He was also an avid
collector. He wanted to study the natural world. And to do that he collected hundreds of specimens.
And a bunch of them have ended up right here.

SPEAKER 2: He actually had started as a naturalist when he was a small boy. In fact, he was the
most unlikely of naturalists because he had very severe asthma.
SPEAKER 1: I mean, at four years old he wasn't supposed to even live.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER 1: Teddy Roosevelt. It's hard for me to imagine him as anything but robust and
aggressive. The young Teddy was so frail and sickly that his family worried he wouldn't survive his
fourth birthday.

SPEAKER 2: The motivation was so strong to look at things outside that he really worked on it. He
was doing sort of chin-ups.

SPEAKER 1: Really?

SPEAKER 2: And he became very buff by present standards.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah.

SPEAKER 2: Teddy's teenage motto might very well have been speak softly and flex your pecs.

SPEAKER 1: This guy even created his own museum at a young age. Correct?

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. That's correct. He and two of his cousins started the Roosevelt Museum, first in
his room. And then when the chambermaid got all bit upset about all the stench and mess in the
room, they moved it to another part of the house, and, in fact, were assigned a special cabinet.

SPEAKER 1: Well, that's great. Cause I used to just get beaten.

Young TR took his curating seriously. He made drawings of the animals he collected, and kept
meticulous notes on where they were found, their size, sex, even their stomach contents.

And you have some of these specimens here from when he was like a kid.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. In fact, a number of them have these little labels. In some cases you still see his
handwriting on them too.

SPEAKER 1: I see that right there. Roosevelt Museum. That's incredible.

SPEAKER 2: TR gave the collection to the Smithsonian in 1882 when he had just been elected an
assemblyman in New York State.

- [Announcer] Hank's going to throw a pass to Jimmy.

Come on Jimmy, you're in the open.
Oh well, you'll have another chance.
- Imagine football without passing.
Sure, for some fans out there, that might not be too hard.
But in the early 1900s, it was almost impossible
to imagine football with passing.
Prior to the establishment of the NFL,
football was a college game with few safety measures.
Players protected their heads with leather jock straps,
and they used the same shoulder pads
your mom wore on date night in 1984.
As a result, people died.
According the the Washington Post,
45 players died between 1900 and 1905.
At least 18 of those were in 1905 alone.
Injuries were also far more common,
including Teddy Roosevelt's own son,
who suffered facial injuries
during his freshman year at Harvard.
But even so, Roosevelt was quoted saying,
"I believe in rough games and in rough, manly sports.
I do not feel any particular sympathy
for the person who gets battered about a good deal
so long as it's not fatal."
Well, it was.
And people were calling for change.
While some schools pushed for reforms,
others were flat-out dropping football for rugby.
With Roosevelt's own Harvard threatening
to drop their program, he decided to act.
His goal was to minimize the danger,
but not on too ladylike a basis.
Because apparently only women valued their lives,
and real men fix broken skulls with gin.
The leaders of college football met with Roosevelt
in the White House, and agreed upon a new set
of life-saving rules.
The rules went into effect in 1906,
and among the changes were establishing a neutral zone
to separate the offense from the defense,
changing the necessary yardage for a first down
from five yards to 10, and legalizing the forward pass.
But we're not talking about the forward pass
you know and love today.
There were strict rules put in place
to discourage pass attempts, including a 15-yard
penalty for an incompletion,
a five-yard penalty for more than one pass on a series,
and any pass that went untouched
by the intended receiver, was a turnover.
These deterrents were a big reason the forward pass
wasn't immediately embraced.
But also, people just didn't consider
throwing the ball to be real football.
Prior to the 1906 season, St. Louis University
hired former Wisconsin Badgers assistant Eddie Cochems
to be their next head coach, giving him the reins of a team
featuring other ex-Badgers, including offensive end
Bradbury Robinson, and fullback Jack Schneider.
Cochems was one of the few actually excited
about the concept of the forward pass.
And he decided to take his team on a retreat to Wisconsin,
in order to focus on developing this new aspect of the game.
Luckily for them, Robinson had learned how to throw a spiral
during his time with the Badgers,
and had since been developing his ability to throw it.
Then, on September 5th, 1906, St. Louis
kicked off their season against Carroll College,
fittingly located in Waukesha, Wisconsin,
60 miles east of the Badgers' home in Madison,
and 20 miles north of their retreat location by Lake Beulah.
Carroll College was a brick wall for St. Louis's offense.
So they decided to catch them off-guard,
and use their newly acquired air tactic.
Bradbury Robinson switched positions
with fullback Jack Schneider,
then he took the snap and heaved football's
first pass towards him.
It fell incomplete.
And without getting a hand on it,
St. Louis forfeited possession to Carroll.
But later that game, Robinson and Schneider gave it
another go, and connected on the first touchdown pass.
Schneider would later state, "We were told to run
after the snap, and just keep going
until we heard the passer yell hike, or our name.
So I ran, and ran, I was about to give up
when I heard Robinson call.
I turned and caught the ball a yard or so short
of the goal, and went over with it."
St. Louis went on to finish their season 11 and O,
and outscored opponents 407 to 11.
They weren't the only team to utilize the pass that season.
They were, however, the only ones to embrace it.
In reference to the forward pass,
the Galveston Daily News printed in 1907,
"With the single exception of Cochems,
football teachers were groping in the dark."
Cochems's vision of the forward pass
went largely unadopted by other teams,
until Notre Dame's potent aerial offense in 1913,
a season that included a shocking win over Army,
a game often incorrectly credited
as having the first forward pass.
Two decades later, passing rules were finally relaxed,
permitting multiple passes in a series,
and allowing a team to retain possession
if a pass fell incomplete.
Today, the game is primarily focused
on throwing the football.
And protections for the quarterback
have allowed them to continue slinging touchdowns
well into their 40s.
Which is just great.
Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. history, and today we're going to talk about
progressives. No, Stan, progressives. Yes. You know, like these guys, who used to want to bomb
the means of production, but also less radical progressives. [past John] Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Are
we talking about like Tumblr progressives, where it's half discussions of misogyny, and half high-
contrast images of pizza? Because if so, I can get behind that. Me From the Past, your anachronism
is showing. Your internet was green letters on a black screen. But no, the Progressive Era was not
like Tumblr. However, I will argue that it did indirectly make Tumblr and therefore J-Law GIF sets
possible, so... that's something. So, some of the solutions that progressives came up with to deal
with issues of inequality and injustice don't seem terribly progressive today, and also it kinda
overlapped with the Gilded Age, and progressive implies, like, progress — presumably progress
toward freedom and justice — which is hard to argue about an era that involved one of the great
restrictions of freedom in American history: Prohibition. So maybe we shouldn't call it the
Progressive Era at all I argue — Stan, whatever, roll the intro. (Intro) Defining the Progressive Era
(01:06)So if the Gilded Age was the period when American industrial capitalism came into its own
and people like Mark Twain began to criticize its associated problems, then the Progressive Era was
the age in which people actually tried to solve those problems through individual and group action.
As the economy changed, progressives also had to respond to a rapidly changing political system.
The population of the U.S. was growing and its economic power was becoming ever more
concentrated, and sometimes progressives responded to this by opening up political participation,
and sometimes by trying to restrict the vote. The thing is, broad participatory democracy doesn't
always result in effective government... he said, sounding like the Chinese National Communist
Party. And that tension between wanting to have government for, of, and by the people and wanting
to have government that's, like, good at governing kinda defined the Progressive Era. And also our
era. But progressives were most concerned with the social problems that revolved around industrial
capitalist society, and most of these problems weren't new by 1900, but some of the responses
were. Companies, and later corporations, had a problem that had been around since at least the
1880s. They needed to keep costs down and profits high in a competitive market. And one of the
best ways to do this is to keep wages low, hours long, and conditions appalling. Your basic house-elf
situation. Just kidding, house-elves didn't get wages. Also, by the end of the 19th century, people
started to feel like these large monopolistic industrial combinations, the so-called trusts, were
exerting too much power over people's lives. The 1890s saw federal attempts to deal with these
trusts, such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, but overall the federal government wasn't where most
progressive changes were made. For instance, there was muckraking, a form of journalism in which
reporters would find some muck and rake it. Mass circulation magazines realized they could make
money by publishing exposes of industrial and political abuse, so they did. Mystery Document
(02:48) Oh, it's time for the mystery document? I bet it involves muck. The rules here are simple. I
guess the author of the mystery document; I'm either correct or I get shocked. “Let a man so much
as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle-rooms, and all the joints in his fingers might be
eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floor-men, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all
those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and
time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man
pressed the knife to hold it. They would have no nails — they had worn them off pulling hides.” Wow.
Well now I am hyper-aware of and grateful for my thumbs. They are just in excellent shape. I am so
glad, Stan, that I am not a beef-boner at one of the meat-packing factories written about in The
Jungle by Upton Sinclair. No shock for me! Ah, Stan, I can only imagine how long and hard you've
worked to get the phrase “beef-boner” into this show and you finally did it, congratulations. By the
way, just a little bit of trivia, The Jungle was the first book I ever read that made me vomit. So that's a
review. I don't know if it's positive, but there you go. Anyway, at the time readers of The Jungle were
more outraged by descriptions of rotten meat than by the treatment of meat-packing workers. The
Jungle led to the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. That's pretty cool for
Upton Sinclair, although my books have also lead to some federal legislation such as the HAOTP,
which officially declared Hazel and Augustus the nation's OTP. So to be fair, writers have been
describing the harshness of industrial capitalism for decades, so muckraking wasn't really that new.
But the use of photography for documentation was. Lewis Hine for instance photographed child
laborers in factories and mines, bringing Americans face-to-face with the more than two million
children under the age of 15 working for wages. And Hine's photos helped bring about laws that
limited child labor. But even more important than the writing and photographs and magazines when
it came to improving conditions for workers was Twitter. What's that? There was no Twitter? Still?
What is this, 1812? Worker's Response All right, so apparently still without Twitter, workers had to
organize into unions to get corporations to reduce hours and raise their pay. Also, some employers
started to realize on their own that one way to mitigate some of the problems of industrialization was
to pay workers betters. Like in 1914, Henry Ford paid his workers an average of five dollars per day,
unheard of at the time. Whereas today, I pay Stan and Danica three times that, and still they whine.
Ford's reasoning was that better paid workers would be better able to afford the Model T's that they
were making. And indeed, Ford's annual output rose from 34,000 cars to 730,000 cars between
1910 and 1916, and the price of a Model T dropped from $700 to $316. Still, Henry Ford definitely
forgot to be awesome sometimes: he was antisemitic, he used spies in his factory, and he named
his child Edsel. Also, like most employers at the turn of the century he was virulently anti-union. So
while the AFL was organizing the most privileged industrial workers, another union grew up to
advocate for rights for a larger swath of the workforce, especially the immigrants who dominated
unskilled labor: the Industrial Workers of the World. They were also know as the Wobblies, and they
were founded in 1905 to advocate for “every wage worker, no matter what his religion, fatherland, or
trade.” And not, as the name Wobblies suggest, just those fans of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. The
Wobblies and Consumer Culture The Wobblies were radical socialists. Ultimately they wanted to see
capitalism in the state disappear in revolution. Now most progressives didn't go that far, but some,
following the ideas of Henry George, worried that economic progress could produce a dangerous
unequal distribution of wealth that could only be cured by taxes. But more progressives were
influenced by Simon W. Patten who prophesied that industrialization would bring about a new
civilization where everyone would benefit from the abundance and all the leisure time that all these
new labor-saving devices could bring. This optimism was partly spurred by the birth of a mass
consumption society. I mean, Americans by 1915 could purchase all kinds of newfangled devices
like washing machines, or vacuum cleaners, automobiles, record players. It's worth underscoring
that all this happened in a couple generations. I mean, in 1850 almost everyone listened to music
and washed their clothes in nearly the same way that people did ten thousand years ago. And then,
boom. And for many progressives, this consumer culture, to quote our old friend Eric Foner “became
the foundation for a new understanding of freedom as access to the cornucopia of goods made
available by modern capitalism.” And this idea was encouraged by new advertising that connected
goods with freedom, using liberty as a brand name, or affixing the Statue of Liberty to a product. By
the way, Crash Course is made exclusively in the United States of America. The greatest nation on
earth. Ever. That's a lie, of course. But you're allowed to lie in advertising. But in spite of this
optimism, many progressives were concerned that industrial capitalism, with its exploitation of labor
and concentration of wealth, was limiting rather than increasing freedom. But depending on how you
define freedom, of course. The Effects of Industrialization Industrialization created what they referred
to as the labor problem, as mechanization diminished opportunities for skilled workers and the
supervised routine of the factory floor destroyed autonomy. The scientific workplace management
advocated by efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor required rigid rules and supervision in order to
heighten worker productivity. So if you've ever had a job with a defined number of bathroom breaks,
that's why. Also, Taylorism found its way into classrooms, and anyone who's ever had to sit in rows
for forty-five minute periods punctuated by factory style bells knows that this atmosphere is not
particularly conducive to a sense of freedom. Now this is a little bit confusing, because while
responding to worker exploitation was part of the progressive movement, so was Taylorism itself,
because it was an application of research, observation, and expertise to the vexing problem of how
to increase productivity. And this use of scientific experts is another hallmark of the Progressive Era.
One that usually found its expression in politics. American progressives, like their counter parts in
the green sections of not-America sought government solutions to social problems. Germany, which
is somewhere over here [points toward Europe on globe], pioneered social legislation with its
minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and old age pension laws. But the idea that government
action could address the problems and insecurities that characterized the modern industrial world
also became prominent in the United States. And the notion that an activist government could
enhance, rather than threaten, people's freedom was something new in America. Legislation Now
progressives pushing for social legislation tended to have more success at the state and local level,
especially in cities, which established public control over gas and water and raised taxes to pay for
transportation and public schools. Whereas federally, the biggest success was like Prohibition,
which, you know, not that successful. But anyway, if all that local collectivist investment sounds like
socialism... it kind of is. I mean, by 1912 the socialist party had 150,000 members and had elected
scores of local officials, like Milwaukee mayor Emil Seidel. Some urban progressives even pushed to
get rid of traditional democratic forms altogether. A number of cities were run by commissions of
experts or city managers who would be chosen on the basis of some demonstrated expertise or
credential, rather than their ability to hand out turkeys at Christmas or find jobs for your nephew's
sister's cousin. Progressive editor Walter Lippmann argued for applying modern scientific expertise
to solve social problems in his 1914 book Drift and Mastery, writing that scientifically trained experts
“could be trusted more fully than ordinary citizens to solve America's deep social problems.” This
tension between government by experts and increased popular democratic participation is one of the
major contradictions of the Progressive Era. The Seventeenth Amendment allowed for senators to
be elected directly by the people rather than by state legislatures, and many states adopted
primaries to nominate candidates. Again, taking power away from political parties and putting it in
the hands of voters. And some states, particularly western ones like California, adopted aspects of
even more direct democracy: the initiative, which allowed voters to put issues on the ballot and the
referendum, which allows them to vote on laws directly. And lest you think that more democracy is
always good, I present you with California. But many progressives wanted actual policy made by
experts who knew what was best for the people, not the people themselves. And despite primaries
and direct elections of senators, it's hard to argue that the Progressive Era was a good moment for
democratic participation since many progressives were only in favor of voting insofar as it was done
by white, middle-class, Protestant voters. All right, let's go to the Thought Bubble. Thought Bubble
Progressives limited immigrants' participation in the political process through literacy tests and laws
requiring people to register to vote. Voter registration was supposedly intended to limit fraud, and the
power of political machines — stop me if any of this sounds familiar — but it actually just suppressed
voting generally. Voting gradually declined from 80% of male Americans voting in the 1890s to the
point where today only about 50% of eligible Americans vote in presidential elections. But an even
bigger blow to democracy during the Progressive Era came with the Jim Crow laws passed by
legislatures in southern states which legally segregated the South. First there was the deliberate
disenfranchisement of African Americans. The Fifteenth Amendment made it illegal to deny the right
to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, but said nothing about the ability to
read, so many southern states instituted literacy requirements. Other states added poll taxes,
requiring people to pay to vote which effectively disenfranchised a large number of African American
people who were disproportionately poor. The Supreme Court didn't help. In 1896 it made one of its
most famous bad decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson, ruling that segregation in public accommodations
(in Homer Plessy's case, a railroad car) did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection
clause. As long as black railroad cars were equal to white ones, it was a-okay to have duplicate sets
of everything. Now, creating two sets of equal quality of everything would get really expensive, so
southern states didn't actually do it. Black schools, public restrooms, public transportation
opportunities, the list goes on and on, would definitely be separate, and definitely not equal. African-
Americans Thanks, Thought Bubble. Now of course as we've seen, progressive ideas inspired a
variety of responses: both for Taylorism and against it, both for government by experts and for direct
democracy. Similarly, in the Progressive Era, just as the Jim Crow laws were being passed, there
were many attempts to improve the lives of African Americans. The towering figure in this movement
to uplift black southerners was Booker T. Washington, a former slave who became the head of the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a center for vocational education, and Washington urged southern
black people to emphasize skills that could make them successful in the contemporary economy.
The idea was that they would earn the respect of white people by demonstrating their usefulness
and everyone would come to respect each other through the recognition of mutual dependence
while continuing to live in separate social spheres. But Washington's accommodationist stance was
not shared by all African Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois advocated for full civil and political rights for
black people and helped to found the NAACP, which urged African Americans to fight for their rights
through “persistent, manly agitation.” Conclusion So I wanted to talk about the Progressive Era today
not only because it shows up on a lot of tests, but because progressives tried to tackle many of the
issues that we face today, particularly concerning immigration and economic justice, and they used
some of the same methods that we use today: organization, journalistic exposure, and political
activism. Now we may use Tumblr or Tea Party forums but the same concerns motivate us to work
together, and just as today many of their efforts were not successful because of the inherent
difficulty in trying to mobilize very different interests in a pluralistic nation. In some ways their
platforms would have been better suited to an America that was less diverse and complex, but it was
that very diversity and complexity that gave rise — and still gives rise — to the urge toward progress
in the first place. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Credits Crash course is produced and
directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica
Johnson, the show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, Rosianna Rojas, and
myself, and our graphics team is Thought Cafe. Every week there's a new caption for the Libertage.
You can suggest captions in comments, where you can also ask questions about today's video that
will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course, if you like it, and if
you're watching the credits, you probably do, make sure you're subscribed. And as we say in my
hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [off-screen thud] That was more dramatic than it sounded.
SPEAKER 1: The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire was a man-made disaster, a tragedy of the
industrial age, made all the worse because it could have been prevented. Let me set the scene. New
York City, early 20th century, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory occupied several floors of a Manhattan
business building called the Ash Building. It was located just off Washington Square Park, one of the
wealthiest neighborhoods in the city.

The Triangle Shirtwaist factory, was by almost any definition, a sweatshop. It was a densely packed
place, some 500 people worked there. And the work schedule was punishing-- 11 to 12 hours a day
every day. Most of the people employed at the factory were young immigrant women, teenagers
even, who didn't speak English. These women sat at long tables day in day out sewing shirt waists.

Shirt waists were mass produced blouses. They resembled men's shirts and were very popular with
working women. So here's what happened. March 25, 1911, Saturday evening, the end of the
workday, the workweek, a fire started in a bin of cotton scraps, perhaps from a cigarette butt. A
manager tried to use a hose to put it out. But the hose valve was rusted shut, and the hose itself was
rotted away.

The factory floor didn't have a sprinkler system. So the fire spread quickly, people panicked. The
building had only one flimsy fire escape, and it wasn't nearly big enough. It collapsed. The building
had four elevators, but only one was working. And it only held 12 people at a time. It managed to
make four rescue trips before it broke down.

Some desperate workers jumped to their deaths down the elevator shaft. Workers tried to take the
stairs, but the exit doors only opened inward. And they were kept locked by factoring management.
Many people were crushed to death trying to get out. Firefighting technology hadn't caught up to the
new tall buildings of a city like New York. The fire hoses and ladders can only reach the seventh
floor, one floor short of the fire.

Dozens of desperate workers jumped out of the windows. They chose to die from the fall instead of
the flames. Other workers burned to death or died from smoke inhalation. The whole episode lasted
just 18 minutes. 144 people were dead. Two more died later in the hospital, bringing the death toll to
146.
Until the events of September 11th, it was the deadliest workplace disaster in New York City history.
Days later, on April 5th, a massive funeral protest march took place on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
More than 350,000 people were in attendance. The factory owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris,
were indicted for manslaughter but were declared not guilty in their trial later that year.

