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
8 America in the 1890s and Early 1900s Jane Addams Progressive Reformer Jane Addams was born in Cedarville Illinois in 1860 In 1889 she and a friend Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House in Chicago Illinois It was one of the first settlement houses in the United States Settlement houses served as community centers for social reform Hull House became important in civic affairs in Chicago and was a model for other settlement houses that opened throughout America in the 1890s Jane Addams was a true Progressive reformer Although her primary objective was to help the poor improve their lives she also developed interests in other kinds of reform She became a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and was also a pacifist A pacifist is a person opposed to war In 1931 Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize She died in 1935 at the age of 75 William McKinley a Republican was also conservative regarding domestic or American affairs and he did little to advance the Progressive domestic agenda He was largely concerned with foreign affairs and during his term of office from 1897 to 1901 the United States acquired many overseas territories The Progressives were in favor of America playing an important role in the world They believed that Americans should offer aid to foreigners just as they should help the less well-off in their own country The Progressives did agree with some of McKinley’s foreign-affair policies
McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and was succeeded by the young and impulsive Theodore Roosevelt When Roosevelt took on the big corporate trusts and became known as a trust-buster the Progressives thought that they finally had one of their own in the highest office in the land Roosevelt however was willing to support only parts of the Progressive program and throughout his presidency from 1901 to 1909 Congress remained extremely conservative and resistant to Progressive reforms Moreover Roosevelt was not willing to fight Congress on each and every issue He spent much of his time on foreign affairs particularly on expanding America’s role overseas President Theodore Roosevelt presiding over the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War 1905 America in the 1890s and 9 Early 1900s The Presidency in the Twentieth Century The four presidents who lived in the White House between 1889 and 1909 took the nation into the twentieth century Benjamin Harrison represented the kind of president the country had become accustomed to in the years after the Civil War He believed that the best government was one that governed the least amount possible Twenty years later however the nation had grown used to a youthful and vigorous president who threw himself into the center of almost every conflict Theodore Roosevelt was an activist president one well-suited to facing the challenges of the twentieth century He believed that the best government was one that played an active role at home and abroad In that sense he was truly a Progressive because he believed that action would change things for the better
