4 America in the 1890s and Early 1900s bankers and the wealthy classes for their problems Conditions of overcrowding and other social ills came with the increase of population in the cities The 1890s were a time of protest and reform From the farms to the cities people demanded change Still the majority of reformers wanted to make the existing system better not destroy it America in the 1890s and Early 1900s America in the 1890s was a rapidly growing nation that was fast becoming a major industrial power As the factory system spread to more and more industries cities began to swell Immigrants from abroad swarmed into cities looking for jobs In addition young men and women from America’s farms turned to the cities as well Modernized farming was an improvement over using horses and mules Agriculture became mechanized That is it had become a big business Small farmers could not compete with large machine-operated farms America’s farmers found it increasingly difficult to make a living and they tended to blame Operating a cane-crushing machine in a sugar house at Bayou Teche Louisiana 1900 Immigrants in the early 1900s came to America hoping to make a better life for themselves
6 America in the 1890s and Early 1900s The Progressive Movement The reform movement called Progressivism tried to address America’s problems It began in the 1890s in the cities where the problems were most severe Dedicated men and women from middle-class backgrounds voluntarily moved into the slums and established what would be called settlement houses These were places where poor people could go for help and to learn skills Among the most famous leaders of the early settlement houses was Jane Addams who founded Hull House in Chicago Other Progressives turned their attention to attacking corruption in local governments They formed nonpartisan leagues which meant that they did not belong to any one political party These leagues wanted to defeat people and organizations that had held power for a long time UIC Jane Addams' Hull-House Museum 800 South Halsted Street The Hull House Museum stands as a tribute to the community service work provided by Jane Addams
During the 1890s many reform La Follette and other Progressive America in the 1890s and 7 Early 1900s mayors won elections throughout the country They were dedicated to improving city services and to cleaning up the slums These early reformers were often frustrated however For the most part the railroad owners and their interests controlled the state legislatures Attempts to block reforms in the cities were frequent Robert La Follette The Progressives then developed a new strategy and turned to state politics to take control of a number of important state governments One of the most famous of these reformers was Robert La Follette who served as a governor of Wisconsin 1901-1906 governors passed a number of important reforms They established direct primaries the secret ballot and the direct election of senators They also increased state regulation of the railroads and raised taxes on big corporations To correct the worst features of industrialization the Progressives passed workmen’s compensation laws to protect the rights of workers banned child labor and established minimum wages in industry Progressives and the Presidency In order to obtain its goals at the federal level the Progressive movement needed to elect a president who sympathized with its principles For much of the 1890s the Progressives made little headway Benjamin Harrison a Republican president who served from 1889 to 1893 was a true conservative who had little understanding of or sympathy for the reform movement Grover Cleveland a Democrat whose second term spanned the years 1893 to 1897 was a man who favored reform But he was mainly conservative and did not believe that the government should play as active a role in social affairs as the Progressives thought it should In many respects Cleveland did not differ from his Republican predecessors in his beliefs about the role of government