Yet, long after the flames died out, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire served as a cautionary tale that
helped to redefine the American industrial workplace. The fire was a key moment in the growth of
labor unions, particularly the ILGWU, or International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. New York
City passed measures, including the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law, which required sprinkler
systems to be installed in all factories.

It served as a model for state and national workplace safety codes. These measures made
American workers safer, but they were too late for the workers who perished one terrible March day
at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory.

SPEAKER 2: Getting elected president is an expensive business. Campaign costs add up. There
are advertisements to make, travel expenses, convention costs, even bumper stickers. But where
does all this money come from?

Hello and welcome to another US history online lesson. Today we're going to continue with our unit
on the Progressive Era by examining the muckrakers.

So what is a muckraker? Well, a muckraker is a journalist; could be someone writing an article could
be someone writing a book, could be someone taking pictures could be someone drawing cartoons,
and all in an effort to bring awareness to the dirt or the muck in society. Their goal is to bring it to the
attention of public officials in government in hopes of trying to address some of these problems. And
it's also bringing awareness to American people that may not know about some of these problems.

The name muckraker was given to these journalists by President Theodore Roosevelt because they
were always bringing up the muck in American society. In fact, you've already learned about one of
the muckrakers Thomas Nast and his efforts to expose political corruption. The first muckraker that
we're going to talk about today is Frank Norris. Frank Norris wrote a book called the Octopus in
1901, which is a fictional account about the struggle that farmers were engaged in with railroad
monopolies during the age of industrialization. And it helps lead to the breakup of these monopolies
like what takes place in the Supreme Court case northern securities verse the u.s. in 1904.

Another influential muckraker was Lewis Hine. Lewis Hine was a photojournalist that was able to
capture child labor. He was able to show kids working in coal mines and in factories in every other
working condition imaginable. This helped pave the way for child labor laws in different states and
across the country as a whole.

Ida Tarbell was a writer that was able to expose the ruthless business tactics of the Standard Oil
Company in a series of articles in McClure's magazine, published together in 1904. These articles
were so damaging that they led to the Supreme Court case Standard Oil versus the U.S. in 1911,
the same Supreme Court case that would split up the Standard Oil Company of John Rockefeller.
In his book, How the Other Half Lives written in 1890, Danish immigrant, Jacob Riis was able to
expose the living conditions of the urban poor, focusing primarily on tenements. All in an effort to
show the middle-class literally how the other half lives. He was able to do this in photos and through
story and as a result, New York City, passed building codes to promote safety and health.

Last and certainly not least, is the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair in 1906. In the book,
The Jungle it investigates the dangerous working conditions and unsanitary procedures in the
meatpacking industry of Chicago. This will lead to a couple of different pieces of legislation to reform
the food industry. The first coming in 1906 was the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required all food
and medicines to have labels with ingredients, side effects and other things. This act still exists and
is regulated by the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. And it also led the way for the Meat
Inspection Act of 1906, which requires all meat products to be inspected by the government before
during and after processing.

So there you have it. This gives you a glimpse at just some of the work of some of the muckrakers
during the Progressive Era. We'll explore the works of these five more in class next time, we'll focus
on social reforms, including what happens when you take away America's alcohol.

Henry Ford was an American inventor, a racecar driver, and one of the most successful innovators
that ever lived. Ford was born in 1863 on a farm in what is now Dearborn, Michigan. He was famous
for making the automobile available to the masses and from perfecting the assembly line. Ford was
known for tinkering and creating things from what he had around. When he was 13 his father gave
him a pocket watch as a gift. Supposedly the first thing Ford did was take it apart and put it back
together. It was clear Ford wanted to work with machines early on, but it wasn't until Ford saw steam
engine for the first time that he knew what he really wanted to do.

Having seen such a powerful and magnificent machine Ford left his family farm and moved to Detroit
to work on engines. He was only 16. Ford continued to work on engines and continued to build his
experience. By the time he was in his early 30s, Ford was building his own. In 1896, Ford built the
quadricycle, hoping that the horseless carriage would become affordable for the average American.

He created the quadricycle by putting two bikes together, adding a steering column similar to the
rudder on a boat and then, of course, adding an engine. Having produced a machine that he thought
would change the future, Ford started looking for people to invest and help him produce the
quadricycle on a large scale. He found initial investors, but unfortunately he was unable to produce
high profits. So multiple times he had to walk away from his business. It happened to him again and
again.

He continued to work at his machines even if they weren't selling well. And instead of giving up on
his dream, Ford found a new way to market his ideas. Ford built a race car; he called it the 999. And
with absolutely no professional racing experience, Ford was able to beat some of the best drivers in
cars in America. He used these races as a way to publicize himself in the news, even though he only
held the record for a short time. Ford even broke the land speed record. In the nine-nine in 1903,
Ford rode his new-found racing fame and uses racing winnings to start the Ford Motor Company, we
still know today. He began by producing the popular Model A. By 1908. Henry Ford had produced
the Model T through the use of his innovative assembly line, which had allowed his workers to
quickly add the pieces to his cars by using the same process over and over. And by 1927, he
produced 15 million Model T's and accounted for 50 % of all the cars on the road. His success and
his innovative assembly line helped him become one of the richest and most successful American
businessman to ever live.

The Progressive Era - Part 1

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Key Takeaways
The Progressive Era

● Characteristics of the Progressive Era include purification of the government, modernization,

a focus on family and education, prohibition, and women's suffrage.
● Many Progressives sought to rid the government of corruption, and muckraking became a
particular type of journalism that exposed waste, corruption, and scandal on a national level.
● Two of the most important outcomes of the Progressive Era were the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Amendments, the first of which outlawed the manufacturing, sale, or transport of
alcohol, and the second of which enfranchised women with the right to vote.
● The national political leaders of the Progressive Era included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M.
La Follette Sr., Charles Evans Hughes, and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and
William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith on the Democratic side.
● Theodore Roosevelt is often cited as the first Progressive president, known for his trust -
busting activities.
● Progressives did little for civil rights or the plight of African Americans in the aftermath of
Reconstruction, as the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of many racist southern
laws.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the

United States, from the 1890s to the 1920s. The main objective of the Progressive movement was

eliminating corruption in government. The movement primarily targeted political machines and their
bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office, a further means of direct democracy

would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies ("trust-busting") and corporations

through antitrust laws. These antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the

advantage of legitimate competitors. The main statutes are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton

Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914.

Many Progressives supported prohibition in the United States in order to destroy the political power

of local bosses based in saloons. At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a

"purer" female vote into the arena. These two issues in the movement brought about constitutional

change. The Eighteenth Amendment, passed in late 1917, banned the manufacturing, sale, and

transport of alcohol, while the Nineteenth Amendment, passed in 1919, gave women the right to

vote.

Another theme was building an Efficiency movement in every sector that could identify old ways that

needed modernizing, and that could bring to bear scientific, medical, and engineering solutions. A

key part of the Efficiency movement was scientific management, or "Taylorism." Although scientific

management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes

are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today. These include analysis,

synthesis, logic, rationality, empiricism, work ethic, efficiency and elimination of waste, and

standardization of best practices.

Many activists joined efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance,

insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed,

professionalized, and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history, economics, and

political science. In academic fields, the day of the amateur author gave way to the research

professor who published in new scholarly journals and presses.

Initially, the movement operated chiefly at the local levels; later, it expanded to state and national

levels. Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers,

teachers, physicians, ministers, and business people. Some Progressives strongly supported

scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling,

theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in

western Europe and adopted numerous policies, such as a major transformation of the banking

system through the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Reformers felt that old-

fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and they eagerly sought out the "one best system."

Leaders in the Progressive Era

National Progressive political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette Sr., and

Charles Evans Hughes on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and

Al Smith on the Democratic side. Many others, from politicians to social activists, business owners to

philosophers, and preachers to reporters, contributed to the Progressive movement. The following

are examples of a few major figures:

Following the assassination of President McKinley in September 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, at age

42, succeeded to the office, becoming the youngest U.S. president in history. Leading his party and

country into the Progressive Era, he championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the

average citizen fairness, broken trusts, railroads regulations, and pure food and drugs. Making

conservation a top priority, he established a myriad of new national parks, forests, and monuments

intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central

America, where he began construction of the Panama Canal. His successful efforts to end the

Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820–March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and

feminist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. In 1851, she met Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, who became her lifelong friend and coworker in social-reform activities, primarily in

the field of women's rights. In 1852, they founded the New York Women's State Temperance Society

after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a temperance conference because she was a

woman. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment

giving women the right to vote. Popularly known as the "Anthony Amendment" and introduced by

Senator Aaron A. Sargent (R-CA), it became the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in

1920.

Upton Sinclair (September 20, 1878–November 25, 1968) was an American author who wrote nearly

100 books and other works across a number of genres. In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for

his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle , which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat-packing

industry and caused a public uproar that contributed, in part, to the passage a few months later of

the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass

Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism

and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the publication of The

Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Writing during the Progressive Era,

Sinclair describes the world of industrialized American from both the working man's point of view and

the industrialist's. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil!

(1927), and The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto

industries at the time.

Key Takeaways
The Varieties of Progressivism

● Progressivism arose as a response to the vast changes brought about by modernization.

● Progressives believed that the Constitution was a set of loose guidelines and that the scope
of the federal government should extend into society to protect it from things such as trusts.
● Despite Progressives' stances on federal aid and intervention, they sought support from local
governments to lead the way in social and economic reforms.
 ● Education was democratized during this era: Progressive educators, such as John Dewey,
wanted every child to have an education and sought to create effective standardized tests to
measure how children were learning.
● Progressives agreed that regulating business was important, but they disagreed about
whether that would be best served by breaking up monopolies or by allowing them to exist
with increased regulation.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Progressivism

American Progressivism is defined as a broadly based reform movement that reached the height of

influence in the early twentieth century and that was largely middle-class and reformist in nature.

Progressivism arose as a response to the vast changes brought about by modernization, such as

the growth of large corporations and railroads, and fears of corruption in American politics. Emerging

at the end of the nineteenth century, Progressive reformers established much of the tone of

American politics throughout the first half of the century.

Politically, Progressives of this era belonged to a wide range of parties and had leaders from the

Democratic and Republican parties, as well as from the Bull-Moose Republicans, Lincoln-Roosevelt

League Republicans (in California), and the United States Progressive Party. Rather than affiliating

with a dominant party, American Progressives shared a common goal of wielding federal power to

pursue a sweeping range of social, environmental, political, and economic reforms. The pursuit of

trust-busting (breaking up very large monopolies) was chief among these aims, as was garnering

support for labor unions, public health programs, decreased corruption in politics, and environmental

conservation.

Core Principles
Many of the core principles of the Progressive movement focused on the need for efficiency and the

elimination of corruption and waste. Purification to eliminate waste and corruption was a powerful

element, as was the Progressives' support of worker compensation, improved child labor laws,

minimum wage legislation, limited work hours, graduated income tax, and women's suffrage.

Historian William Leuchtenburg describes the Progressives thusly:

The Progressives believed in the Hamiltonian concept of positive government, of a national

government directing the destinies of the nation at home and abroad. They had little but contempt for
the strict construction of the Constitution by conservative judges, who would restrict the power of the
national government to act against social evils and to extend the blessings of democracy to less
favored lands. The real enemy was particularism, state rights, limited government.

For Progressive reformers, the Constitution represented a loose set of guidelines for political

governance, rather than acting as a strict authority on the political development of the United States

or on the scope of federal power. More, not less, regulation was necessary to ensure that society

operated efficiently, and therefore, most Progressives believed that the federal government was the

only suitable power to combat trusts, monopolies, poverty, deficits in education, and economic

problems.

City Management

Although they argued for more federal intervention in local affairs (especially in urban centers), most

Progressives typically concentrated on reforming municipal and state governments to create better

ways to provide services as cities grew rapidly. The result was "municipal administration," which

effectively managed legal processes, market transactions, bureaucratic administration, and urban

reform.
One example of Progressive reform was the rise of the city-manager system, in which salaried,

professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established

by elected city councils. Additionally, many cities created municipal "reference bureaus" that

conducted surveys of government departments looking for waste and inefficiency. After in-depth

surveys, local and even state governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to

eliminate overlapping areas of authority among departments. City governments also were

reorganized to reduce the power of local ward bosses and to increase the powers of the city council.

Education

Early Progressive thinkers, such as John Dewey and Lester Ward, placed a universal and

comprehensive system of education at the top of the Progressive agenda, reasoning that if a

democracy were to be successful, the general public needed to be educated. Progressives

advocated to expand and improve public and private education at all levels. Modernization of

society, they believed, necessitated the compulsory education of all children, even if parents

objected. Progressives turned to educational researchers to evaluate the reform agenda by

measuring numerous aspects of education, which later led to standardized testing. Child-labor laws

were designed to prohibit children from entering the workforce before a certain age, further

compelling children into the public schools. Many educational reforms and innovations generated

during this period continued to influence debates and initiatives in American education for the

remainder of the twentieth century.

Economic Theory

Many Progressives hoped that by regulating large corporations, they could liberate human energies

from the restrictions imposed by industrial capitalism. Yet the Progressive movement was divided

over which of the following solutions should be used to regulate corporations:

Pro-labor Progressives such as Samuel Gompers argued that industrial monopolies were unnatural

economic institutions that suppressed the competition necessary for progress and improvement.

U.S. antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopolies) and unfair

business practices. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft supported trust-

busting. During their presidencies, the otherwise conservative Taft brought down 90 trusts in four

years while Roosevelt took down 44 in 7 1/2 years in office.

Progressives such as Benjamin Parke DeWitt argued that in a modern economy, large corporations

and even monopolies were both inevitable and desirable. With their massive resources and

economies of scale, large corporations offered the United States advantages that smaller companies

could not offer. Yet, these large corporations might abuse their great power. The federal government

should allow these companies to exist but regulate them for the public interest. President Theodore

Roosevelt generally supported this idea and was later to incorporate it as part of his political

philosophy of "New Nationalism."

Key Takeaways
The Social Gospel

● The Social Gospel movement applied Christian ethics to social problems.

● Social justice issues were especially important to Social Gospel reformers.
● Social Gospel workers were post-millennialist, believing that Christ would return to Earth
after humankind had worked through its sins.
● Many new churches were established during this period, including Christian Science and
Jehovah's Witnesses.

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Background
The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most

prominent in the early twentieth-century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian

ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as excessive wealth, poverty,

alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor

schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to operationalize the

Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:10): "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."

Social Gospellers typically were post-millennialist; that is, they believed that the Second Coming

could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. Social Gospel leaders

were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the Progressive movement, and most were

theologically liberal, although they were typically conservative when it came to their views on social

issues.

Religious Progressivism

In the United States prior to World War I, the Social Gospel was the religious wing of the Progressive

movement, which had the aim of combating injustice, suffering, and poverty in society. Denver,

Colorado, was a center of Social Gospel activism. Thomas Uzzell led the Methodist People's

Tabernacle from 1885 to 1910. He established a free dispensary for medical emergencies, an

employment bureau for job seekers, a summer camp for children, night schools for extended

learning, and English language classes. From 1884 to 1894, Myron Reed of the First Congregational

Church served as a spokesman for labor unions on issues such as worker's compensation. His

middle-class congregation encouraged Reed to move on when he became a Socialist, and he

organized a nondenominational church. The Baptist minister Jim Goodhart set up an employment

bureau, and provided food and lodging for tramps and hobos at the mission he ran. He became the

city chaplain and director of public welfare of Denver in 1918. Besides these Protestants, Reform

Jews and Catholics helped build Denver's social welfare system in the early twentieth century.
The Reverend Mark A. Matthews (1867–1940) of Seattle's First Presbyterian Church was a leading

city reformer who investigated red-light districts and crime scenes, and denounced corrupt

politicians, businessmen, and saloon keepers. With 10,000 members, his church was the largest

Presbyterian Church in the country, and he was selected as the national moderator in 1912. He built

a model church, with night schools, unemployment bureaus, a kindergarten, an anti-tuberculosis

clinic, and the nation's first church-owned radio station. Matthews was the most influential clergyman

in the Pacific Northwest, and one of the most active Social Gospellers in America.

The South had its own version of the Social Gospel that focused especially on prohibition. Other

reforms included outlawing public swearing, boxing, dogfights, and similar affronts to their moral

sensibilities. By 1900, says historian Edward Ayers, the white Baptists, although they were the most

conservative of all of the denominations in the South, became steadily more concerned with social

issues, taking stands on, "temperance, gambling, illegal corruption, public morality, orphans, and the

elderly."

The Social Gospel affected much of Protestant America. The Presbyterians described its goals in

1910 by proclaiming the following: "The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel

for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;

the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness;

and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world."

New Churches

In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy introduced Christian Science, which gained a national following. In 1880,

the Salvation Army denomination arrived in America. Although its theology was based on ideals

expressed during the Second Great Awakening, it also focused on poverty and social improvement.

The Society for Ethical Culture, established in New York in 1876 by Felix Adler, attracted Reform
Jewish followers. Charles Taze Russell founded the Bible Students movement, which later split into

the "Jehovah's Witnesses" of today.

The Progressive Era - Part 2

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Key Takeaways
Social Criticism

● The 1890s and early 1900s witnessed a profound social and political reaction to the Gilded
Age, the period between the early 1870s and late 1890s that was characterized by excesses
and corruption.
● Muckrakers were journalists who exposed social ills and corporate and political corruption.
● Journalists, such as Jacob Riis and Ida B. Wells, were among the first to bring attention to
poor living conditions in cities, the plight of immigrants, and racial injustice.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Muckrakers

The 1890s and early 1900s witnessed a profound social and political reaction to the excesses and

corruption of the Gilded Age. Journalists and other writers began bringing social issues to the

attention of the American public.

The term "muckraker" was used during the Progressive Era to characterize reform -minded

American journalists who largely wrote for popular magazines. The modern characterization of this

type of journalism is "investigative," and investigative journalists today are often informally called

"muckrakers." During the Progressive Era, these journalists relied on their own reporting and often
worked to expose social ills and corporate and political corruption. Muckraking magazines—notably

McClure's—took on corporate monopolies and crooked political machines while raising public

awareness of chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and social issues such as child

labor. The term "muckrakers" is a reference to a character in John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's

Progress, "the Man with the Muck-rake," who rejected salvation to focus on filth. The term became

popular after President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the character in a 1906 speech; Roosevelt

acknowledged that, "the men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of

society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck..." The muckrakers themselves proudly

adopted the label.

The muckrakers appeared at a moment when journalism was undergoing changes in style and

practice. In response to the exaggerated facts and sensationalism of yellow journalism, objective

journalism, as exemplified by The New York Times under Adolph Ochs after 1896, reported facts

with the intention of being impartial and a newspaper of record. The growth of wire services also had

contributed to the spread of the objective reporting style. Muckraking publishers, such as Samuel S.

McClure, emphasized factual reporting but also aimed for a mixture of, "reliability and sparkle" to

interest a mass audience. In contrast with objective reporting, muckrakers saw themselves primarily

as reformers and were politically engaged. Journalists of the previous eras were not linked to a

single political, populist movement, whereas the muckrakers were associated with Progressive

reforms. Muckrakers continued some of the investigative exposures and sensational traditions of

yellow journalism, but instead wrote to change society.

Julius Chambers

Julius Chambers of the New York Tribune is considered by many to be the original muckraker.

Chambers undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum in 1872, having himself

committed with the help of some of his friends and his newspaper's city editor. His intent was to
obtain information about the alleged abuse of inmates. The publication of articles and accounts of

the experience in the Tribune led to the release of 12 patients who were not mentally ill, to a

reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution, and eventually, to a change in the

lunacy laws. This later led to the publication of Chambers's book A Mad World and Its Inhabitants

(1876). From this point onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak about the rights of the

mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care, and treatment.

Jacob Riis

Journalists began to respond to the excesses of the Gilded Age toward the end of the period. One of

the most notable was Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849–May 26, 1914). Riis was a Danish-American

social reformer, muckraker, and social documentary photographer. He is well known for using his

photographic and journalistic passion to bring attention and aid to New York City's impoverished

citizens; they would became the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography. His most

famous work, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890)

documented squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for

future muckraking journalism by exposing New York City’s upper and middle classes to the slums.

