A. CAUSES OF AGRARIAN DISCONTENT
1. Belief that railroads were using discriminatory rates to exploit farmers
2. Belief that big business used high tariffs to exploit farmers
3. Belief that a deflationary monetary policy based on gold hurt farmers
4. Belief that corporations charged exorbitant prices for fertilizers and farm machinery
B. THE POPULIST OR PEOPLE'S PARTY
1. The Populist Party attempted to unite discontented farmers.
2. It attempted to improve their economic conditions.
3. It attempted to support the following:
• Increasing the money supply with the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the legal ratio of 16 to 1
• Using the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 to regulate railroads and prevent discrimination against small customers
• Organizing cooperative marketing societies
• Supporting the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election
C. REASONS THE POPULIST PARTY FAILED
1. Western and Southern farmers did not agree on political strategies.
2. Racism prevented poor White and Black farmers from working together.
3. The dramatic increases in urban population caused by the wave of New Immigrants led to higher prices for agricultural products.
4. The discovery of gold in the Yukon increased the supply of gold, thus easing farmers' access to credit.
5. The Democratic Party absorbed many Populist programs.
6. William Jennings Bryan lost the 1896 presidential election to William McKinley and the Republicans.
A. KEY POINTS
1. Progressive leaders were primarily middle-class reformers concerned with urban and consumer issues.
2. Progressive reformers believed that government should be used to ameliorate social problems.
3. Progressive reformers wanted to use governmental power to regulate industrial production and improve labor conditions.
4. Progressive reformers rejected Social Darwinism, arguing that cooperation offered the best way to improve society.
B. KEY GOALS
1. Democratization of the political process
• Direct election of senators
• Women's suffrage
2. Reform of local governments
• Initiative, recall, and referendum—ways to make local governments more responsive to public opinion
• Commission or city-manager forms of government to make local governments more professional
• Nonpartisan local governments to weaken political machines
3. Regulation of big business
• Passage of child labor laws
• Passage of antitrust legislation
• Passage of Pure Food and Drug Act
TEST TIP
It is important to remember what the Progressives fought for. It is also important to remember what they did not fight for. Progressives did not fight for the passage of civil rights laws or the creation of a socialist commonwealth.
C. PROGRESSIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
1. The Sixteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to lay and collect income taxes.
2. The Seventeenth Amendment provided that senators shall be elected by popular vote.
3. The Eighteenth Amendment forbade the sale or manufacture of intoxicating liquors.
4. The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote.
A. KEY POINTS
1. Muckrakers were investigative reporters who promoted social and political reforms by exposing corruption and urban problems.
2. Muckrakers were the leading critics of urban bosses and corporate robber barons.
3. The rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines enabled muckrakers to reach a large audience.
B. LEADING MUCKRAKERS
1. Upton Sinclair
• Sinclair wrote the novel The Jungle, graphically exposing abuses in the meatpacking industry.
• He helped convince Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
2. Jacob Riis
• Riis was a journalist and photographer working primarily in New York City.
• Riis's book How the Other Half Lives provided poignant pictures that gave a human face to the poverty and despair experienced by immigrants living in New York City's Lower East Side.
3. Ida Tarbell
• Tarbell was the foremost woman in the muckraking movement.
• She published a highly critical history of the Standard Oil Company, calling it the Mother of Trusts.
TEST TIP
Most APUSH students can identify Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell. However, few can identify Jacob Riis. APUSH test writers are aware of this inconsistency and have devoted a number of questions to Riis and his work.
A. THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1. Teddy Roosevelt addressed all of the following Progressive issues:
• Conservation of natural resources and wildlife
• Unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry
• Monopolization and consolidation in the railroad industry
• Unsafe drug products
2. He promoted a Square Deal for labor by using arbitration to settle the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902.
3. Roosevelt ran as the Progressive or Bull Moose candidate for President in the 1912 presidential election.
B. WOODROW WILSON
1. Wilson was a vigorous reformer who launched an all-out assault on high tariffs, banking problems, and the trusts.
2. Wilson supported the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
The landmark act established a system of district banks coordinated by a central board. The new Federal Reserve system made currency and credit more elastic.
TEST TIP
Theodore Roosevelt William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson all supported Progressive reforms. However, they do not receive equal treatment on APUSH exams. Test writers focus almost all of their attention on Teddy Roosevelt, while omitting Taft and limiting questions on Wilson to the Federal Reserve Act As you will see in Chapter 14, there are a number of questions about Wilson's foreign policy.
A. JANE ADDAMS
1. Jane Addams is best known for founding Hull House in Chicago.
2. Hull House and other settlement houses were dedicated to helping the urban poor.
3. Settlement-house workers established day nurseries for working mothers, published reports condemning deplorable housing conditions, and taught literacy classes.
B. THE FIGHT FOR SUFFRAGE
1. Frontier life tended to promote the acceptance of greater equality for women.
2. The only states with complete women's suffrage before 1900 were located west of the Mississippi. Wyoming (1869) was the first state to grant women the full right to vote.
3. The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) guaranteed women the right to vote.
C. THE WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION (WCTU)
1. Carry Nation was one of the best known and most outspoken leaders of the WCTU.
2. The WCTU successfully convinced many women that they had a moral responsibility to improve society by working for prohibition.
D. WOMEN AND THE PROGRESSIVE REFORMS
1. Dorothea Dix worked tirelessly on behalf of the mentally ill.
2. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an African American civil rights advocate and an early women's rights advocate. She is noted for her opposition to lynching.
3. Women reformers were also actively involved in the following Progressive Era reforms:
• Passage of child labor legislation at the state level
• Campaigns to limit the working hours of women and children
E. WOMEN AND THE WORKPLACE
1. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the majority of female workers employed outside the home were young and unmarried.
2. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women were most likely to work outside their homes as one of the following:
• Domestic servants
• Garment workers
• Teachers
• Cigar makers
3. During the late nineteenth century, women were least likely to work outside their homes as either of these:
• Physicians
• Lawyers
A. W.E.B. DU BOIS
1. During the Progressive Era, W.E.B. Du Bois emerged as the most influential advocate of full political, economic, and social equality for Black Americans.
2. Du Bois founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
3. Du Bois advocated the intellectual development of a "talented tenth" of the Black population. Du Bois hoped that the talented tenth would become influential by, for example, continuing their education, writing books, or becoming directly involved in social change.
4. Du Bois opposed the implementation of Booker T. Washington's program for Black progress. Du Bois supported cooperation with White people to further Black progress. His goal was integration, not Black separatism.
B. THE NAACP
1. The NAACP rejected Booker T. Washington's gradualism and separatism.
2. The NAACP focused on using the courts to achieve equality and justice.
C. THE BIRTH OF A NATION AND THE RESURGENCE OF THE KKK
1. The KKK first emerged during Radical Reconstruction (1865-1877)
2. D. W. Griffith's epic film The Birth of a Nation (1915) became controversial because of its depiction of KKK activities as heroic and commendable.
3. The Birth of a Nation played a role in the resurgence of the KKK during the Progressive Era.
4. The KKK favored White supremacy and immigration restriction.