Mr. Bennett- 8 th Grade U.S. History. If you can answer and explain the answers to the following questions, you can MASTER this chapter! How did reformers.

The Gilded Age and Progressive Reform

Mr. Bennett- 8th Grade U.S. History

Essential Questions

If you can answer and explain the answers to the following questions, you can MASTER this chapter!

How did reformers try to end government corruption and limit the influence of big business?

How did the Progressive Presidents extend reforms?

How did women gain new rights?

What challenges faced minority groups?

Instructions

These notes will be taken as 20 point classwork grade. You are to answer in complete sentences all questions in red and turn in these notes at the end of each section.

Why it matters? By the late 1800’s giant corporations

controlled much of American business. Corporation=

Some abused their power and were aided by corrupt government officials.

Corruption=

Americans began to protest against corruption.

How did reformers try to end government corruption and limit the influence of big business?

Reform in the Gilded Age

The period after the Civil War became known as the Gilded Age.

Gilded= “coated with a thin layer of gold paint.”

What do you think this means and why was it used to describe the U.S. at the time?

Two major political concerns

Big business was enriching itself at the expense of the public.

Government corruption including bribery and voter fraud appeared to be widespread.

The Spoils System

Spoils system= the practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs. Why would this be a problem?

President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 for not giving a job to a campaign supporter.

The Pendleton Act

Created the Civil Service Commission Goal was to fill jobs based on merit. Applicants had to take a civil service

exam. Those that scored the highest were given government jobs. ▪ What do you think “merit” means?

▪ Do you think the civil service system was a good or bad thing for government? And Why?

Controlling Big Business

Late 1800’s big business had a strong influence over politics.

1887 Grover Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act Allowed the federal government the power to

regulate trade that occurred between states.

Sherman Antitrust Act- prohibited businesses from trying to eliminate competition.

Corruption in the Cities

Political bosses provided jobs and services to the poor and immigrants in return for votes.

William Boss Tweed- NYC: During the 1860s and 1870s he cheated NYC out of more than $100 million. Arrested in Spain.

How did the civil service system limit corruption?

Progressives and Political Reform

Progressives= reformers who believed in the public interest or the good of all people.

Wisconsin Idea- choose candidates with a primary- an election in which voters, rather than party leaders choose their party’s candidates.

More Power to Voters

Recall- process by which people may vote to remove an elected official.

initiative- process that allows voters to put a bill before a state legislature.

Referendum- is a way for people to vote directly on a proposed law.

Which change was most democratic?

Constitutional Amendments

16th- graduated income tax- people pay different rates of taxes based on their income.

17th- direct election of U.S. senators.

What reforms put more power in the hands of voters?

Muckrakers

Muckraker- a term used to describe a crusading journalist.

Jacob Riis- How the Other Half Lives

Upton Sinclair- The Jungle

Section 2- The Progressive Presidents

Early on, Progressives made change at the local and state level but not on the national level. That changed in the early 1900’s with Progressive Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.

McKinley Assassination

September 6, 1901- Buffalo, NY. President William McKinley is assassinated at the world’s fair by an anarchist.

Theodore Roosevelt, his VP, becomes the first progressive president.

Theodore Roosevelt aka TR

Youngest ever at age 42 to take office.

Previously served at the NYPD Police Commissioner and as the assistant secretary of the navy.

TR and Big Business

Seen as a trustbuster- a person working to destroy monopolies and trusts.

Saw a difference between “good trusts an bad trusts.” Thought bad trusts took advantage of workers

and cheated the public by eliminating competition.

Brought suits against Northern Securities for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and also took on Standard Oil, the American Tobacco Company.

A Boost for Organized Labor

Sided with labor unions. Threatened to send in troops in 1902

during a coal miner’s strike.

What was TR’s attitude towards big business?

The Square Deal Promised Americans a Square Deal- that

everyone from farmers and consumers to workers and owners should have an opportunity to succeed.

Helped TR win the 1904 presidential

election.