This work inspired many reforms of working-class housing immediately after publication, and it has

continued to have a lasting impact in today's society. With the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller,

Riis endorsed the implementation of "model tenements" in New York. While living there, Riis's

personal experience with poverty led him to become a police reporter, writing about the quality of life

in the slums.

Ida B. Wells

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862–March 25, 1931) was an African-American journalist,

newspaper editor, and (along with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett) an early
leader in the civil-rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, exposing it as a

means of controlling and/or punishing blacks who dared compete with whites. She was active in the

women's rights and women's suffrage movements, establishing several notable women's

organizations. Wells was a skilled, persuasive rhetorician who traveled internationally on lecture

tours.

The pamphlets Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases and A Red Record documented her

research on a lynching. Having examined many accounts of lynching based on the alleged, "rape of

white women," Wells concluded that Southerners concocted rape as an excuse to hide their real

motivation for lynchings: black economic progress, which threatened not only white Southerners'

pocketbooks, but also their ideas about black inferiority. She wrote an article that suggested that

despite the myth that white women were sexually at risk for attacks by black men, most liaisons

between black men and white women were consensual.

Key Takeaways
Early Efforts in Urban Reform

● The Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory burned in March 1911, resulting in a horrible loss of
life.
● The casualties of the fire were caused in large part by unsafe working conditions, and the
prominence of the fire led to many reform laws.
● The fire and its aftermath spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union.

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each one by clicking the + sign and title.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the

history of New York City and resulted in the fourth-highest loss of life from an industrial accident in
U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke

inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian

immigrant women aged 16 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was

Providenza Panno at 43, and the youngest were Kate Leone and "Sara" Rosaria Maltese at 14.

Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits—a common practice at the

time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks—many of the workers who could not escape the

burning building jumped to the streets below from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The fire led to

legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the

International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for

sweatshop workers.

Impact and Legacy of the Fire

The company's owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, who survived the fire by fleeing to the

building's roof when the fire began, were indicted on charges of first- and second-degree

manslaughter in mid-April; the pair's trial began on December 4, 1911. The jury acquitted the two

men of first- and second-degree manslaughter, but they were found liable of wrongful death during a

subsequent 1913 civil suit in which plaintiffs were awarded compensation in the amount of $75 per

deceased victim. The insurance company paid Blanck and Harris about $60,000 more than the

reported losses, or about $400 per casualty.

In New York City, a Committee on Public Safety was formed, headed by noted social worker

Frances Perkins, to identify specific problems and lobby for new legislation, such as the bill to grant

workers shorter hours in a work week, known as the "54-Hour Bill." The New York State Legislature

then created the Factory Investigating Commission to, "investigate factory conditions in this and

other cities and to report remedial measures of legislation to prevent hazard or loss of life among
employees through fire, unsanitary conditions, and occupational diseases." Their findings led to 38

new laws regulating labor in New York State, and gave the commission members a reputation as

leading progressive reformers working on behalf of the working class.

International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was once one of the largest labor

unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and

a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s.

The ILGWU experienced a sudden upsurge in membership as the result of two successful mass

strikes in New York City. The first, in 1909, was known as the "Uprising of the 20,000” and lasted 14

weeks. It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist

Factory, involving only about 20 percent of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of

the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was

happening. The news of the strike spread quickly to all of the New York garment workers. At a series

of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms

about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions

she and other women worked under. She demanded an end to talk and called for a strike of the

entire industry. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out

during the next two days.

The union also became more involved in electoral politics, in part as a result of the Triangle

Shirtwaist Factory fire. The fire had various effects on the community. It further radicalized some; at

the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, Rose Schneiderman

addressed an audience largely made up of the well-heeled members of the Women's Trade Union

League (WTUL) and said the following:

I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried
you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and
its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today;
the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close
to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute
they catch on fire... I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been
spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way
they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

Key Takeaways
The Settlement House Movement

● The main objective of the movement was the establishment of " settlement houses " in poor
urban areas, where volunteer middle-class " settlement workers " would live.
● Volunteer settlement workers moved into houses in hopes of sharing knowledge and culture
with, and alleviating the poverty of, their lower-income neighbors.
● By 1913, there were 413 settlements in 32 states.
● The most famous settlement house in America was Chicago's Hull House, founded by the
social reformer Jane Addams.

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Settlement Houses

The Settlement House movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and

peaked around the 1920s in England and the United States. Its objective was to get the rich and

poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. It established

"settlement houses" in poor urban areas, where volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" would

live in hopes of sharing knowledge and culture with, and alleviating the poverty, of their low-income

neighbors. By 1913, there were 413 settlements in 32 states.

The movement started in London in the mid-nineteenth century. Settlement houses often offered

food, shelter, and basic and higher education that was provided by virtue of charity on the part of

wealthy donors, the residents of the city, and (for education) scholars who volunteered their time.

Victorian England, increasingly concerned with poverty, gave rise to the movement whereby those

connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people.

Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, founded in 1894; Henry Street Settlement, founded in 1893; and

University Settlement House, founded in 1886 (and the oldest in the United States) were important

sites for social reform. United Neighborhood Houses of New York was the federation of 35

settlement houses in New York City. These and other settlement houses inspired the establishment

of settlement schools to serve isolated rural communities in Appalachia. The settlement-house

concept was continued by Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker hospitality houses in the 1930s.

Hull House

The most famous settlement house in the United States is Chicago's Hull House, founded in 1889 by

Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr after they had visited Toynbee Hall in 1888. Located in the Near

West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House opened its doors to recently arrived European immigrants.

By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912, the Hull House complex was completed

with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club. With its innovative social,

educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that

had grown, by 1920, to nearly 500 settlement houses nationally.

The Hull mansion and several subsequent acquisitions were continuously renovated to

accommodate the changing demands of the association. The original building and one additional

building, which has been moved 200 yards, survives today. Addams followed the example of

Toynbee Hall, which was founded in 1885 in the East End of London as a center for social reform.
She described Toynbee Hall as, "a community of university men who, while living there, held their

recreational clubs and social gatherings at the settlement house... among the poor people and in the

same style they would in their own circle."

Hull House became, at its inception in 1889, "a community of university women" whose main

purpose was to provide social and educational opportunities for working-class people, many of

whom were recent European immigrants living in the surrounding neighborhood. The "residents," as

volunteers at Hull were called, held classes in literature, history, art, domestic activities (such as

sewing), and many other subjects. Hull House also held concerts that were free to everyone, offered

free lectures on current issues, and operated clubs for both children and adults.

Hull House conducted careful studies of the community of Near West Side, Chicago, which became

known as "The Hull House Neighborhood." These studies enabled the Hull House residents to

confront the establishment, and to eventually partner with them in the design and implementation of

programs intended to improve opportunities for the large immigrant population.

Jane Addams

A founder of Hull House, Jane Addams (September 6, 1860–May 21, 1935), along with being a

pioneer American settlement activist/reformer, was also a social worker, public philosopher,

sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. In the Progressive Era, when

presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers

and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers. She helped America address

and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, local public

health, and world peace. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their

communities and making them better places to live, they needed to be able to vote to do so

effectively. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their
communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American Pragmatist school

of philosophy.

The Progressive Era - Part 3

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Key Takeaways
Toward a Welfare State

● Welfare programs in the United States began to grow and expand to new arenas during the
early twentieth century.
● Maternalist reforms in the United States were laws providing for state assistance for mothers
with young children who did not have the financial support of a male member of the
household.
● These reforms arose from the belief that government has an obligation and an interest in
protecting and improving the living standards of women and children.
● The Children's Bureau, established by William Howard Taft, was the first national
government office in the world to focus on issues concerning mothers and children.
● The Sherwood Act awarded pensions to all veterans.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

History of Welfare in the United States

Colonial legislatures and later state governments adopted legislation patterned after the English

"poor" laws. Aid to veterans, free grants of land, and pensions for widows and handicapped

veterans, have been offered in all U.S. wars. Following World War I, provisions were made for a full-

scale system of hospital and medical-care benefits for veterans. By 1929, workers' compensation

laws were in effect in all but four states. These state laws made industry and businesses responsible

for compensating workers or their survivors when workers were injured or killed in connection with
their jobs. Retirement programs for mainly state and local governments date back to the nineteenth

century and paid teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All of these social programs were far from

universal and varied considerably from one state to another.

Prior to the Great Depression, the United States had social programs that mostly centered around

individual efforts, family efforts, church charities, business workers compensation, life insurance, and

sick leave programs, as well as on some state tax supported social programs. The misery and

poverty of the Great Depression threatened to overwhelm all of these programs. The severe

depression of the 1930s made federal action almost a necessity, as neither the states, local

communities, and businesses and industries, nor private charities had the financial resources to

cope with the growing need among the American people. Beginning in 1932, the federal government

first made loans, then grants, to states to pay for direct relief and work relief. After that, special

federal emergency relief such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and other public-works programs

were started. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration proposed to Congress

federal social-relief programs and a federally sponsored retirement program. Congress followed with

the passage of the 37-page Social Security Act, signed into law August 14, 1935, and "effective" by

1939—just as World War II began. This program was expanded several times over the years.

Maternalist Reforms

One unique trend in the history of welfare in the United States were maternalist reforms. Beginning

in the Progressive Era, experiments in public policy took the form of laws providing for state

assistance for mothers with young children who did not have the financial support of a male member

of the household. These laws provided financial reimbursements and set limits on the maximum

working hours for women. These reforms arose from the belief that government has an obligation

and interest in protecting and improving the living standards of women and children.
"Maternalism" is defined by some experts as a variety of ideologies that, "exalted women's

capacities to mothers and extended to society as a whole the values of care, nurturance, and

morality," and was intended to improve the quality of life of women and children. To improve the

conditions of women and children, these policies attempted to reconcile the conflicting roles placed

on women during this time period. As single mothers were responsible for both supporting their

families and raising children, government assistance would reduce the probability that they could be

charged with neglecting their "home duties."

The Children's Bureau was established by President William Howard Taft in 1912. It was the first

national government office in the world that focused solely on the well-being of children and their

mothers. The legislation creating the agency was signed into law on April 9, 1912. Taft appointed

Julia Lathrop as the first head of the bureau. Lathrop, a noted maternalist reformer, was the first

woman ever to head a government agency in the United States. In 1921, Lathrop stepped down as

director, and the noted child-labor reformer Grace Abbott was appointed to succeed her. The

Children's Bureau played a major role in the passage and administration of the Sheppard-Towner

Act, the first federal grants-in-aid act for state-level children's health programs.

The Sherwood Act of May 11, 1912, was the first important U.S. pension law in the twentieth

century. It awarded pensions to all veterans. Veterans of the Mexican-American War and Union

veterans of the Civil War could receive pensions automatically at age 62, regardless of disability.

Hi, I'm John Green. This is Crash Course U.S. History, and today we're going to talk about women in
the Progressive Era. My God, that is a fantastic hat. Wait, votes for women?! So between Teddy
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and all those doughboys headed off to war, women in this period
have sort of been footnoted. Shockingly. Mr Green, Mr Green! I'd never make a woman a footnote.
She'd be the center of my world, my rays-on de tray (raison d'être), my joy de vee vrah (joie de
vivre). Oh, me-from-the-past, I'm reminded of why you got a C plus in French III. Let me submit to
you, me-from-the-past, that your weird worship of women is a kind of misogyny, because you're
imagining women as these beautiful, fragile things that you can possess. It turns out that women are
not things; they are people, in precisely the same way that you are a person. And in the Progressive
Era, they demanded to be seen as full citizens of the United States. In short, women don't exist to be
your joie de vivre - they get to have their own joie de vivre. (Intro) So it's tempting to limit ourselves
to discussion of women getting the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment but if we
focus too much on the constitutional history, we're going to miss a lot. Economic and Political
Opportunities for Women Some historians refer to the thirty years between 1890 and 1920 as the
"Women's Era" because it was in that time that women started to have greater economic and
political opportunities. Women were also aided by legal changes like getting the right to own
property, control their wages and make contracts and wills. By 1900, almost 5 million women worked
for wages, mainly in domestic service or light manufacturing like the garment industry. Women in
America were always vital contributors to the economy as producers and consumers and they
always worked, whether for wages or taking care of children and the home. And as someone who is
recently returned from paternity leave, let me tell you - that ain't no joke. And American women were
also active as reformers since, like, America became a thing. And those reform movements brought
women into state and national politics before the dawn of the Progressive Era. Unfortunately, their
greatest achievement, Prohibition, was also our greatest national shame. Oh, yeah, alright, okay -
it's actually not in our top five national shames. But probably women's greatest influence indeed
came through their membership and leadership in the Women's Christian Temperance Union. The
WCTU was founded in 1874 and by 1890 it had 150 000 members making it the largest female
organization in the United States. Under the leadership of Frances Willard, the WCTU embraced a
broad reform agenda. Like it included pushing for the right for women to vote. The feeling was that
the best way to stop people from drinking was to pass local laws that made it harder to drink. And to
do that, it would be very helpful if women could vote because American men were a bunch of
alcoholic scoundrels who darn well weren't going to vote to get rid of beer hoses. In 1895, Willard
boldly declared, "A wider freedom is coming to the women of America. Too long has it been held that
woman has no right to enter these movements...politics is the place for woman." But the role of
women in politics did greatly expand during the Progressive Era. As in prior decades, many
reformers were middle and upper class women but the growing economy and the expansion of what
might be called the "upper-middle class" meant that there were more educational opportunities and
this growing group of college-educated women leaned in and became the leaders of new
movements. Sorry, there was no way I was going to get through this without one "lean in" - I love
that book. Role as Primary Consumers So as we've talked about before, the 1890s saw the dawning
of the American mass consumer society and many of the new products made in the second wave of
industrialization were aimed at women, especially labor-saving devices like washing machines. If
you've ever had an infant, you might notice that they poop and barf on everything all the time. Like, I
recently called a pediatrician and I was like, "My 14-day-old daughter poops fifteen times a day," and
he was like, "If anything, that seems low." So the washing machine is a real game changer. And
many women realize that being the primary consumers who did the shopping for the home gave
them powerful leverage to bring about change. Chief among these was Florence Kelley, a college-
educated woman who, after participating in a number of progressive reform causes, came to head
the National Consumers League. The league sponsored boycotts and shaped consumption patterns,
encouraging consumers to buy products that were made without child, or what we would now call
sweatshop labor. Which, at the time, was often just known as labor. Women in the Workplace And
there was also a subtle shift in gender roles as more and more women worked outside the home.
African-American women continued to work primarily as domestic servants or in agriculture and
immigrant women mostly did low-paying factory labor. But for native-born white women, there were
new opportunities, especially in office work. And this points to how technology created opportunities
for women. Like, almost all the telephone operators in the U.S. were women. By 1920, office workers
and telephone operators made up 25% of the female workforce while domestic servants were only
15%. A union leader named Abraham Bisno remarked that working gave immigrant women a sense
of independence - "They acquired the right to personality, something alien to the highly patriarchal
family structures of the old country." Of course, this also meant that young women were often in
conflict with their parents as a job brought more freedom, money and, perhaps, if they were lucky, a
room of one's own. The Mystery Document Oh, it's time for the mystery document? Please let it be
Virginia Woolf, please let it be Virginia Woolf! The rules here are simple. I guess the author of the
mystery document, I'm either right or I get shocked. Alright, let's see what we got. The spirit of
personal independence in the women of today is sure proof that a change has come...the radical
change in the economic position of women is advancing upon us...the growing individualization of
democratic life brings inevitable changes to our daughters as well as to our sons...one of its most
noticeable features is the demand in women not only for their own money, but for their own work for
the sake of personal expression. Few girls today fail to manifest some signs of the desire for
individual expression... Ah, that's not Virginia Woolf. Stan, I'm going to be honest, I do not know the
answer to this one. However, it has been Woodrow Wilson for the last two weeks... you wouldn't do
that again to me, or would you? I'm going to guess Woodrow Wilson - final answer...Dang it!
Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the book Women and Economics, what? Ahh... [shouts]. The idea that
having a job is valuable just for the independence that it brings and as a form of individual
expression was pretty radical as most women, and especially most men, were not comfortable with
the idea that being a housewife was similar to being a servant to one's husband and children. But of
course that changes when staying at home becomes one of many choices rather than your only
available option. And then came birth control! Huzzah! Female Sexuality and the Introduction of Birth
Control Women who needed to work wanted a way to limit the number of pregnancies. Being
pregnant and having a baby can make it difficult to hold down a job and also, babies are diaper-
using stuff-breaking consumption machines. They basically eat money and we love them. But birth
control advocates like Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman also argued that women should be
able to enjoy sex without having children. To which men said, "Women can enjoy sex?" Believe it or
not, that was seen as a pretty radical idea and it led to changes in sexual behavior including more
overall skoodilypooping. Goldman was arrested more than 40 times for sharing these dangerous
ideas about female sexuality and birth control and she was eventually deported. Sanger, who
worked to educate working class women about birth control, was sentenced to prison in 1916 for
opening a clinic in Brooklyn that distributed contraceptive devices to poor immigrant women. The
fight over birth control is important for at least three reasons: first, it put women into the forefront of
debates about free speech in America. I mean, some of the most ardent advocates of birth control
were also associated with the IWW and the Socialist Party. Secondly, birth control is also a public
health issue and many women during the Progressive Era entered public life to bring about changes
related to public health, leading the crusade against tuberculosis, the so-called "White Plague", and
other diseases. Thirdly, it cut across class lines. Having or not having children is an issue for all
women regardless of whether they went to college and the birth control movement brought upper,
middle and lower class women together in ways that other social movements never did. The
Settlement House Movement Another group of progressive women took up the role of addressing
the problems of the poor and spearheaded the settlement house movement. The key figure here
was Jane Addams. My God, there are still Addams' in American history? Oh, she spells it "Addams
family" Addams, not like founding fathers Adams. Anyway, she started the Hull House in Chicago in
1889. Settlement houses became the incubators of the new field of social work, a field in which
women played a huge part. And Addams became one of America's most important spokespeople for
progressive ideas. Thought Bubble: Women's Suffrage Movement And yet, in many places, while all
of this was happening, women could not technically vote. But their increasing involvement in social
movements at the turn of the twentieth century led them to electoral politics. It's true that women
were voting before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 - voting is a state issue, and in
many western states, women were granted the right to vote in the late nineteenth century. States
could also grant women the right to run for office, which explains how the first congresswoman,
Jeanette Rankin, could vote against America's entry into World War I in 1917. That said, the
passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment is a big deal in American history. It's also a recent
deal. Like, when my grandmothers were born, women could not vote in much of the United States.
The amendment says that states cannot deny people the right to vote because they are women,
which isn't as interesting as the political organization and activity that led to its passage. Alright, let's
go to the Thought Bubble. The suffrage movement was extremely fragmented. There was a first
wave of suffrage, exemplified by the women at Seneca Falls, and this metamorphosed into the
National American Women's Suffrage Association, or NAWSA. Most of the leadership of NAWSA
was made up of middle to upper class women, often involved in other progressive causes, who
unfortunately sometimes represented the darker side of the suffrage movement because these
upper class progressives frequently used nativist arguments to make their claims for the right to
vote. They argued that if the vote could be granted to ignorant immigrants, some of whom could
barely speak English, then it should also be granted to native-born women. This isn't to say that the
elitist arguments won the day but they should be acknowledged. By the early twentieth century, a
new generation of college-educated activists had arrived on the scene and many of these women
were more radical than early suffrage supporters. They organized the National Women's Party and,
under the leadership of Alice Paul, pushed for the vote using aggressive tactics that many of the
early generation of women's right advocates found unseemly. Paul had been studying in Britain
between 1907 and 1910 where she saw the more militant women's rights activists at work. She
adopted their tactics that included protests, leading to imprisonment and loud denunciations of the
patriarchy that would make Tumblr proud. And during World War I, she compared Wilson to the
Kaiser and Paul and her followers chained themselves to the White House fence. The activists then
started a hunger strike during their 7 month prison sentence and had to be force-fed. Woodrow
Wilson had half-heartedly endorsed women's suffrage in 1916 but the war split the movement
further. Most suffrage organizations believed that wartime service would help women earn respect
and equal rights but other activists, like many progressives, opposed the war and regarded it as a
potential threat to social reform. But in the end the war did sort of end up helping the cause. Patriotic
support of the war by women, especially their service working in wartime industries, convinced many
that it was just wrong to deny them the right to vote. And the mistreatment of Alice Paul and other
women in prison for their cause created outrage that further pushed the Wilson administration to
support enfranchising women. Thanks, Thought Bubble. The 19th Amendment So women's long
fight to gain the right to vote ended with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 but in some
ways the final granting of the franchise was a bit anti-climactic. For one thing, it was overshadowed
by the 18th Amendment, Prohibition, which affected both women and men in large numbers (also
Gatsbys). You can say a lot of bad things about Prohibition, and I have, but the crusade against
alcohol did galvanize and politicize many women, and organizations such as the WCTU and the
Anti-Saloon League introduced yet more to political activism. But while the passage of the 19th
Amendment was a huge victory, Alice Paul and the National Women's Party were unable to muster
the same support for an equal rights amendment. Paul believed that women needed equal access to
education and employment opportunities. And here they came into contact with other women's
groups, especially the League of Women Voters and the Women's Trade Union League, which
opposed the ERA fearing that equal rights would mean an unravelling of hard-won benefits like
mother's pensions and laws limiting women's hours of labor. So the ERA failed and then another
proposed amendment that would have given Congress the power to limit child labor won ratification
in only 6 states. You go America! (Libertage) Conclusion So in many ways, the period between 1890
and 1920, which roughly corresponds to the Progressive Era, was the high tide of women's rights
and political activism. It culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment but the right to vote
didn't lead to significant legislation that actually improved the lives of women - at least, not for a
while. Nor were there immediate changes in the roles that were women were expected to play in the
social order as wives and mothers. Still, women were able to increase their autonomy and freedom
in the burgeoning consumer marketplace. But it's important to note that like other oppressed
populations in American history, women weren't given these rights, they had to fight for the rights
that were said to be inalienable. And we are all better off for their fight and for their victory. Women's
liberation is, to be sure, a complicated phrase and it will take a new turn in the Roaring '20s, which
we'll talk about next week. I'll see you then. Credits Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller, our script supervisor is Meredith Danko, the associate producer is Danica Johnson and the
show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer, Rosianna Rojas and myself, and our
graphics team is Thought Café. Every week there's a new caption to the Libertage, you can suggest
captions in comments where you can also ask questions about today's video that will be answered
by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course and, as we say in my hometown, don't
forget to be awesome. I'm gonna go this way Stan - just kidding!

On March 3, 1913,
protesters parted for the woman in white:
dressed in a flowing cape and sitting astride a white horse,
the activist Inez Milholland was hard to miss.
She was riding at the helm of the Women’s Suffrage Parade-
the first mass protest for a woman’s right to vote on a national scale.
After months of strategic planning and controversy,
thousands of women gathered in Washington D.C.
Here, they called for a constitutional amendment granting them the right to vote.
By 1913, women’s rights activists had been campaigning for decades.
As a disenfranchised group,
women had no voice in the laws that affected their– or anyone else’s– lives.
However, they were struggling to secure broader support for political equality.
They’d achieved no major victories since 1896,
when Utah and Idaho enfranchised women.
That brought the total number of states which recognized a women’s right to vote
to four.
A new, media-savvy spirit arrived in the form of Alice Paul.
She was inspired by the British suffragettes,
who went on hunger strikes and endured imprisonment in the early 1900s.
Rather than conduct costly campaigns on a state-by-state basis,
Paul sought the long-lasting impact of a constitutional amendment,
which would protect women’s voting rights nationwide.
As a member of the National American Women Suffrage Association,
Paul proposed a massive pageant to whip up support and rejuvenate the movement.
Washington authorities initially rejected her plan-
and then tried to relegate the march to side streets.
But Paul got those decisions overturned
and confirmed a parade for the day before the presidential inauguration
of Woodrow Wilson.
This would maximize media coverage
and grab the attention of the crowds who would be in town.
However, in planning the parade,
Paul mainly focused on appealing to white women from all backgrounds,
including those who were racist.
She actively discouraged African American activists
and organizations from participating-
and stated that those who did so should march in the back.
But black women would not be made invisible in a national movement
they helped shape.
On the day of the march,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
a ground-breaking investigative journalist and anti-lynching advocate,
refused to move to the back and proudly marched under the Illinois banner.
The co-founder of the NAACP, Mary Church Terrell,
joined the parade with the 22 founders of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,
an organization created by female students from Howard University.
In these ways and more,
black women persevered despite deep hostility
from white women in the movement,
and at great political and physical risk.
On the day of the parade,
suffragists assembled to create a powerful exhibition.
The surging sections of the procession included international suffragists,
artists, performers and business-owners.
Floats came in the form of golden chariots;
an enormous Liberty Bell; and a map of enfranchised countries.
On the steps of the Treasury Building,
performers acted out the historical achievements of women to a live orchestra.
The marchers carried on even as a mob blocked the route,
hurling insults and spitting at women,
tossing cigars, and physically assaulting participants.
The police did not intervene,
and in the end, over 100 women were hospitalized.
Their mistreatment, widely reported throughout the country,
catapulted the parade into the public eye—
and garnered suffragists greater sympathy.
National newspapers lambasted the police,
and Congressional hearings investigated their actions during the parade.
After the protest, the "Women’s Journal" declared,
“Washington has been disgraced. Equal suffrage has scored a great victory."
In this way,
the march initiated a surge of support for women’s voting rights
that endured in the coming years.
Suffragists kept up steady pressure on their representatives,
attended rallies, and petitioned the White House.
Inez Milholland, the woman on the white horse,
campaigned constantly throughout the United States,
despite suffering from chronic health problems.
She did not live to see her efforts come to fruition.
In 1916,
she collapsed while giving a suffrage speech and died soon after.
According to popular reports,
her last words were,
“Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?”
Though full voting inclusion would take decades,
in 1920, Congress ratified the 19th amendment,
finally granting women the right to vote.

16th Amendment- Income Tax

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 9, of the Constitution was modified by amendment 16.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,

without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

17th Amendment-Senators

Passed by Congress May 13, 1912. Ratified April 8, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 3, of the Constitution was modified by the 17th amendment.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the

people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall

have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
18th Amendment-Prohibition

Passed by Congress December 18, 1917. Ratified January 16, 1919. Repealed by amendment 21

Section 1.

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of

intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United

States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

(opens in a new tab)

Section 2.

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

(opens in a new tab)

Section 3.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the

Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven

years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

19th Amendment-Women's Right to Vote

Passed by Congress June 4, 1919. Ratified August 18, 1920.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States

or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

21st Amendment-Repeal Prohibition

Passed by Congress February 20, 1933. Ratified December 5, 1933.

Section 1.

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

The Politics of Progressivism - Part 1

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Key Takeaways
Democracy

● The Progressive Era saw reforms in U.S. citizens ' democratic representation.
● Many states created laws that allowed for direct voting on legislation, open primary elections,
and greater citizen influence on the political process.
● The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution established the direct election of U.S.
senators by popular vote.
● Robert M. La Follette Sr. was a Progressive politician who, as governor of Wisconsin and a
U.S. congressman, led many initiatives that expanded the democratic participation of
citizens.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Initiative, Referendum, and Recall

Progressives sought to enable the citizenry to rule more directly and circumvent political bosses.

Thanks to the efforts of Oregon Populist Party State Representative William S. U'Ren and his Direct

Legislation League, voters in Oregon overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 1902 that

created the initiative and referendum processes for citizens to directly introduce or approve
proposed laws or amendments to the state constitution, making Oregon the first state to adopt such

a system.

An initiative (also known as a "popular" or "citizens'" initiative) is a means by which a petition signed

by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote (plebiscite).

The initiative may take the form of a direct initiative or an indirect initiative. In a direct initiative, a

measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition. In an indirect initiative, a

measure is first referred to the legislature, and then put to a popular vote only if not enacted by the

legislature.

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal,

which is the result of a successful initiative. This may result in the adoption of a new law.

The vote may be on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment, or local

ordinance, or to simply oblige the executive or legislature to consider the subject by submitting it to

the order of the day. It is a form of direct democracy.

U'Ren also helped in the passage of an amendment in 1908 that gave voters power to recall elected

officials. A recall election (also called a "recall referendum" or "representative recall") is a procedure

by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her

term has ended. Recalls are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition.

U'Ren would also go on to establish, at the state level, popular election of U.S. senators and the first

presidential primary in the United States.

In 1911, California governor Hiram Johnson established the Oregon system of "Initiative,

Referendum, and Recall" in his state, viewing them as good influences for citizen participation
against the historic influence of large corporations on state lawmakers. These Progressive reforms

were soon replicated in other states, including in Idaho, Washington, and Wisconsin, and today,

roughly half of the states have initiative, referendum, and recall provisions in their state constitutions.

Direct Election of Senators

About 16 states began using primary elections to reduce the power of bosses and machines. The

Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, requiring that all senators be elected by the people

(instead of by state legislatures). The main motivation was to reduce the power of political bosses

who controlled the Senate seats by virtue of their control of state legislatures. The result, according

to political scientist Henry Ford Jones, was that the U.S. Senate had become a, "Diet of party lords,

wielding their power without scruple or restraint, in behalf of those particular interests" that put them

in office.

Reformers worked toward a constitutional amendment, which was strongly supported in the House

of Representatives but initially opposed by the Senate. Bybee notes that the state legislatures, which

would lose power if the reforms went through, were supportive of the campaign. By 1910, 31 state

legislatures had passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment allowing direct election,

and in the same year, 10 Republican senators who were opposed to reform were forced out of their

seats, acting as a, "wake-up call to the Senate."

Reformers included William Jennings Bryan. Bryan and the reformers argued for popular election by

highlighting perceived flaws with the existing system, specifically corruption and electoral deadlocks,

and by arousing populist sentiment. Most important was the Populist argument: that there was a

need to, "Awaken, in the senators... a more acute sense of responsibility to the people." Election

through state legislatures was seen as an anachronism that was out of step with the wishes of the

American people, and one that had led to the Senate becoming, "a sort of aristocratic body—too far
removed from the people, beyond their reach, and with no special interest in their welfare." The

settlement of the West and continuing absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants expanded

the sense of "the people."

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925) was an American Republican (and later a

Progressive) politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the

governor of Wisconsin, and was a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1906 to 1925. He ran for

president of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in 1924, carrying

Wisconsin and winning 17 percent of the national popular vote. La Follette has been called,

"arguably the most important and recognized leader of the opposition to the growing dominance of

corporations over the Government," and is one of the key figures pointed to in Wisconsin's long

history of political liberalism. He is best remembered as a proponent of Progressivism and a vocal

opponent of railroad trusts, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations.

As governor of Wisconsin, La Follette championed numerous Progressive reforms, including the first

workers' compensation system, railroad rate reform, direct legislation, municipal home rule, open

government, the minimum wage, non-partisan elections, the open primary system, direct election of

U.S. Senators, women's suffrage, and Progressive taxation. He created an atmosphere of close

cooperation between the state government and the University of Wisconsin in the development of

Progressive policy, which became known as the "Wisconsin Idea." The goals of his policy included

establishing the recall, referendum, direct primary, and initiative. All of these were aimed at giving

citizens a more direct role in government.

The Wisconsin Idea promoted the idea of grounding legislation in thorough research and expert

involvement. To implement this program, La Follette began working with University of Wisconsin–
Madison faculty. This made Wisconsin a, "laboratory for democracy" and, "the most important state

for the development of Progressive legislation." As governor, La Follette signed legislation that

created the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library (now Bureau) to ensure that a research agency

would be available for the development of legislation.

Key Takeaways
Efficiency

● Progressives believed that applying scientific principles allowed for governments to institute
bureaucracies that could analyze data and then distribute materials to its constituents based
on that data.
● One example of Progressive reform was the rise of the city-manager system, in which paid,
professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines
established by elected city councils.
● Influences on this form of governing included " scientific management " developed by
Frederick Winslow Taylor and Fordism, modeled on the factory system of Henry Ford and
Ford Motors.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

Many Progressives such as Louis Brandeis hoped to make American governments better able to

serve the people's needs by making governmental operations and services more efficient and

rational. Rather than making legal arguments against 10-hour workdays for women, he used

"scientific principles" and data produced by social scientists documenting the high costs of long

working hours for both individuals and society.

The Progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with their quest for democracy. Taking

power out of the hands of elected officials, and placing it in the hands of professional administrators

reduced the voice of the politicians, and in turn reduced the voice of the people. Centralized

decision-making by trained experts and reduced power for local wards made government less
corrupt but more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the

need for efficiency typically argued that trained independent experts could make better decisions

than local politicians. Thus, Walter Lippmann in his influential Drift and Mastery (1914), which

stressed the "scientific spirit" the "discipline of democracy," called for a strong central government

guided by experts rather than by public opinion.

Examples

One example of Progressive reform was the rise of the city-manager system, in which paid,

professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established

by elected city councils. Many cities created municipal "reference bureaus," which did expert surveys

of government departments looking for waste and inefficiency. After in-depth surveys, local and even

state governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to eliminate overlapping

areas of authority among departments. City governments were reorganized to reduce the power of

local ward bosses, and to increase the powers of the city council. Governments at every level began

developing budgets to help them plan their expenditures (rather than spending money haphazardly

as needs arose and revenue became available). Governor Frank Lowden of Illinois showed a,

"passion for efficiency" as he streamlined state government.

This system is part of the council-manager style of government. Under the council–manager form of

government for municipalities, the elected governing body (commonly called a "city council," "city

commission," "board of aldermen," or "board of selectmen") is responsible for the legislative function

of the municipality such as establishing policy, passing local ordinances, determining voting

appropriations, and developing an overall vision. County and other types of local government follow

the same pattern, with governing body members receiving a title that matches the title of the body.
The legislative body, which is voted into office by public elections, appoints a professional manager

to oversee the administrative operations, implement its policies, and advise it. The position of

“mayor” present in this type of legislative body is a largely ceremonial title, and may be selected by

the council from among its members or elected as an at-large council member with no executive

functions.

Corruption also represented a source of waste and inefficiency in government. William U'Ren in

Oregon and Robert M. La Follette in Wisconsin, as well as others, worked to clean up state and local

governments by passing laws to weaken the power of machine politicians and political bosses. The

Oregon System, which included a "Corrupt Practices Act," a public referendum, and a state-funded

voter's pamphlet among other reforms, was exported to other states in the Northwest and Midwest.

Its high point was in 1912, after which they detoured into a disastrous third-party status.

Influences

A major influence on this efficient style of governing was the "Scientific Management" movement.

The focus of this movement was to run organizations in an objective, scientific fashion to maximize

efficiency, among other things. Scientific management, also called "Taylorism," was a theory of

management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic

efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the

engineering of processes and to management. Its development began with Frederick Winslow

Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence occurred in

the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era of competition and syncretism

with opposing or complementary ideas.

Another system of efficiency during the Progressive Era was Fordism, "the eponymous

manufacturing system designed to spew out standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers
decent enough wages to buy them." It has also been described as, "a model of economic expansion

and technological progress based on mass production: the manufacture of standardized products in

huge volumes using special purpose machinery and unskilled labor." Although Fordism was a

method used to improve productivity in the automotive industry, the principle could be applied to any

kind of manufacturing process. Henry Ford and his senior managers did not use the word "Fordism"

themselves to describe their motivations or worldview; however, many contemporaries framed their

worldview as an "ism" and applied that name to it. Fordism's major success stemmed from the

following three principles:

1. The standardization of the product (nothing is handmade: everything is made through

machines and molds by unskilled workers)
2. The employment of assembly lines, which use special-purpose tools and/or equipment to
allow unskilled workers to contribute to the finished product
3. The payment of higher "living" wages to workers, so they can afford to purchase the products
they make

These principles, coupled with a technological revolution during Henry Ford's time, allowed for this

form of labor to flourish. It is true that his assembly line was revolutionary, but it was in no way

original. His most original contribution to the modern world was breaking down complex tasks into

simpler ones with the help of specialized tools. Simpler tasks created interchangeable parts that

could be used the same way every time. This allowed for flexibility and created a very adaptable

assembly line that could change its constituent components to meet the needs of the product being

assembled.

Key Takeaways
Regulation

● Progressive reformers successfully lobbied for restrictions on immigration, limits on corporate

monopolies, and laws ensuring pure or safe food and drugs, among other goals.
● Regulations were passed in every aspect of society during the Progressive Era. Most
notably, big businesses—especially the oil and railroad industries—were regulated.
 ● The Sherman Act of 1890 attempted to outlaw the restriction of competition by large
companies that cooperated with rivals to fix outputs, prices, and market shares, initially
through pools and later through trusts.
● President Theodore Roosevelt sued 45 companies under the Sherman Act; William Howard
Taft sued 75.
● American hostility toward big business began to decrease after the Progressive Era.
● Progressives also sought labor reforms to protect workers, and passed laws that restricted
child labor, established an eight-hour workday, and improved safety and health conditions in
factories.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Progressive Reform

By the turn of the century, a middle class had developed that was leery of both the business elite

and the radical political movements of farmers and laborers in the Midwest and West. The

Progressives argued for the need for government regulation of business practices to ensure

competition and free enterprise. Congress enacted a law regulating railroads in 1887 (the Interstate

Commerce Act), and one preventing large firms from controlling a single industry in 1890 (the

Sherman Antitrust Act ). These laws were not rigorously enforced, however, until the years between

1900 and 1920, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), Democratic

President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and others sympathetic to the views of the Progressives

came to power. Many of today's U.S. regulatory agencies, including the Interstate Commerce

Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, were created during these years

Many Progressives hoped that by regulating large corporations, they could liberate human energies

from the restrictions imposed by industrial capitalism. Pro-labor Progressives, such as Samuel

Gompers, argued that industrial monopolies were unnatural economic institutions that suppressed

the competition that was necessary for progress and improvement. United States antitrust law is the

body of laws that prohibits anticompetitive behavior (monopolies) and unfair business practices.

Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft supported trust-busting.

Progressives, such as Benjamin Parke De Witt, argued that in a modern economy, large

corporations, and even monopolies, were both inevitable and desirable. With their massive

resources and economies of scale, large corporations offered the United States advantages that

smaller companies could not offer. Yet, these large corporations might abuse their great power. The

federal government should allow these companies to exist but should regulate them for the public

interest. President Theodore Roosevelt generally supported this idea.

Sherman Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act is a landmark federal statute in the history of U.S. antitrust law passed by

Congress in 1890. Passed under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison, the act prohibits certain

business activities that federal government regulators deem to be anti-competitive, and requires the

federal government to investigate and pursue trusts.

In the general sense, a trust is a centuries-old form of a contract in which one party entrusts its

property to a second party. These are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children,

for example. "Trust" in relation to the Sherman Act refers to a type of contract that combines several

large businesses for monopolistic purposes (to exert complete control over a market), though the act

addresses monopolistic practices even if they have nothing to do with this specific legal

arrangement.

The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. "Innocent

monopoly," or monopoly achieved solely by merit, is perfectly legal, but acts by a monopolist to

artificially preserve that status, or nefarious dealings to create a monopoly, are not. The purpose of

the Sherman Act is not to protect competitors from harm from legitimately successful businesses,

nor to prevent businesses from gaining honest profits from consumers, but rather to preserve a

competitive marketplace to protect consumers from abuses.

Trust-busting

Public officials during the Progressive Era put passing and enforcing strong antitrust policies high on

their agenda. President Theodore Roosevelt sued 45 companies under the Sherman Act, and

William Howard Taft sued 75. In 1902, Roosevelt stopped the formation of the Northern Securities

Company, which threatened to monopolize transportation in the Northwest (see Northern Securities

Co. v. United States).

One of the most well-known trusts was the Standard Oil Company; John D. Rockefeller in the 1870s

and 1880s had used economic threats against competitors and secret rebate deals with railroads to

build a monopoly in the oil business, though some minor competitors remained in business. In 1911,

the Supreme Court agreed that in recent years (1900–1904) Standard had violated the Sherman

Act. It broke the monopoly into three dozen separate competing companies, including Standard Oil

of New Jersey (later known as Exxon and now ExxonMobil), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco),

Standard Oil Company of New York (Mobil, which later merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil), and

so on. In approving the breakup, the Supreme Court added the "rule of reason." Not all big

companies, and not all monopolies, are evil; and the courts (not the executive branch) are to make

that decision. To be harmful, a trust had to somehow damage the economic environment of its

competitors.

Labor Reform

Progressives also enacted laws that regulated businesses to protect workers.