Conserving Natural Resources Roosevelt loved the outdoors and

worried about the destruction of the wilderness.

Pressed for conservation- the protection of natural resources. Wanted lumber companies to replant trees

after cutting them down.

Under TR, the US Forest Service was created. Also created national parks.

I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.

What are some things Theodore Roosevelt would try to do today?

Protecting Consumers

Pure Food and Drug Act- required all food and drug makers to list all the ingredients on their packages.

How was Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle influential in getting the Pure Food and Drug Act passed?

Taft and Wilson

TR did not want to run in 1908- Taft wins. Taft:

Signed law for 8-hour work day. Controlled child labor Signed a bill that raised tariffs.

TR did not like what Taft was doing as president and decided to create his own political party called the Progressive Party and nicknamed the Bullmoose Party.

Election of 1912

Taft and Wilson win more combined votes than Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson but they split the Republican vote giving the presidency to Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson created the Federal Trade Commission, signed the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 and passed the Federal Reserve Act creating a national bank that controlled the money supply and interest rates.

Section 3- The Rights of Women

Progressives didn’t have a strong interest in fighting for the rights of women.

Women’s movement started in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention.

Led by Susan B. Anthony and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Western States

Women in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho were allowed to vote.

They worked alongside pioneer men building farms and cities.

Why do you think western women were given the vote first?

Growing Support

After Stanton and Anthony died, Carrie Chapman Catt devised a new plan for gaining women’s suffrage- win suffrage state by state.

The Nineteenth Amendment

Alice Paul- A suffragist who met with President Wilson.

1919- Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, granting woman the right to vote.

New Opportunities for Women

Higher Education By 1900, 1,000 women lawyers, 7,000

doctors.

Women’s Clubs

Women Reformers

The Crusade Against Alcohol 1874 women organized the Woman’s Christian

Temperance Movement.

Led by Frances Willard

Called for state laws to ban the sale of liquor.

Carry Nation- stormed liquor stores and bars.

18th amendment- banned the sale and consumption of alcohol, ratified in 1919.

How did women gain new rights?

What problems do you think could occur because of the 18th

Section 4- Struggles for Justice

Progressives had little interest in minority rights.

Jim Crow Laws forced segregation in the South.

Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and religious minorities faced similar problems.

African Americans

Restricted to the worst housing and poorest jobs.

White landlords would not rent to to them.

Booker T. Washington Born into slavery

Taught himself how to read and became a teacher.

Worked in coal mines

Started the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

School offered technical and industrial training for African Americans.

Booker T. Washington

Thought that equality for African Americans would come by gradually moving up in society.

Eventually they would have money and the power to demand equality.

“No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”

W.E.B. Du Bois First African American to receive a Ph.D. from

Harvard.

“So far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of our voting… and opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds,--so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does this,--we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them.”

Formed the NAACP- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Favored immediate change over gradual change?

W.E.B. Du Bois

Checkpoint

What problems did blacks still face?

How were Booker T. Washington’s and W.E.B. Du Bois’s ideas similar AND how were they different?

Lynchings

Murder by a mob, often by hanging. 1890’s- more than 1,000 lynchings in the U.S.

Ida B. Wells spoke out against lynchings, boycotted segregated street cares and boycotted white-owned stores.

Mexican Americans

Came to the U.S. because of political unrest and famine.

90% settled in the south in immigrant neighborhoods call barrios. Los Angeles was the largest. Formed mutualistas- mutual aid

groups.

Asian Americans

Japanese More than 100K entered the US in the early 1900s.▪ Most became farmers in California or Hawaii.

Gentleman’s Agreement 1906, San Francisco forced all Asian students to

attend separate schools. ▪ Japanese were outraged.

Roosevelt reaches agreement with Japanese: ▪ Japanese whose husbands live and worked in the

US could come over but no more new workers.

Religious Minorities

Nativists persecuted Jews and Catholics. In response, set up parochial schools.

Anti-Semitism- prejudice against the Jews.

What problems did minorities and immigrants face in America?