Child-labor laws were designed to prevent the overworking of children in the newly emerging

industries. The goal of these laws was to give working-class children the opportunity to go to school

and to mature more naturally, thereby liberating the potential and encouraging the advancement of

humanity.
After 1907, the American Federation of Labor, under Samuel Gompers, moved to demand legal

reforms that would support labor unions. Most of the support came from Democrats, but Theodore

Roosevelt and his third party, the Bull Moose Party, also supported such goals as the eight-hour

workday, improved safety and health conditions in factories, workers' compensation laws, and

minimum-wage laws for women.

In the years between 1889 and 1920, railroad use in the United States expanded sixfold. With this

expansion, the dangers to the railroad worker increased. Congress passed the Federal Employers

Liability Act ( FELA ) in response to the high number of railroad deaths in the late nineteenth century

and early twentieth century. Under FELA, railroad workers who are not covered by regular workers'

compensation laws are able to sue companies over their injury claims. FELA allows monetary

payouts for pain and suffering, decided by juries based on comparative negligence rather than

pursuant to a predetermined benefits schedule under workers' compensation.

The United States Employees' Compensation Act is a federal law enacted on September 7, 1916.

Sponsored by Senator John W. Kern (D) of Indiana and Representative Daniel J. McGillicuddy (D) of

Maine, the act established the distribution of compensation to federal civil service employees for

wages lost due to job-related injuries. This act became the precedent for disability insurance across

the country and the precursor to broad-coverage health insurance.

The Politics of Progressivism - Part 2

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Key Takeaways
The Prohibition Movement
 ● Prohibition was promoted by the "dry" crusaders, a movement led by rural Protestants and
social Progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties, and was coordinated by the
Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Prohibition was
instituted with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on
January 16, 1919. It prohibited the, "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating
liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States."
● Congress passed the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, to enforce the law, but most large
cities were uninterested in enforcing the legislation, which left an understaffed federal service
to go after bootleggers.
● The sale of alcohol was illegal, but alcoholic drinks were still widely available.
● Prohibition was repealed during the Depression in order to collect taxes on liquor sales.
● Many deem Prohibition a failure, although it has an important legacy in the United States and
reflected changing social attitudes.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Prohibition

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation,

transportation, or sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. It was

promoted by the "dry" crusaders, a movement led by rural Protestants and social Progressives in the

Democratic and Republican parties, and was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League, and the

Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was the first mass organization among women

devoted to social reform with a program that, "linked the religious and the secular through concerted

and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." The purpose of the WCTU was to

further the temperance movement and to create a, "sober and pure world" through abstinence,

purity, and evangelical Christianity.

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard, who became the national president of the World Woman's

Christian Temperance Union in 1879, and remained president for 19 years, was an American

educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the
passage of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the U.S.

Constitution.

Photograph of three men dumping a barrel full of alcohol down a manhole as a number of men

(including three officers) look on.

Dumping liquor: Disposal of liquor during Prohibition.

Prohibition was mandated under the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Volstead

Act set the rules for enforcing the ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were

prohibited. For example, religious uses of wine were allowed. Private ownership and consumption of

alcohol were not made illegal under federal law; however, in many areas, local laws were stricter,

with some states banning possession outright.

Although alcohol consumption did decline as a whole, there was a rise in alcohol consumption in

many cities along with significant increases in organized crime related to its production and

distribution. The sale of alcohol was illegal, but alcoholic drinks were still widely available. People

also kept private bars to serve their guests. Large quantities of alcohol were smuggled in from

Canada overland, by sea along both ocean coasts, and via the Great Lakes. The government

cracked down on alcohol consumption on land within the United States. It was a different story on

the water, where vessels outside of the three-mile limit were exempt. Legal and illegal home brewing

was popular during Prohibition. "Malt and hop" stores popped up across the country and some

former breweries turned to selling malt extract syrup, ostensibly for baking and "beverage" purposes.

Repeal

Economic urgency played no small part in accelerating the advocacy for repeal. The number of

conservatives who pushed for prohibition in the beginning decreased. Many farmers who fought for

prohibition now fought for repeal because of the negative effects it had on the agriculture business.
Prior to the 1920 implementation of the Volstead Act, approximately 14 percent of federal, state, and

local tax revenues were derived from alcohol commerce. When the Great Depression hit and tax

revenues plunged, the governments needed this revenue stream. Millions could be made by taxing

beer. There was controversy about whether the repeal should be a state or nationwide decision. On

March 22, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, known as

the "Cullen-Harrison Act," allowing the manufacture and sale of 3.2 percent beer and light wines.

The Volstead Act previously defined an intoxicating beverage as one with greater than 0.5 percent

alcohol. Upon signing the Cullen-Harrison Act, Roosevelt made his famous remark: "I think this

would be a good time for a beer."

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the Twenty-

first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Legacy

Prohibition marked one of the last stages of the Progressive Era. During the nineteenth century,

alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addiction, and a variety of other social ills and abuses led to

activism targeted at curing the perceived problems in society. Among other things, this led many

communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to introduce alcohol prohibition, with

the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called

"drys," presented the ban as a victory for public morals and health. Anti-prohibitionists, known as

"wets," criticized the alcohol ban as an intrusion of mainly rural Protestant ideals on a central aspect

of urban, immigrant, and Catholic life.

Although popular opinion is that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol

consumption in half during the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels until

the 1940s, suggesting that Prohibition did socialize a significant proportion of the population in
temperate habits, at least temporarily. Some researchers contend that its political failure is

attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. A persistent

criticism is that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of urban crime

organizations and a century of Prohibition-influenced legislation. As an experiment, it lost supporters

every year, and lost tax revenue that governments needed when the Great Depression began in

1929.

Woman's Suffrage
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Key Takeaways
Women's Activism

Important activists in the women's movement included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Victoria Woodhull, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Margaret Sanger,
and Lucy Burns.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, led by Frances Willard, advocated prohibition against
alcohol.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's National Woman Suffrage Association and Lucy
Stone's American Woman Suffrage Association advocated a woman's right to vote.
Feminists also fought for women's rights within marriage, health care, higher education, and the
workplace.
Feminists began to organize women's clubs that focused on both political and social issues of the
day.
Sojourner Truth was a freed slave who worked for abolition, women's rights, and prison reform.
"Mother" Jones was a prominent labor and community organizer who helped coordinate major
strikes and cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World.
Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

First-Wave Feminism
"First-wave feminism" refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States. It focused on
remedying legal inequalities, and especially on gaining women's suffrage.

Prominent leaders of the first-wave feminist movement in the United States include Lucretia Coffin
Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, "Mother" Jones, and Susan B. Anthony.
Anthony and other activists, such as Victoria Woodhull and Matilda Joslyn Gage, made attempts to
cast votes prior to their legal entitlement to do so and faced charges as a result.
Gage, of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), embodied the radicalism of much
second-wave feminism. Some activists belonged to conservative Christian groups (for example,
Frances Willard belonged to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union). The majority of first-wave
feminists were more moderate and conservative than radical or revolutionary. The members of the
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), for example, were willing to work within the political
system, and they chose to unite with sympathetic men in power to promote the cause of suffrage.

The limited membership of the NWSA was narrowly focused on gaining a federal amendment for
women's suffrage, whereas the AWSA, with 10 times as many members, worked to gain suffrage on
a state-by-state level as a necessary precursor to federal suffrage. The NWSA had broad goals,
hoping to achieve a more equal social role for women, but the AWSA was aware of the divisive
nature of many of those goals and instead chose to focus solely on suffrage. The NWSA was known
for having more publicly aggressive tactics (such as picketing and hunger strikes), whereas the
AWSA used more traditional strategies such as lobbying, delivering speeches, applying political
pressure, and gathering signatures for petitions.

The first wave of feminists, in contrast to the second wave, focused very little on the subjects of
abortion, birth control, and overall reproductive rights of women. Though she never married, Susan
B. Anthony published her views about marriage, holding that a woman should be allowed to refuse
sex with her husband. The American woman had no legal recourse at that time against rape by her
husband.

In 1860, New York passed a revised Married Women's Property Act that gave women shared
ownership of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills and wages, and
granting them the right to inherit property. Further advances and setbacks were experienced in New
York and other states, but feminists were able to use each new win as motivation for applying more
leverage on unyielding legislative bodies. The end of the first wave is often linked with the passage
of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920), which granted women the right to
vote. This was the major victory of the movement, which also had achieved reforms in higher
education, the workplace and professions, and health care.

Many white women excluded black women from their organizations and denied them the right to
participate in events because they feared that the racist attitudes of Southern voters would impede
their support of the women's movement.

Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (born Isabella ["Bell"] Baumfree; ca. 1797–November 26, 1883) was an African-
American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster
County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to
recover her son, in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

She gave herself the name "Sojourner Truth" in 1843. Her best-known speech was delivered
extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech
became widely known during the Civil War by the title "Ain't I a Woman?", which was a
bastardization of the original speech, rewritten by someone else using a stereotypical Southern
dialect. Sojourner Truth, in fact, was from New York and had grown up speaking Dutch as her first
language. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army. After the war,
Truth tried to secure land grants from the federal government for former enslaved people, a project
she pursued for seven years without success. While in Washington, D.C., she had a meeting with
President Ulysses S. Grant in the White House. In 1872, she returned to Battle Creek and tried to
vote in the presidential election, but was turned away at the polling place.

Truth spoke about abolition, women's rights, and prison reform, and preached against capital
punishment to the Michigan legislature. Not everyone welcomed her lectures, but she had many
friends and staunch support among many influential people at the time, including Amy Post, Parker
Pillsbury, Frances Gage, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Laura Smith Haviland, Lucretia
Mott, Ellen G. White, and Susan B. Anthony.

Mother Jones
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was an American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a
prominent labor and community organizer. She helped coordinate major strikes and cofounded the
Industrial Workers of the World.

After her husband and four children all died of yellow fever and her workshop was destroyed in a fire
in 1871, she began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers
(UMW) union. She was a very effective speaker, punctuating her speeches with stories, audience
participation, humor, and dramatic stunts. From 1897 onward, she was known as "Mother" Jones,
and in 1902, she was called, "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing
mine workers and their families against the mine owners.

She joined the nascent labor movement and the Knights of Labor (a predecessor to the Industrial
Workers of the World), an organization that was later dissolved after members were accused of
anarchism after the Haymarket Affair. "Mother" Jones became largely affiliated with the UMW. With
the UMW, she frequently led strikers in picketing and encouraged the striking workers to stay on
strike when the management brought in strike-breakers and militias.

"Mother" Jones was ideologically separated from many of the other female activists in the days prior
to the Nineteenth Amendment due to her aversion to female suffrage. She emphasized that, "You
don't need the vote to raise hell!" Her opposition to women taking an active role in politics was based
on her belief that the neglect of motherhood was a primary cause of juvenile delinquency.

Key Takeaways
The Campaign for Suffrage

The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader
movement for women's rights.
The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869, after the formation of two
competing organizations, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by
Lucy Stone.
Several organizations opposed women's suffrage because they thought that granting women the
right to vote would mean women would have greater control over social issues. Men worried that
women would "close the saloons" with their votes.
By 1919, the women's suffrage movement saw its greatest success: Women were granted the right
to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background
Women's suffrage in the United States was established over the course of several decades, first in
various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920.

The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader
movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights
convention, passed a resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its
organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women's Rights
Convention in 1850, however, gaining suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of
the movement's activities.

The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869, after the formation of two
competing organizations, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by
Lucy Stone. After years of rivalry, the organizations merged in 1890 as the National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force.

Hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that women had a constitutional right to vote, suffragists
made several attempts to vote in the early 1870s and then filed lawsuits when they were turned
away. Anthony actually succeeded in voting in 1872 but was arrested for that act and found guilty in
a widely publicized trial that gave the movement fresh momentum. After the Supreme Court ruled
against them in 1875, suffragists began the decades-long campaign for an amendment to the U.S.
Constitution that would enfranchise women. Much of the movement's energy, however, went toward
working for suffrage on a state-by-state basis.

The reform campaigns of the Progressive Era strengthened the suffrage movement. Beginning
around 1900, this broad movement began at the grassroots level with such goals as combating
corruption in government, eliminating child labor, and protecting workers and consumers. Many of its
participants saw women's suffrage as yet another Progressive goal, and they believed that the
addition of women to the electorate would help their movement achieve its other goals. In 1912, the
Progressive Party, formed by Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed women's suffrage. The burgeoning
Socialist movement also aided the drive for women's suffrage in some areas.

In 1916, Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a militant group focused on the
passage of a national suffrage amendment. More than 200 NWP supporters, known as the "Silent
Sentinels," were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House. Some of the protestors went on a
hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie
Chapman Catt, the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top
priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the
Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. It states, "The
right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of sex."

Opposition
Brewers and distillers, typically rooted in the German -American community, opposed women's
suffrage, fearing that women voters would favor the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. German
Lutherans and German Catholics typically opposed prohibition and women's suffrage; they favored
paternalistic families in which the husband decided the family position on public affairs. Their
opposition to women's suffrage was subsequently used as an argument in favor of suffrage when
German Americans became pariahs during World War I.

Some other businesses, such as Southern cotton mills, opposed suffrage because they feared that
women voters would support the drive to eliminate child labor. Political machines, such as Tammany
Hall in New York City, opposed it because they feared that the addition of female voters would dilute
the control they had established over groups of male voters.

Anti-suffrage forces, initially called the "remonstrants," organized as early as 1870 when the
Women's Anti-Suffrage Association of Washington was formed. Widely known as the "antis," they
eventually created organizations in some 20 states. In 1911, the National Association Opposed to
Woman Suffrage was created. It claimed 350,000 members and opposed women's suffrage,
feminism, and socialism. It argued that woman suffrage, "would reduce the special protections and
routes of influence available to women, destroy the family, and increase the number of socialist-
leaning voters."

Middle- and upper-class anti-suffrage women were conservatives with several motivations. Society
women in particular had personal access to powerful politicians, and were reluctant to surrender that
advantage. Most often the "antis" believed that politics was dirty and that women's involvement
would surrender the moral high ground that women had claimed, and that partisanship would disrupt
local club work for civic betterment, as represented by the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
The best-organized movement was the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
(NYSAOWS).

Key Takeaways
The New Feminism

First-wave feminism concerned itself with obtaining equal rights for women, especially the right to
vote. Women's suffrage was granted by the Nineteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1920.
With suffrage secured, feminists focused their work on other issues, such as reproductive rights and
contraception.
Women in the early twentieth century had limited access to contraception and family planning
information, which were illegal under anti-obscenity laws.
Nurse Margaret Sanger was a major figure in the contraception movement and freely distributed her
pamphlet about family planning. She went into exile to escape arrest for her pamphlet.
Sanger opened the Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn, New York, in order to legally prescribe birth
control to New York women. A provision in the New York laws stated that birth control could be
prescribed to prevent disease.
Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background
The nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century feminist activity that worked for the abolition of
gender double standards and sought to win women's suffrage, female education rights, and better
working conditions is known as "first-wave feminism." The term "first-wave" was coined
retrospectively when the term "second-wave feminism" was used to describe a newer feminist
movement that fought social and cultural inequalities beyond basic political inequalities.

Feminists did not recognize separate waves of feminism until the second wave was so named by
journalist Martha Lear, according to Jennifer Baumgardner. Baumgardner, a writer, activist,
filmmaker, and lecturer, discusses criticism of the division of feminism into waves and the difficulty of
associating some feminists with specific waves. She argues that the main critics of a wave are likely
to be members of the previous wave who remain vital, and that waves are coming faster. The
"waves debate" has influenced how historians and other scholars have established the chronologies
of women's political activism. Despite the controversy over labeling these interconnected
movements, it is clear that after women's suffrage was secured, feminists continued to fight for
equality that included a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights,
de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. One especially important movement of the time
concerned birth control and was led in large part by Margaret Sanger.

Birth Control
For many feminists, legalizing contraception became a central issue in the campaign for equal social
and political rights. In the nineteenth century, contraception often was under attack from various
religious groups (loosely known as the "purity movement"), which were composed primarily of
Protestant moral reformers and middle-class women. This Victorian-era anti-contraception campaign
attacked birth control as an immoral practice that promoted prostitution and venereal disease.
Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector and leader in the purity movement, successfully lobbied for
the passage of the 1873 Comstock Act, a federal law prohibiting the mailing of, "any article or thing
designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion," as well as any form
of contraceptive information. Many states also passed similar laws (collectively known as the
Comstock laws), that extended the federal law by outlawing the use of contraceptives as well as
their distribution. In response, contraception went underground. Drugstores continued to sell
condoms as "rubber goods" and cervical caps as "womb supporters."

At the turn of the century, an energetic movement arose that sought to overturn anti-obscenity laws
and the Comstock Acts. Centered in Greenwich Village, this movement was largely composed of
radicals, feminists, anarchists, and atheists such as Ezra Heywood, Moses Harman, D.M. Bennett,
Emma Goldman, and Margaret Sanger. In 1913, Sanger worked in New York's Lower East Side,
often with poor women who were suffering severe medical problems due to frequent childbirth and
self-induced abortions.
Under the influence of Goldman and the Free Speech League, Sanger became determined to
challenge the Comstock Acts that outlawed the dissemination of contraceptive information. In 1914,
she launched "The Woman Rebel," an eight-page monthly newsletter that promoted contraception
using the slogan, "No Gods, No Masters," and proclaimed that each woman should be, "the absolute
mistress of her own body." Sanger coined the term "birth control," which first appeared in her
newsletter. Sanger's goal of challenging the law was fulfilled when she was indicted in August, 1914,
but the prosecution focused their attention on articles Sanger had written about marriage, rather than
those about contraception. Afraid that she might be sent to prison without an opportunity to argue for
birth control in court, Sanger fled to England to escape arrest. While Sanger was in Europe, her
husband continued her work, which led to his arrest after he distributed a copy of a birth-control
pamphlet to an undercover postal worker.

New York state law prohibited the distribution of contraceptives or even contraceptive information,
but Sanger hoped to exploit a provision in the law that permitted doctors to prescribe contraceptives
for the prevention of disease. On October 16, 1916, she opened the Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn. It
was an immediate success, with more than 100 women visiting on the first day. A few days after the
clinic's opening, an undercover policewoman purchased a cervical cap at the clinic, and Sanger was
arrested. Refusing to walk, Sanger and a coworker were dragged out of the clinic by police officers.
The clinic was shut down, and no other birth-control clinics were opened in the United States until
the 1920s. However, the publicity from Sanger's trial generated immense enthusiasm for the cause,
and by the end of 1917, there were more than 30 birth-control organizations in the United States.

In the aftermath of Sanger's trial, the birth-control movement began to grow from its radical, working-
class roots into a campaign backed by society women and liberal professionals. Sanger and her
fellow advocates began to deliberately tone down their radical rhetoric and instead emphasized the
socioeconomic benefits of birth control, a policy that led to increasing acceptance by mainstream
Americans. Media coverage increased, and several silent motion pictures produced in the 1910s
featured birth control as a theme (including Birth Control, produced by and starring Sanger).

The birth-control movement received an unexpected political boost during World War I, as hundreds
of U.S. soldiers were diagnosed with syphilis or gonorrhea while overseas. The military undertook an
extensive education campaign, focusing on abstinence, but also offering some contraceptive
guidance. Previously, the military did not distribute condoms, or even endorse their use, making the
United States the only military force in World War I that did not supply condoms to its troops. When
U.S. soldiers were in Europe, they found rubber condoms readily available, and when they returned
to America, they continued to use condoms as their preferred method of birth control. The military's
anti-venereal-disease campaign marked a major turning point for the movement: It was the first time
a government institution had engaged in a sustained, public discussion of sexual matters. The
government's public discourse changed sex into a legitimate topic of scientific research, and it
transformed contraception from an issue of morals to an issue of public health.

Progressive Reformers
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Click on each of the names of these progressive reformers to learn their historical significance.
Focus specifically on their involvement and/or contribution to the progressive era, what reforms
and/or events they were known for and whether they were successful in establishing those reforms.
Who do you feel you would have been cheering for or joining in their cause. Are there reformers you
disagree with?

Booker T Washington

African American teacher and education reformer who opened the Tuskegee Institute to educate

African Americans in agriculture and other fields.

Quote:

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Florence Kelly

Labor reformer who worked against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays,

and children's rights. She dedicated her life to social reform.

George Washington Carver

African American agriculture scientist and inventor who is most noted for his work with the peanut.

He is also the first African American to have a national monument dedicated to him.

Ida Tarbell

A muckraker who took on the Standard Oil Company as a writer for McClure magazine. She

pioneered investigative reporting and exposed the unfair practices of the oil company.
Jane Addams

She was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Hull House, a

community house to help immigrants and the poor with urban burdens. She also worked as a child

labor and family law reformer.

Lincoln Steffens

Investigate reporter/muckraker who wrote the book titled Shame of the Cities exposing corruption in

business and government.

Robert Lafollette

Sojourner Truth

An African American suffragette and abolitionist leader most known for her speech, "Ain't I a woman"

at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

Susan B Anthony

A suffragette who worked for equality of the sexes, races and education and was key in passing the

19th amendment. She was also the first woman to be pictured on a coin.

Upton Sinclair

Muckraker and author of "The Jungle" exposing the horror of the Chicago meat packing industry.

W.E.B. de Bois
Civil Rights activitist and the co-founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People).

William Jennings Bryan

Leader in the Populist party and, a great speaker and ran for president, unsuccessfully, three times.

William Howard Taft was large but he wasn't as in charge as some Republicans wanted. Taft came
from a well-known Ohio family. He was a good lawyer and respected judge. When America took
control of the Philippines Taft did a great job as the governor and when he came home he was
Teddy Roosevelt's Secretary of War.

Taft had never run for office but Roosevelt figured Big Bill was the guy to carry on his progressive
agenda. He won easily in 1908 and Taft did some progressive things. He supported the
constitutional amendment allowing income taxes, he tried to lower the high tariffs that corporations
loved, he kept on filing antitrust lawsuits and he secured more power for the executive branch to
regulate the economy. He even beefed up American influence in Latin America by promoting trade.
But it wasn't enough to make Teddy's supporters happy and the Republican Party split in two.

Taft didn't try to influence public opinion the way TR did. Instead of forcing issues through politics
and executive orders he always preferred to work through the legal system. Taft loved the law and
he thought Roosevelt had gone too far.

Progressives' label tapped a sellout Roosevelt ran against his former buddy in 1912 and with
Republicans divided both men lost to the relatively unknown Woodrow Wilson.

In the end, Taft got the job he always wanted; he became the first former president to be appointed
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

In the early 20th century, industrialization was transforming America top-to-bottom. The progressive
movement attempted to deal with these problems. Progressives thought citizens should have more
input into government. They thought government could protect and stabilize society with scientific
precision and their superstar was Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt and Taft were
progressive presidents, but Wilson beat both of them in the 1912 election and took things to the next
level.

Wilson, a former political science professor, made sure he was in charge of his party and not just the
White House. Carefully managing the democratic conference, he enacted a stunning series of laws.
He reduced tariffs, established the Federal Reserve banking system and expanded regulation of big
businesses. His second term, he tried to transform the world.
When the U.S. entered World War One, Wilson said the United States had the duty to make the
world safe for democracy. That moralistic message transformed foreign policy. During peace
negotiations, he tried to create a League of Nations to prevent future wars. But by 1919, people were
tired of change. Republicans were back in control of congress and they kept the U.S. from joining
the league. Wilson, meanwhile, had a stroke and could barely function. He changed the presidency,
but the stress nearly killed [Link], I'm John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and today we're
going to finish our discussion of progressivism and indulge in a bit of Great Man history. Mr. Green,
Mr. Green! Great Man history, huh? Well, I was born on a sunny summer morning in 197- Yeah,
you're not that great me from the past. Also, you're a boy not a man, and the only historically
significant thing you ever participated in was a brilliant senior prank that wasn't even your idea.
However, 39 of our 43 presidents were at least arguably great men and today we'll be talking about
3 of them. It will be kind of like a Jefferson versus Hamilton for the 20th century--except not like that
at all. But there will be a canal and two people get shot! [Intro] Nationalism So as we saw in Crash
Course World History, national governments were on the rise from the middle of the 19th century
until, basically, now. And in the U.S., corporations became national and then by the 20th century,
international, like the British East India Company was kind of an international corporation, but it
wasn't the same as Coca Cola, although they did both deal in narcotics! And this mania for
nationalization even affected sports, like in baseball the "National" League and the "American"
League were formed and in the 1903 they played the first inaccurately named "World Series." I'm
sorry, was Botswana invited? Then it's not a World series. Anyway, the rise of a strong national
government was seen as an alternative to peoples' lives being controlled by provincial city and state
governments or by ever growing corporations. Like Herbert Croly, editor of the New Republic,
thought that to achieve the Jeffersonian, democratic, self-determination, ideal of individual freedom,
the country needed to employ Hamiltonian government intervention in the economy, and he wasn't
the only one who believed that. Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism OK, so in 1901, 42 year old
Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest American president ever after William McKinley was
assassinated by Leon Czolgosz. [John struggles with pronunciation.] His name was Leon
Chuckles?.. Man, Leon Chuckles was a real barrel of laughs for an anarchist; usually they're very
serious. Right, so Leon Chuckles paved the way for Teddy Roosevelt, who in many ways was the
model of the 20th century president. He was very engaged in both domestic and foreign policy, and
he set the political agenda for the whole country. His political program, the Square Deal, aimed to
distinguish good corporations--that provided useful products and services at fair prices--from evil
corporations--that existed just to make money. That is hilarious, a corporation that doesn't exist just
to make money! That's fantastic, Teddy. Everybody knows that corporations are just inherently
greedy people, but they are people. Roosevelt felt it was the federal governments responsibility to
regulate the economy directly and to break up power of wealthy corporations. And he used the
Sherman Act to prosecute bad trusts, such as the Northern Securities Company which was a holding
company created by J.P. Morgan that directed three major railroads and monopolized transport. And
that did not make J.P. Morgan a happy bunny. Thank you for that, Stan, that-that's wonderful.
Shockingly, the legislative and executive branches managed to work together and Congress passed
some actual legislation, including the Hepburn Act of 1906 which gave the Interstate Commerce
Commission the power to regulate railroad rates and examine their company books. And Roosevelt
was also a conservationist. He wanted to preserve the environment from economic exploitation,
probably so that there would be plenty of animals for him to hunt with his big stick, while he walked
softly. Having appointed noted progressive Gifford Pinchot, head of the Forest Service, millions of
acres were set aside for new, highly managed, national parks reflecting the progressive idea that
experts could manage the world. William Howard Taft and Trustbusting But then in 1908, Teddy
Roosevelt decided to go elephant hunting instead of running for re-election and he picked William
Howard Taft to be his successor. But the man who became our largest president massively
disappointed Roosevelt. When I say our largest, by the way, I don't mean our greatest, I mean our
largest. Taft was a pretty hardcore trust-buster who ordered the prosecution that broke up Standard
Oil in 1911, but he didn't see big business as bad, unless the corporation stifled competition. He also
supported the 16th amendment allowing congress to pass an income tax, and that paved the way for
the 18th amendment, Prohibition, because with an income tax the federal government didn't have to
rely on liquor excise taxes. So why didn't Roosevelt like Taft? Well, not only was Taft more
conservative than most Progressives, he also fired Pinchot in 1910 and Roosevelt was so frustrated
with Taft that he actually challenged the incumbent President for the Republican nomination in 1912.
Which Roosevelt lost, but he didn't let it drop. He founded his own progressive party, called the "Bull
Moose Party" so that he could run again. So the election of 1912 featured four candidates: Taft,
Teddy Roosevelt for the Bull Moose Party, Eugene Debs for the Socialist Party, and Democrat
Woodrow Wilson. It's worth noting that in contemporary American political discourse, all four of these
people would have been seen as somewhere between crazy Liberals and actual Communists.
Election of 1912 So, Eugene Debs--from right here in my home state of Indiana--did not support the
Socialist Party's goal of abolishing capitalism, but he ran on a platform that included public
ownership of railroads and banks and laws limiting work hours. And, running on the Socialist ticket,
Debs won 6% of the vote which was, to quote another President, "not bad." But the election of 1912
turned out to be a contest between Wilson and Roosevelt's competing views over the dangers of
increasing government power and economic concentration. Wilson claimed "Freedom today is
something more than being let alone. the program of government must in these days be positive, not
negative merely." That's just not good grammar, sir. His program, called New Freedom, was
supposed to reinvigorate democracy by restoring market competition and preventing big business
from dominating government. It included stronger antitrust laws and policies to encourage small
businesses. Roosevelt's answer to New Freedom was a program he called New Nationalism,
because of course, in election years, all things are new. Roosevelt recognized the inevitability of big
business and hoped to use government intervention to stop its abuses. New Nationalism included
heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and greater federal regulation of industry. So the
Bull Moose Party platform was in some ways a vision of a modern welfare state, it called for
women's suffrage, federal regulation, national labor and health legislation for women and children, 8
hour days and living wage for all workers, national systems of social insurance for health,
unemployment and old age, what are we Canada?! God, I wish we were Canada. You weren't
recording that, were you Stan? Roosevelt thought his party's platform was one of the most important
documents in the history of mankind and Americans agreed, they supported him and elected him in
a landslide - oh, wait, no they didn't. Instead, he lost, and also, a guy shot him at one of his
campaign stops. That's shooting number two, Roosevelt however survived and even went on to
make the speech after being shot. What happened in the election is that Taft and Roosevelt split the
Republican vote, leaving Woodrow Wilson president with a mere 42% of the popular vote, giving us
our only democratic president between 1896 and 1932. Mystery Document Oh, it's time for the
Mystery Document? The rules here are simple. I guess the author of the Mystery Document, if I'm
wrong I get shocked by the shock pen, which many of you insist is fictional, but I promise, it's not.
"The two things we are fighting against, namely, excessive tariffs and almost universal monopoly,
are the very things that these two branches of the Republican party both decline to combat. (...)
They intend to accept these evils, and stagger along under the burden of excessive tariffs and
intolerable monopolies as best they can through administrative commissions. I say, therefore, that it
is inconceivable that the people of the United States, whose instinct is against special privilege and
whose deepest convictions are against monopoly, should turn to either of these parties for relief
when these parries do not so much as pretend to offer them relief." Alright, it's definitely about the
1912 election, talks about the Republican party being split into two parts so it's by a democrat or a
socialist but probably a democrat judging from the Mystery Document itself... You always make it
hard, Stan, so it's not going to be Woodrow Wilson because that would be obvious but I do not know
the names of any other prominent democrats so I am going to guess Woodrow Wilson. Yes?!?! Get
in!! Woodrow Wilson and New Freedom So with its stirring anti-tariff, anti-monopoly, do not pass go,
do not collect 200 dollars stance, New Freedom won out, and because the democrats also controlled
Congress, Wilson was able to implement this program. The Underwood Tariff reduced import duties
and after the ratification of the 16th Amendment, Congress imposed a graduated income tax on the
richest 5% of Americans. Other legislation included the Clayton Act of 1914, which exempted unions
from anti-trust laws and made it easier for them to strike, the Keating-Owen Act, which outlawed
child labor in manufacturing and the Adamson Act, which mandated an eight hour work day for
railroad workers. If Wilson's New Freedom sounds a lot like Roosevelt's New Nationalism that's
because they ended up being pretty similar. Wilson engaged in less trust busting than expected and
more regulation of the economy. Wilson didn't institute a national system of health and
unemployment insurance, but he did expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to
investigate and prohibit unfair monopolistic practices. He also supported the founding of the Federal
Reserve System in 1913, which gave the government much more control over banks in response to
the Panic of 1907, where the U.S. had to be bailed out by J. P. Morgan. Fear not, big banks, the
government will bail you out in due time. Progressivism Internationally So under Roosevelt and
Wilson and, to a lesser extent, Taft, Progressivism flourished domestically. But it also became an
international phenomenon, as Presidents expanded national government power outside the
country's border, mostly in the Western Hemisphere. Like, between 1901 and 1920, U.S. marines
landed in Caribbean countries over 20 times, usually to create a more friendly environment for
American businesses, but sometimes just to hang out on the beach. And this points to an interesting
contradiction. Progressive presidents were very concerned about big business as a threat to
freedom in the United States, but in Latin America and the Caribbean, they weren't that concerned
about freedom at all. Teddy Roosevelt especially was much more active in international diplomacy
than his predecessors. He was the first president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for instance, for
helping to negotiate the Treaty of Port Smith that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. You may
be familiar with his motto, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," which essentially meant the U.S. will
intervene in Latin America whenever we want. And probably the most famous such intervention was
the building of the Panama Canal. It featured feats of engineering and succeeding where the French
had failed. Stan, these are my favorite things! Let's go to the Thought Bubble. Thought Bubble:
Panama Canal The way we got the 10-mile wide canal zone wasn't so awesome. In 1903, Panama
was part of Columbia, but the U.S. encouraged Philippe Bunau-Varilla to lead an uprising. Banau-
Varilla, a representative of the Panama Canal company was so grateful after the U.S. sent gunboat
to ensure that the Columbian army couldn't stop him, that he signed a treaty, giving the U.S. the right
to build and operate the canal, and sovereignty over newly independent Panama's canal zone, which
we gave up in 2000 after enjoying nearly 100 years of sovereignty thanks to Jimmy Carter's stupid
altruism. Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 statement
that the U.S. would defend independent Latin American states from European intervention. Now,
according to Roosevelt, we would wield our big stick like a policeman waving around a night stick
exercising an international police power over the western hemisphere. In practice, this meant using
American troops to ensure that Latin American countries were stable enough for Americans to invest
there, like in 1904 we seized the customs house in the Dominican Republic to make sure that they
paid their debts to investors, then by executive agreement, American banks got control of the D.R.'s
finances. Roosevelt also encouraged investment by the United Fruit Company in Honduras and
Costa Rica, helping to turn those nations into banana republics. No, not the store Thought Bubble,
yes. Taft on the other hand, maybe because of his experiences as governor of the Philippines, was
less eager to wave Americas big stick. He emphasized loans and economic investment as the best
way to spread American influence as a policy that came to be known as Dollar Diplomacy. Ultimately
Dollar Diplomacy was probably more effective, but it seemed weak to many people, in contrast to
Roosevelt's strategy of "Send all the troops right now!!! Wilson and Isolationism Thanks Thought
Bubble, I wore my Banana Republic shirt just for this occasion! So we've discussed Roosevelt and
Taft's foreign policy, let's move on to Wilson, who was of course an isolationist. No, Woodrow
Wilson, okay. Woodrow Wilson was not a volleyball, he was the son of a Presbyterian minister, a
former American history professor, and once had been governor of New Jersey. So he understood
moral indecency. Wilson thought the best way to teach other countries about the greatness of
America was to export colossal amounts of American products, like in 1916, he instructed a group of
businessmen "Sell goods that will make the world more comfortable and happy and convert them to
the principles of America. In short, Woodrow Wilson believed correctly that the essence of
democracy is the freedom to choose among hundreds of brightly colored breakfast cereals. Still,
Wilson intervened in Latin America more than any other U.S. president, and his greatest moral
triumph was in Mexico, where he wanted to teach the Mexicans quote "to elect good men." To do
this, Wilson sent troops to stop weapons from flowing to the military dictator Victoriano Huerta, but
the Americans who landed in Vera Cruz were not welcomed with open arms and 100 Mexicans and
19 Americans were killed. And then in 1916 having learned his lesson, just kidding, Wilson sent
10,000 troops into Northern Mexico to chase after revolutionary bandit Pancho Villa. Villa had killed
17 Americans in New Mexico and everyone knows that the proper response to criminal act is to send
10,000 troops into a foreign country. Pershing's expedition was a smashing success fortunately, uh,
except that he actually did not capture Pancho Villa... But all of that was a prelude to Wilson's
leading America to our first international moral crusade, our involvement in the great war. Conclusion
So this period of American history is important because Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson oversaw the
expansion of the power of the Federal government both at home and abroad; and in doing so, they
became the first modern American presidents. I mean these days we might talk about small
government and large government but really, we're always talking about large government.
Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson recognized that the national government was going to have to deal with
big business and that it would have to get big to do that, and also that it had a role to play in
ensuring that Americans would retain some freedom in this new industrial era. And they also built
Neo-Imperialistic foreign policy around the idea that the safer the world was for American business,
the better it was for Americans. as our old friend Eric Foner wrote, "the presidents who spoke the
most about freedom were likely to intervene most frequently in the affairs of other countries."
Sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. We'll see an extreme and ambiguous case of that next
week when we look at America in World War I. Thanks for watching, I'll see you then. Crash Course
is produced and directed by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Meredith Danko, the associate
producer is Danica Johnson, our show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer,
Rosianna Rojas, and myself, and our graphics team, is Thought Cafe. Every week there's a new
caption for the libertage, if you would like to suggest one you can do so in comments, where you can
also ask questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for
watching Crash Course, and as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.

Roosevelt's Progressivism - Part 1

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Key Takeaways
Roosevelt's Progressivism

● Theodore Roosevelt strived to reconcile labor and business through Progressive legislation.
● The Progressive movement encompassed these reconciliations as well as improvements in
other realms of society. It also sought to encourage the scientific approach to problem-
solving.
● Roosevelt's "Square Deal" exemplified his approach to domestic reform and focused on
conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and protection of consumers.
Antitrust became a tenant of Roosevelt's, and under his administration, more than 40 suits
were brought against companies that used illegal methods to form monopolies.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Roosevelt's Presidency

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and

reformer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of

the Republican Party, he became a driving force during the Progressive Era in the early twentieth

century.

Following the assassination of President McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt, at age 42,

succeeded to the office, becoming the youngest U.S. president in history. Leading his party and

country into the Progressive Era, he championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, promising the
average citizen fairness, the breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs.

Making conservation a top priority, he established a myriad of new national parks, forests, and

monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on

Central America, where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He greatly expanded the U.S.

Navy, and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project the United States' naval power

around the globe. His successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel

Peace Prize.

Elected in 1904 to a full term, Roosevelt continued to promote Progressive policies, but many of his

efforts and much of his legislative agenda were eventually blocked in Congress. Roosevelt

successfully groomed his close friend, William Howard Taft, to succeed him in the presidency. After

leaving office, Roosevelt went on safari in Africa and toured Europe. Returning to the United States,

he became frustrated with Taft's approach as his successor. He tried but failed to win the

presidential nomination in 1912. Roosevelt founded his own Progressive party, the Bull Moose Party,

and called for wide-ranging Progressive reforms. The split among Republicans enabled the

Democrats to win both the White House and a majority in Congress in 1912.

Roosevelt and Progressivism

Roosevelt pushed several pieces of domestic legislation through Congress that embodied the

Progressive reform movement. Progressivism was a powerful political and social force by the turn of

the century, and many Americans considered Roosevelt as the leader of the Progressive movement.

To most contemporaries, Progressivism meant the use of science, engineering, technology, and the

new social sciences to promote modernization and identify solutions to political corruption and

inefficiency. Roosevelt, trained as a biologist, identified himself and his programs with this scientific

approach to targeting and eliminating social and political ills.

Progressives such as Roosevelt also bitterly attacked what they perceived as elitist, powerful, and

dangerous political machines and large corporations called "trusts," which were considered unfair

and illegal business ventures designed to quash natural market competition and production. While

president, Roosevelt targeted these trusts, particularly the railroad monopolies, by increasing the

regulatory power of the federal government through the Elkins Act (1903) and the Hepburn Act

(1906). The Hepburn Act of 1906 gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to set

maximum railroad rates and auditing power over the railroads' financial records, a task simplified by

standardized booking systems. Through the Hepburn Act, the ICC's authority was extended to cover

bridges, terminals, ferries, sleeping cars, express companies, and oil pipelines.

Under Roosevelt's leadership, the attorney general brought 44 suits against business monopolies

(most notably against J.P. Morgan's Northern Securities Company and J.D. Rockefeller's Standard

Oil Company). These suits were largely successful: Standard Oil was dispersed into 30 smaller

companies that eventually competed with one another. Furthermore, to raise the visibility of labor

and management issues, Roosevelt established a new federal Department of Commerce and Labor.

Roosevelt's successful campaign against corporate monopolies earned him the nickname "Trust

Buster."

Key Takeaways
Expanding Federal Power

● Roosevelt felt that his power came directly from the people, which authorized him to use his
executive power to its fullest extent.
● Roosevelt's attitude toward executive power expanded the executive branch considerably.
● Some scholars consider Roosevelt's actions inspiration for the central authority-driven
legislation of the New Deal.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Roosevelt's Legacy
Perhaps one of the most remarkable characteristics of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency was his

conviction that the president, by virtue of his election by the nation, was the representative figure of

the American people, as opposed to Congress. Accordingly, Roosevelt believed that he could act in

any manner that benefitted the needs of the nation, unless specifically and explicitly prohibited by

the Constitution. In his own words, Roosevelt claimed, "I did not usurp power, but I did greatly

broaden the use of executive power."

With his "big stick diplomacy" efforts in Latin America, as well as his efforts to expand the regulatory

power of the federal government in domestic matters, Roosevelt set a new precedent for his

twentieth-century political successors. Some of Roosevelt's most noteworthy legislative

achievements—such as the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Hepburn Act, the Elkins Act, and his

conservation laws—embody this concept of the executive branch as an expansive source of

regulatory powers for the "good" of the nation. As some scholars have considered, Roosevelt's

domestic policies, taken together, paved the way for the 1930s New Deal legislation as well as for

the modern regulatory state and centralized national authority with expansive political power.

Despite Roosevelt's widespread popularity, many contemporaries resented his policies as

encroachments on state power and local authority and accused him of concentrating all real political

authority in Washington and replacing municipal and state structures with bureaucratic commissions

and departments. Roosevelt, on the other hand, as a Progressive, remained committed to a belief in

political efficiency and elimination of unnecessary waste and structures. To that end, by

concentrating power in the executive and broadening the scope of federal regulatory power,

Roosevelt was arguably attempting to create a modernized, Progressive United States that

functioned seamlessly and in the better interests of the nation as a whole, rather than for local

political authorities and wealthy interests.

Key Takeaways
The Square Deal

● The Square Deal was based on three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control
of corporations, and consumer protection.
● The Square Deal sought to protect both business and labor, and to ease the radical voice in
both and reach a compromise.
● Roosevelt sought to break up large monopolies and did so aggressively, gaining him the
name " Trust Buster." His Elkins Act made it illegal for railroads to give rebates to favored
companies.
● Another industry that was monitored under this period was the food industry. Mislabeled and
tainted food came under scrutiny and was reported in order to protect the health of
consumers.
● Roosevelt was a staunch conservationist and used the federal government to protect natural
land across the nation.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand
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Background

The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program. He explained it in the

following way in 1910:

When I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the
present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more
substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.

His policies reflected three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations,

and consumer protection. These three demands often are referred to as the "three Cs" of

Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, the deal aimed at helping middle-class citizens and involved

attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most

extreme demands of organized labor. A Progressive Republican, Roosevelt believed in government

action to mitigate social evils, and as president, he denounced in 1908, "the representatives of

predatory wealth” as guilty of, "all forms of iniquity from the oppression of wage workers to unfair and

unwholesome methods of crushing competition, and to defrauding the public by stock-jobbing and
the manipulation of securities." Trusts and monopolies became the primary target of Square Deal

legislation.

Control of Corporations

Trusts increasingly became a central issue, as many feared that large corporations would impose

monopolistic prices to defraud consumers and drive small, independent companies out. By 1904,

318 trusts including those in railroads, local transit, and the banking industry controlled two-fifths of

the nation's industrial output.

One of Roosevelt's first notable acts as president was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress

asking it to curb the power of large corporations. Despite speaking in support of organized labor (to

the further chagrin of big business), he endorsed the gold standard, protective tariffs, and lower

taxes (much to the delight of big business). For his aggressive use of U.S. antitrust law, he became

known as the "Trust Buster." He brought 40 antitrust suits, and broke up major companies, such as

the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company.

During both of his terms, Roosevelt tried to extend the Square Deal by pushing the federal courts

and Congress to yield to the wishes of the executive branch on all subsequent antitrust suits. An

example of this was the Elkins Act, which stated that railroads were no longer allowed to give

rebates to favored companies. These rebates had treated small Midwestern farmers unfairly by not

allowing them equal access to the services of the railroad. Instead, the Interstate Commerce

Commission would control the prices that railroads could charge.

The Hepburn Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to set maximum railroad rates

and to stop the practice of giving out free passes to friends of the railway interests. In addition, the

Interstate Commerce Commission could examine the railroads' financial records, a task simplified by

standardized booking systems. For any railroad that resisted, the Interstate Commerce
Commission's conditions would be in effect until a legal decision of a court was issued. Through the

Hepburn Act, the Interstate Commerce Commission's authority was extended to bridges, terminals,

ferries, sleeping cars, express companies, and oil pipelines.

1902 Coal Strike

In May 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After

threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Roosevelt won their agreement to

an arbitration of the dispute by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike, dropping coal

prices, and retiring furnaces; the accord with J.P. Morgan resulted in the workers getting more pay

for fewer hours, but with no union recognition.

Organized labor celebrated the outcome as a victory for the United Mine Workers of America

(UMWA) and the American Federation of Labor unions generally. Membership in other unions

soared, as moderates argued that they could produce concrete benefits for workers much sooner

than could radical Socialists who planned to overthrow capitalism through revolutionary violence.

Furthermore, the outcome of the strike was a success for Roosevelt, who argued that the federal

government could successfully intervene in conflicts between labor and capital. Journalist Ray Baker

quoted Roosevelt concerning his policy toward capitalists and laborers: "My action on labor should

always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my

favorite formula—a square deal for every man." The settlement was an important step in the

Progressive Era reforms of the decade that followed.

Consumer Protection

Roosevelt responded to public anger over the abuses in the food-packing industry by pushing

Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Meat
Inspection Act of 1906 banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful

chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned impure or falsely labeled food and drugs from being

made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School

Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909, he convened the first White House Conference

on the Care of Dependent Children. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection

Act of 1906 were both widely accredited to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which revealed the horrific

and unsanitary processes of meat production.

Conservation Efforts

Roosevelt was a prominent conservationist, putting the issue high on the national agenda. He

worked with all of the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter,

Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources, and is considered

to be the nation's first conservation president. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of

1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres

under federal protection. Roosevelt set aside more federal land, national parks, and nature

preserves than all of his predecessors combined.

Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five national

parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National

Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves, and 150 national

forests, including Shoshone National Forest, the nation's first. The area of the United States that he

placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres.

Roosevelt's Progressivism - Part 2

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Key Takeaways

The Big Stick

● The concept of big-stick diplomacy is derived from Theodore Roosevelt's memorable quote:

"Speak softly, and carry a big stick."

● Big-stick diplomacy was a major component of Roosevelt's international relations policy. The

theory is that leaders should strive for peace while also keeping other nations aware of their

military power.

● Roosevelt displayed his policy during the Venezuela Crisis when he amended the Monroe

Doctrine to read that the United States would get involved with the affairs of its Latin

American neighbors if they defaulted on their debt to Europe.

● Big-stick diplomacy also was applied to the Panama Canal crisis and the Cuba question; the

United States set a list of rules and standards to which it would hold Cuba instead of

annexing it.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand

each one by clicking the + sign and title.

Background

The term "big-stick diplomacy" refers to President Theodore Roosevelt's corollary to the Monroe

Doctrine, and is taken from his famous quote, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Roosevelt

attributed the phrase to a West African proverb, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick; you will go far,"
but the claim that it originated in West Africa has been disputed. Essentially, big-stick diplomacy is

the idea of negotiating peacefully with other nations while simultaneously threatening them with

displays of military muscle. Roosevelt first used the phrase in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair

on September 2, 1901, 12 days before the assassination of President William McKinley, which

subsequently thrust him into the presidency. As president, Roosevelt described his style of foreign

policy as, "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of

any likely crisis."

The Roosevelt Corollary

The Roosevelt Corollary is an addition to the Monroe Doctrine that was articulated by President

Roosevelt in his State of the Union address in 1904. The corollary states that the United States will

intervene in conflicts between European nations and Latin American countries to enforce legitimate

claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly.

Roosevelt tied his policy to the Monroe Doctrine, and it was also consistent with his foreign policy

included in his big-stick diplomacy. Roosevelt stated that in keeping with the Monroe Doctrine, the

United States was justified in exercising, "international police power" to put an end to chronic unrest

or wrongdoing in the Western Hemisphere. While the Monroe Doctrine had sought to prevent

European intervention, the Roosevelt Corollary was used to justify U.S. intervention throughout the

hemisphere.

Background: The Venezuelan Affair

In late 1902, Britain, Germany, and Italy implemented a several-month-long naval blockade against

Venezuela because of the Venezuelan president's refusal to pay foreign debts and damages

suffered by European citizens in a recent Venezuelan civil war. The incident was called the

"Venezuela Crisis" of 1902–1903, and an international court concluded on February 22, 1904, that
the blockading powers involved in the Venezuela Crisis were entitled to preferential treatment in the

payment of their claims. The United States disagreed with the decision in principle, and feared that it

would encourage future European intervention to gain such advantage. In order to preclude

European intervention, the Roosevelt Corollary was created to assert the United States' right to

intervene in order to "stabilize" the economic affairs of small states in the Caribbean and Central

America if they were unable to pay their international debts.

Using the Corollary

The Roosevelt Corollary was supposed to be an addition to the Monroe Doctrine; however, it could

be seen as a departure. While the Monroe Doctrine said European countries should stay out of Latin

America, the Roosevelt Corollary took this further to say that the United States had the right to

exercise military force in Latin American countries in order to keep European countries out. In other

words, while the Monroe Doctrine sought to bar involvement by European empires, the Roosevelt

Corollary announced America's intention to take their place. The Corollary rejected territorial

expansion, but upheld interventionism.

U.S. presidents cited the Roosevelt Corollary as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba (1906–

1909), Nicaragua (1909–1910, 1912–1925, and 1926–1933), Haiti (1915–1934), and the Dominican

Republic (1916–1924). As president from 1914–1921, Woodrow Wilson frequently intervened in

Latin America using the justification of the Roosevelt Corollary.

Nicaragua and Panama Canal Affair

Roosevelt also wielded his "big stick" following the questionable diplomatic actions of the U.S.

government to sponsor and pursue a canal project across Central America. Both Nicaragua and

Panama experienced Roosevelt's signature diplomacy in canal-related incidents.

In 1901, Secretary of State John Hay pressed the Nicaraguan government for approval of a canal.

The deal was that Nicaragua would receive $1.5 million in ratification, plus $100,000 annually, and

the United States would, "provide sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity" to Nicaragua.

Nicaragua then returned the contract draft with a change: Instead of an annual $100,000, they

wished to receive $6 million in ratification. The United States accepted the deal, but after Congress

approved the contract, the problem of court jurisdiction arose. Many anti-canal advocates argued

that because the United States did not have legal jurisdiction in Nicaragua, it could not sponsor a

canal project.

After Nicaragua was ruled out, Panama was the obvious choice for U.S. leaders determined to build

a Central American canal. However, Panama also posed numerous logistical and political problems.

As Panama was then a region of Colombia, the United States was subject to the whims of the

Colombian government and of manufacturing companies that provided the construction materials at

a higher price. Roosevelt refused to pay the higher-than-expected fees and responded with an

"engineered revolution" in Colombia that aimed for the secession of Panama.

On November 3, 1903, Panama (with the support of the U.S. Navy) revolted against Colombia and

declared itself a republic, receiving $10 million from the United States for the canal project. Colombia

had little diplomatic recourse and was no match for U.S. military strength, so it was forced to

concede Panama's independence. Panama also received an annual payment of $250,000, and a

guarantee of national independence. The United States, on the other hand, gained the rights to the

canal strip "in perpetuity." Roosevelt later said that he, "took the Canal, and let Congress debate" the

matter after the event.

Key Takeaways

The Election of 1904

 ● Theodore Roosevelt had succeeded to the presidency in 1901 following the assassination of

William McKinley. In 1904, he won election to the presidency in his own right, and was the

first president to do so after the untimely death of his predecessor.

● The Republican platform maintained the status quo, which was to preserve the protective

tariff, uphold the gold standard, and increase foreign trade.

● The Democrats condemned monopolies, opposed imperialism, called for Philippine

independence, and opposed the protective tariff. They also sought enforcement of the eight-

hour workday, construction of a Panama Canal, and the direct election of senators.

● There was little difference between the candidates' positions, so the race was based largely

on their personalities. Theodore Roosevelt won a landslide victory, taking every northern and

western state, as well as Missouri.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand

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Details of the Election

Incumbent president and Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt, having succeeded to the

presidency upon the assassination of William McKinley in September 1901, was elected to a term in

his own right during the election of 1904. During the election campaign, Republicans emphasized

Roosevelt's success in foreign affairs and his record of firmness against monopolies. The nominee

of the Democratic Party was Alton B. Parker, chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. As there

was little difference between the candidates' positions, the race largely was based on their

personalities. Roosevelt easily defeated Parker, sweeping every region in the nation except the

South. In doing so, he became the first incumbent president to win election to a term in his own right

after having ascended to the presidency (from the vice presidency) upon the death of his

predecessor.
The election of 1904 was significant because it was the first election in which the Socialist Party of

America (a loose coalition of local parties) participated, with considerable success in industrial

centers, in rural mining areas in the West, and among German and Finnish communities. The

Socialists nominated Eugene Debs as their presidential candidate. The nominee of the Democratic

Party, Alton B. Parker, called for an end to "the rule of individual caprice" and the "usurpation of

authority" by president Roosevelt.

When the Republicans convened in Chicago June 21–23, 1904, Roosevelt's nomination was

assured. Following the McKinley assassination, from 1902–1903, Roosevelt had effectively

maneuvered into control of the Republican Party to ensure that he would have enough supporters to

seek reelection. Earlier in the year, several republicans attempted to secure the candidacy of

Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, but Hanna's death a few months before the convention effectively

removed any real opposition to Roosevelt's candidacy, and in the convention, he was nominated

unanimously on the first ballot with 994 votes. The Republican platform insisted on maintaining the

protective tariff, called for increased foreign trade, pledged to uphold the gold standard, favored

expansion of the merchant marine, and promoted the development of a strong navy.

The Democratic platform, united behind Parker, called for a reduction in government expenditures,

condemned monopolies, pledged an end to government contracts with companies violating antitrust

laws, opposed imperialism, insisted on independence for the Philippines, and opposed the protective

tariff. The Democrats favored strict enforcement of the eight-hour workday, construction of a

Panama Canal, the direct election of senators, statehood for the western territories, cuts in the

army's size and budget, and enforcement of the civil-service laws. Parker's campaign accused the

Roosevelt administration of being, "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary."

Roosevelt won a landslide victory, taking every northern and western state, as well as Missouri

(making him the first Republican to carry that state since 1868). He also won more than 2.5 million
popular votes. Parker carried only 1,107 counties, a smaller number than any Democratic candidate

in the Fourth Party System had carried except Al Smith in 1928. This poor performance prompted

many contemporaries to believe that the Democratic Party could dissolve in the near future.

Key Takeaways

Roosevelt and Conservation

● Theodore Roosevelt's administration established the U.S. Forest Service and oversaw the

creation of five national parks.

● Roosevelt embraced legislation aimed at conserving the natural environment, in consultation

with chief advisor, Gifford Pinchot.

● Roosevelt's legacy reflected the approach of Pinchot, who emphasized efficiency and utility,

more than that of naturalist John Muir (with whom Roosevelt worked to preserve Yosemite),

who sought to keep such landscapes relatively unspoiled and pristine.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand

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Roosevelt's Achievements

Theodore Roosevelt is credited with many achievements, but he was proudest of his work

conserving natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt was a

prominent conservationist, putting the issue at the forefront of the national agenda. He worked with

all of the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot.

Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources, and historians largely consider

him to be the nation's first conservation president. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of
1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres

under federal protection. By the time he left office in 1908, Roosevelt had set aside more federal

land, national parks, and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.

Theodor Roosevelt points to a sign posted to a tree that says

Theodore Roosevelt, the conservationist: This cartoon shows President Roosevelt as forester

pointing to a sign that reads, "Protect and preserve the remaining forests upon public lands from

devastation and destruction, which have been the fate of those in forest sections of the country."

Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five national

parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he designated 18 new U.S. national

monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves, and 150 national

forests, including the nation's first, Shoshone National Forest. The area of the United States that he

placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres.

Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of

Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted

private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated 16 million acres of

new national forests just minutes before a deadline.

In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a

focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address:

"Conservation as a National Duty."

In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, and tried to minimize commercial use

of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club, Muir succeeded in having

Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the federal government by 1905.

While Muir wanted nature preserved for the sake of beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's
formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most

useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." In effect,

Roosevelt's conservationism embodied the Progressive ideal of efficiency: to protect nature in order

to render it serviceable to the needs and uses of man for successive generations.

From Roosevelt to Wilson - Part 1

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Key Takeaways

From Roosevelt to Taft

● The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, who remained popular among liberals

and populists.

● Taft took support from his Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryan by endorsing some

of his policies, which combined with Roosevelt's Progressive record, blurred the distinction

between the two parties, leading to Taft's victory.

● Despite running a vigorous campaign against the nation's business elite, Bryan suffered the

worst loss of his three presidential campaigns.

● Republicans used the slogan, "Vote for Taft now, you can vote for Bryan anytime," a

sarcastic reference to Bryan's two failed previous presidential campaigns.

Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand

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The Presidential Election of 1908

The U.S. presidential election of 1908 was between Republican Party candidate William Howard Taft

and Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan. Popular incumbent, Theodore Roosevelt,

promising not to seek a third term, persuaded the Republican Party to nominate Taft, his close friend

and secretary of war, to become his successor. On their side, the Democrats, after badly losing the

1904 election with a conservative candidate, turned to two-time nominee William Jennings Bryan,

who had been defeated in 1896 and 1900 by Republican William McKinley. Despite these two

previous defeats, Bryan remained extremely popular among the more liberal and Populist elements

of the Democratic Party. However, despite running a vigorous campaign against the nation's

business elite, Bryan suffered the worst loss in his three presidential campaigns, and Taft won by a

comfortable margin.

Bryan campaigned on a Progressive platform attacking "government by privilege." His campaign

slogan, "Shall the People Rule?," was featured on numerous posters and campaign memorabilia.

However, Taft undercut Bryan's liberal support by accepting some of his reformist ideas, and

Roosevelt's Progressive policies blurred the distinctions between the two parties. Republicans used

the slogan: "Vote for Taft now, you can vote for Bryan anytime," a sarcastic reference to Bryan's two

failed previous presidential campaigns. Businessmen continued to support the Republican Party,

and Bryan failed to fully secure the support of labor. As a result, Bryan ended up with the worst of his

three defeats in the national popular vote, losing almost all of the northern states to Taft and the

popular vote by eight percentage points.

Results
Forty-six states participated in the election, as Oklahoma had joined the Union less than a year

before, and Bryan won 48 counties there. The northern states went Republican, as did the

contiguous territory in Kansas. The most important increase in number of counties carried by Bryan

was in the west-south central section, due in part to the vote of newly admitted Oklahoma. Bryan

carried more counties than he had in 1900, but he did not reach or surpass the number of counties

he had won in 1896. Compared with his strength in previous elections, Bryan carried 69 counties in

1908 that had not been Democratic in either 1896 or 1900.

The total vote increased by more than a million compared to the vote of 1904. Each party shared in

the increase, but whereas Taft had nearly 50,000 more votes than Theodore Roosevelt, Bryan had

nearly 1,500,000 more votes than Alton Parker, and more votes than he had garnered in either of his

previous campaigns.

Key Takeaways

Tariff Reform

● Throughout the early twentieth century, most American manufacturers and union workers

demanded the high tariff be maintained.

● During Taft's election campaign in 1908, Republicans promised to lower unpopular tariffs on

U.S. imports.

● The Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, which lowered 650 tariffs, raised 220 tariffs, and left

1,150 tariffs untouched, was signed enthusiastically by Taft in 1909, who believed that the

compromise would preserve party unity.

● Instead, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act further split the Republicans, eventually leading to the

split of Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" Progressives from Taft's Progressive

Republicans.
Read through each topic listed in the accordion interactive below to learn more. You can expand

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Background

During Reconstruction, high tariffs were the norm as the Republican Party maintained power and the

Southern Democrats were restricted from office. The Republican high-tariff advocates appealed to

farmers with the theme that high-wage factory workers would pay premium prices for foodstuffs. This

was the "home market" idea, and it won over most farmers in the Northeast. However, it had little

relevance to the southern and western farmers who exported most of their cotton, tobacco, and

wheat.

Thanks to such tariffs, American industry, and agriculture—apart from wool—had become the most

efficient in the world by the 1880s as they took the lead in the Industrial Revolution. Hence,

throughout the early twentieth century, most American manufacturers and union workers demanded

the high tariff be maintained.

Tariffs remained a significant political issue during presidential elections and were often a source of

contention between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats campaigned energetically against

tariffs, especially the high McKinley Tariff of 1890. In 1892, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected

to the presidency, and much of his campaign platform focused on lowering the tariff. While in office,

Cleveland attempted to follow through with his campaign promise with limited success. For instance,

the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 did lower overall rates, but contained so many concessions to

protectionism that Cleveland refused to sign it. In 1896, Republican McKinley campaigned heavily on

the tariff issue, claiming that it was a positive solution to economic recession. Promising protection

and prosperity to every economic sector, McKinley won, and the Republicans rushed through the
Dingley Act in 1897, boosting rates again, while Democrats continued to argue that high rates

enabled trusts to operate and led to higher consumer prices.

Taft and Tariff Reform

During Taft's election campaign in 1908, Republicans promised to lower unpopular tariffs on U.S.

imports. Industries and businesses supported this high tariff, because it enabled them to compete in

the world market. However, small farmers, laborers, and manufacturers resented the tariff, because

it affected their exports to foreign countries. Once elected, Taft called a special session of Congress

in 1909 to discuss lowering the tariff. Senator Payne proposed a bill that lowered the tariff on many

imported goods. However, Congress accepted an alternative bill, proposed by Nelson Aldrich, which

lowered the tariff on only a few imported items and increased it on many other products. This met

with severe opposition from a faction of Republicans in the Senate. In the end, Congress adopted

the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, which lowered 650 tariffs, raised 220 tariffs, and left 1,150 tariffs

untouched. The act was signed enthusiastically by Taft in 1909, who believed that the compromise

would preserve party unity.

Although the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act did very little to affect the current status of tariffs, it angered

many Democrats, Progressives, and Progressive Republicans because it did not solve the tariff

issue. Taft's public support of the bill, instead of preserving party unity, further split the Republicans.

Roosevelt in particular criticized Taft over the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, and led a faction of

Progressive Republicans away from Taft's conservative Republicans. This group of Progressive

Republicans eventually formed the Bull Moose Party, which selected Roosevelt as its presidential

nominee in the 1912 election. Meanwhile, unified in their commitment to lowering the tariff,

Democrats enjoyed rising public popularity during Taft's presidency.

Key Takeaways
Ballinger and Pinchot

● Gifford Pinchot endorsed an investigation by the General Land Office (GLO) into Richard

Ballinger's handling of an Alaskan coalfield claim. Ballinger had the investigator dismissed,

and then resigned.

● William Howard Taft tried to clear Ballinger and mend fences with Pinchot. When the

investigator sent his findings to the press, Pinchot sent them to Congress and was promptly

fired. This further drove Progressives away from Taft and back toward Roosevelt.

● This controversy split the Republican Party: The conservatives stayed with Taft and the

Progressives went with Roosevelt.

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Background

The Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy, also known as the "Ballinger Affair," was a dispute between U.S.

Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Richard Achilles Ballinger.

The dispute contributed to the split of the Republican Party before the 1912 presidential election and

helped to define the U.S. conservation movement in the early twentieth century.

Theodore Roosevelt was an ardent conservationist, assisted in this by like-minded appointees,

including Interior Secretary James R. Garfield and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot. Taft agreed on the

need for conservation, but felt it should be accomplished by legislation rather than by executive

order. He did not retain Garfield, an Ohioan, as secretary, choosing instead a westerner, former

Seattle mayor Richard A. Ballinger. Roosevelt was surprised at the replacement, believing that Taft

had promised to keep Garfield, and this change was one of the events that caused Roosevelt to
realize that Taft would choose different policies. Ballinger's appointment was a disappointment to

conservationists, who interpreted the replacement of Garfield as a break with the conservationist

policies of the Roosevelt administration. Indeed, within weeks of taking office, Ballinger reversed

some of Garfield's policies, restoring 3 million acres to private use.

Allegations by Pinchot and Glavis

By July 1909, Gifford Pinchot, who had been appointed by William McKinley to head the USDA

Division of Forestry in 1898, was convinced that Ballinger intended to, "stop the conservation

movement" started under President Roosevelt. In August, speaking at the annual meeting of the

National Irrigation Congress, Pinchot accused Ballinger of siding with private trusts in water-power

issues. Pinchot arranged a meeting between Taft and Louis Glavis, chief of the Portland, Oregon,

Field Division of the General Land Office (GLO). Glavis met with the president at Taft's summer

retreat in Beverly, Massachusetts, and presented him with a 50-page report accusing Ballinger of an

improper interest in his handling of coalfield claims in Alaska.

Glavis claimed that Ballinger, first as commissioner of the General Land Office, and then as

secretary of the Interior, had interfered with investigations of coal claim purchases made by Clarence

Cunningham of Idaho. In 1907, Cunningham had partnered with the Morgan-Guggenheim "Alaska

Syndicate" to develop coal interests in Alaska. The GLO had launched an antitrust investigation,

headed by Glavis. Ballinger, then head of the GLO, rejected Glavis's findings and removed him from

the investigation. In 1908, Ballinger stepped down from the GLO, and took up a private law practice

in Seattle. Cunningham became a client.

Convinced that Ballinger, now head of the U.S. Department of Interior, had a personal interest in

obstructing an investigation of the Cunningham case, Glavis had sought support from the U.S.

Forest Service, whose jurisdiction over the Chugach National Forest included several of the
Cunningham claims. He received a sympathetic response from Alexander Shaw, Overton Price, and

Pinchot, who had helped Glavis prepare the presentation for Taft.

Consequences

Taft consulted with Attorney General George Wickersham before issuing a public letter in

September, exonerating Ballinger and authorizing the dismissal of Glavis on grounds of

insubordination. At the same time, Taft tried to amicably resolve the problem with Pinchot and affirm

his administration's pro-conservation stance. In response, Glavis took his case to the press. In

November, Collier's Weekly published an article that elaborated on his allegations, titled "The

Whitewashing of Ballinger: Are the Guggenheims in Charge of the Department of the Interior?" In

January 1910, Pinchot sent an open letter to Senator Jonathan Dolliver, who read it into the

congressional record. In this letter, Pinchot praised Glavis as a "patriot," openly rebuked Taft, and

asked for congressional hearings into the propriety of Ballinger's dealings. Pinchot was promptly

fired, but from January to May, the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on Ballinger. After

this congressional investigation, Ballinger was cleared of any wrongdoing, but some continued to

criticize him for favoring private enterprise and exploitation over conservationism.

During Taft's administration, a rift grew between Roosevelt and Taft as they became the leaders of

the Republican Party's two wings: the Progressives, led by Roosevelt, and the Conservatives, led by

Taft. By 1910, the split between the two wings of the Republican Party was deep, and this, in turn,

caused Roosevelt and Taft to turn against each other, despite their personal friendship. The

Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy caused Progressives and Roosevelt loyalists to feel that Taft had

turned his back on Roosevelt's agenda. Pinchot's dismissal alienated many Progressives within the

Republican Party and drove a wedge between Taft and Roosevelt, which eventually led to the split

of the Republican Party in the 1912 presidential election.

From Roosevelt to Wilson - Part 2
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Key Takeaways

The Rise of Wilson

● Woodrow Wilson defeated Theodore Roosevelt to become president in 1912. Wilson's first

term saw the passage of much Progressive legislation and focused on tariff reform and

segregation.

● Wilson's second term focused on WWI. By 1917, the United States had entered the war, and

Wilson's focus became supporting manufacturing, managing labor union agreements, and

suppressing subversion.

● Wilson was a negotiator and was well-versed in international affairs. To this end, he

personally oversaw negotiations with postwar Europe, introducing his Fourteen Points

statement in the post-WWI peace talks.

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Election of 1912
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856–February 3, 1924) was the 28th U.S. president and

a leader of the American Progressive movement. Running against Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party

candidate Theodore Roosevelt and Republican candidate William Howard Taft, Wilson was elected

president in 1912 as a Democrat with a wide margin of victory.

During Taft's administration, a rift grew between Roosevelt and Taft as they became the leaders of

the Republican Party's two wings: the Progressives, led by Roosevelt, and the conservatives, led by

Taft. The Progressive Republicans favored restrictions on the employment of women and children,

championed ecological conservation, and were more sympathetic toward labor unions.

The results of the 1910 election made it clear to Taft that Roosevelt no longer supported his

presidency, and that Roosevelt might even contend for the party nomination in 1912. To the surprise

of observers who thought Roosevelt had unstoppable momentum, Taft did not step aside for the

popular ex-president, despite Taft's diminishing support. Taft acknowledged this, saying, "The longer

I am president, the less of a party man I seem to become." In February, 1912, Roosevelt declared

his candidacy for the Republican nomination. In response, Taft soon decided that he would focus on

canvassing for delegates and not attempt at the outset to confront Roosevelt. As Roosevelt became

more radical in his Progressivism, Taft hardened his resolve to achieve renomination; ultimately he

outmaneuvered Roosevelt, regained control of the GOP convention, and won the nomination.

As a result of Taft's success in securing the nomination, Roosevelt and his group of disgruntled party

members officially split from the Republicans to create the Progressive Party (or "Bull Moose" Party)

ticket, splitting the Republican vote in the 1912 election. Taft thought that despite probable defeat,

the Republican Party had been preserved as, "the defender of conservative government and

conservative institutions."
However Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, was elected with 41 percent of the popular

vote; Roosevelt received 27 percent, and Taft received 25 percent. Taft won a mere eight electoral

votes (in Utah and Vermont), marking his defeat as the worst in American history of an incumbent

president seeking reelection. In part, Taft's defeat resulted from his weakness as a campaigner.

Furthermore, Taft's indifference toward the press (he once sought to legislatively abolish the press'

reduced tariff rates on print paper and wood pulp) meant that he was an unpopular figure among

political journalists and commentators, and the press seized the opportunity to lash out at Taft during

the election.

The split in the Republican vote made it possible for Wilson to carry a number of states that had

been reliably Republican for decades. For the first time since 1852, a majority of the New England

states were carried by a Democrat. In fact, Wilson was the first Democratic presidential candidate

ever to carry the state of Massachusetts (whereas Rhode Island and Maine had not been carried by

a Democrat since 1852). On the West Coast, Oregon had not been carried by a Democrat since

1868. The split in the Republican vote resulted in the weakest Republican effort in history.

First Term

In his inaugural address, Wilson reiterated his agenda for lower tariffs and banking reform, as well as

for aggressive trust and labor legislation.

In his first term as president, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major Progressive

reforms: the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the

Federal Farm Loan Act, and an income tax. He also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which

imposed an eight-hour workday for railroad workers.

Wilson, the only Democrat other than Grover Cleveland to be elected president since 1856 and the

first Southerner since 1848, recognized his party's need for high-level federal patronage. Wilson
worked closely with Southern Democrats. In Wilson's first month in office, Postmaster General Albert

S. Burleson brought up the issue of segregating workplaces in a cabinet meeting and urged the

president to establish it across the government, and in restrooms, cafeterias, and workspaces.

Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo also permitted lower-level officials to racially segregate

employees in the workplaces of those departments.

In an early foreign-policy matter, Wilson responded to an angry protest by the Japanese when the

state of California proposed legislation that excluded Japanese people from land ownership in the

state. Wilson was reticent to assert federal supremacy over the state's legislation. There was talk of

war and some argument within the cabinet for a show of naval force, which Wilson rejected; after

diplomatic exchanges, the scare subsided.

In implementing economic policy, Wilson had to transcend the sharply opposing policy views of the

Southern and agrarian wing of the Democratic Party led by William Jennings Bryan, and the pro-

business and Northern wing led by urban political bosses: Tammany in New York, Sullivan in

Chicago, and Smith and Nugent in Newark. In his Columbia University lectures of 1907, Wilson had

said, "The whole art of statesmanship is the art of bringing the several parts of government into

effective cooperation for the accomplishment of particular common objects." As he took up the first

item of his "New Freedom" agenda—lowering the tariffs—he quite adroitly applied this artistry. With

large Democratic majorities in Congress and a healthy economy, Wilson seized the opportunity to

achieve his agenda. Wilson also made quick work of realizing his pledges to beef up antitrust

regulation and to bring reform to banking and currency matters.

Second Term

Narrowly reelected in 1916, Wilson centered his second term on World War I and the subsequent

peace treaty negotiations in Paris. He based his reelection campaign around the slogan, "He kept us
out of war," but was soon forced to abandon U.S. neutrality. In early 1917, Germany began

unrestricted submarine warfare against American ships. During the war, Wilson focused on

diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war itself primarily in the hands of

the army. On the home front in 1917, he began the United States' first draft since the American Civil

War, raised billions of dollars in war funding through Liberty Bonds, set up the War Industries Board,

promoted labor-union cooperation, supervised agriculture, and food production through the Lever

Act, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed antiwar movements.

In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including

the armistice. In 1918, he issued his Fourteen Points, which stated his view of a postwar world that

could avoid another terrible conflict. In 1919, he went to Paris to create the League of Nations and

shape the Treaty of Versailles, giving special attention to creating new nations out of defunct

empires. In 1919, Wilson engaged in an intense fight with Henry Cabot Lodge and the Republican-

controlled Senate over giving the League of Nations power to force the United States into a war.

Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke that rendered him ineffective until he left office in March

1921. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, the United States never joined the League of

Nations, and the Republicans won by a landslide in 1920 by denouncing Wilson's policies.

Wilson was also a highly effective partisan campaigner as well as a legislative strategist. A

Presbyterian of deep religious faith, Wilson appealed to a gospel of service and infused a profound

sense of moralism into his idealistic internationalism, an ideology now described as "Wilsonian."

Wilsonianism called for the United States to enter the world arena to fight for democracy and has

remained a contentious position in American foreign policy. For his sponsorship of the League of

Nations, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. However, Wilson remained opposed to

African American Civil Rights and imposed a segregation policy in most Washington, D.C., federal

offices that was not overturned until President Harry S. Truman.

Key Takeaways

Wilsonian Progressivism

● Tariff reform was achieved through the passage of the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913, which

lowered tariffs for the first time since the American Civil War, despite the protectionist lobby.

● Business reform was established in 1914 through the passage of the Federal Trade Act,

which investigated and halted unfair and illegal business practices, and the Clayton Anti-

Trust Act, which specified these "unfair and illegal" business practices in legislation.

● Banking reform was most notably accomplished by the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve

System and the passage of the Federal Farm Loan Act (1916), which set up Farm Loan

Banks to support farmers.

● Wilson also sought to establish child-labor laws and laws that established maximum-hour

work weeks and minimum wages; in addition, he made great strides in improving the

environment, farmer's rights, and veteran affairs.

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Wilsonian Reform

President Woodrow Wilson was a leading force in the Progressive movement, bolstered by his

Democratic Party's winning control of both the White House and Congress in 1912.

In office, Wilson reintroduced the spoken State of the Union, which had been out of use since 1801.

Leading the Congress, now in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of Progressive legislative

policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. Included among these were the Federal Reserve
Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act.

Having taken office one month after ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, Wilson called a special

session of Congress, whose work culminated in the Revenue Act of 1913, reintroducing an income

tax and lowering tariffs. Through passage of the Adamson Act, imposing an eight-hour workday for

railroads, he averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis. During his first term as

president, Wilson focused on three types of reform: tariff reform, business reform, and banking

reform.

Tariff Reform

Wilson's tariff reform was largely achieved through the passage of the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913.

This act lowered tariffs for the first time since the American Civil War, despite the protectionist lobby.

In April 1913, President Wilson summoned a special joint session of Congress in order to confront

the perennial tariff question. He brought special attention to the matter by making his appeal before

Congress in person. Wilson spoke only briefly, but made it clear that in order to avoid repeating the

embarrassment of the thwarted reform of 1894, tariff reform was essential. The burden was clearly

on Democratic shoulders, because they controlled both houses of Congress for the first time in more

than 18 years. On September 9, 1913, Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama guided the Revenue Act of

1913 through the House (where it passed, 281 to 139) and the Senate (where it passed, 44 to 37).

Contemporaries considered the Revenue Act a political triumph for Wilson.

The 1913 Act established the lowest rates since the Walker Tariff of 1857. Most schedules were put

on an ad valorem basis (that is, X percent of the dollar value of the item). The duty on woolens, for

instance, went from 56 percent to 18.5 percent. Steel rails, raw wool, iron ore, and agricultural

implements had zero rates. The reciprocity program favored by Republicans was eliminated.
Congress rejected proposals for a tariff board to scientifically fix rates, but did set up a study

commission to monitor them.

The Act also provided for the reinstitution of a federal income tax as a means of compensating for

anticipated lost revenue due to the reduction of tariff duties. The most recent effort to tax incomes

(the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894) had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court

because the tax on dividends, interest, and rents was not a direct tax apportioned by population.

That obstacle, however, was removed by the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment on February 3,

1913, and the Revenue Act. Within a few years after the Revenue Act was implemented, the federal

income tax replaced tariffs as the chief source of revenue for the government.

Banking Reform

Wilson's banking reform was most notably accomplished by the 1913 creation of the Federal

Reserve System. It also was aided through the passage of the Federal Farm Loan Act (1916), which

set up Farm Loan Banks to support farmers.

President Wilson secured passage of the Federal Reserve Act in late 1913, as an attempt to carve

out a middle ground between conservative Republicans, led by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and the

powerful left wing of the Democratic party, led by William Jennings Bryan over the banking issue. In

contrast to the Republicans, the liberal Democrats opposed all banking schemes and strenuously

denounced private banks and Wall Street. Instead, Democrats advocated for a government-owned

central bank that could print paper money as Congress required, a measure that Aldrich and the

Republicans vigorously opposed.

The compromise, based on the Aldrich Plan but sponsored by Democratic congressmen Carter

Glass and Robert Owen, allowed the private banks to control 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks

and placed controlling interest in a central board to be appointed by the president with Senate
approval. Moreover, Wilson convinced Bryan's supporters that because Federal Reserve notes were

issued by the government, the plan met their demands for an elastic currency. The decision to

create 12 regional banks was meant to weaken the influence of the powerful New York banks, a key

demand of Bryan's allies in the South and West. The final Federal Reserve Act was passed in

December 1913, and most bankers criticized the plan for giving too much financial control to

Washington, while liberal reformers claimed that it allowed bankers to maintain too much power.

Wilson named Paul Warburg and other prominent bankers to direct the Federal Reserve. The new

system began operations in 1915, playing a significant role in financing the Allied and American war

effort. Despite the fact that the Federal Reserve Act intended to diminish the influence of the New

York banks, the New York branch continued to dominate the Federal Reserve until the New Deal

reorganized and strengthened the Federal Reserve in the 1930s.

Business Reform

In addition to the Underwood tariff, which seemed to finally resolve the political debate over tariff

rates, and the creation of the Federal Reserve, Wilson also supported antitrust legislation. This

legislation fulfilled both the Progressive aims of Roosevelt and Taft while deviating from their

approach to breaking monopolies. Wilson deviated from his presidential predecessors, who relied on

lawsuits to break trusts and monopolies, by founding a new trust-busting approach through

encouraging competition through the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission

effectively restricted unfair trade practices and enforced the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act.

The Clayton Antitrust Act was a law that specified and outlined "unfair and illegal" business practices

such as price discrimination, agreements prohibiting retailers from handling other companies'

products, and agreements to control other companies.

It was a stronger piece of legislation than other antitrust laws because it held individual officers of

corporations responsible if their companies violated the laws. It also included a clear set of

guidelines that corporations had to follow to ensure legal business practices. This was seen as a

dramatic improvement over the more ambiguous language of previous antitrust legislation. Rather

than the piecemeal success of Roosevelt and Taft in targeting certain trusts and monopolies in

lengthy lawsuits, the Clayton Antitrust Act effectively defined unfair business practices and created a

common code of sanctioned business activity.

Conclusion

By the end of Wilson's first term, a significant amount of Progressive legislation had been passed,

affecting not only economic and constitutional affairs, but also farmers, labor, veterans, the

environment, and conservation. The reform agenda of Wilson's "New Freedom," however, did not

extend as far as Theodore Roosevelt's proposed New Nationalism in relation to the latter's calls for a

standard 40-hour work week, minimum wage laws, and a federal system of social insurance. Despite

this, Wilson did much to extend the power of the federal government in social and economic affairs

and paved the way for future federal reform programs such as the New Deal.