The Progressive Era and the Great Depression: 1900 to 1937

By Facts On File

Written in engaging and accessible prose by experts in the field, this reference introduces readers to the "hidden" history of women in America from 1900 to 1937, bringing their achievements to light and helping them gain the recognition they deserve.

Chapters include:

• Arts and Literature
• Business
• Education
• Entertainment
• Family
• Health
• Politics
• Science and Medicine
• Society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Facts On File
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781438183237

Book preview

title

The Progressive Era and the Great Depression: 1900 to 1937

Copyright © 2020 by Infobase

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Contents

Chapters

Women in American History, 1900–1937

Women in Society, 1900–1937

Women's Health, 1900–1937

Women's Education, 1900–1937

Women in Politics, 1900–1937

Women in Science and Medicine, 1900–1937

Women in the Arts and Literature, 1900–1937

Women in Business, 1900–1937

Women in Entertainment and Sports, 1900–1937

Women and Family, 1900–1937

Chapters

Women in American History, 1900–1937

During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, the United States emerged as a leading world industrial power. Industrialization had been accompanied by urbanization and a large wave of immigration. A long-standing current in American thought held that any person who worked hard and lived a sober, moral, frugal life would prosper, no matter their background or circumstances. In the late 1800s, wealthy and renowned businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie were held up as examples of the rags to riches ideal of the self-made man. Many of the social and economic problems that accompanied the growth of big business and the rise of cities seemed to contradict this ideal. Many large businesses were comprised of competition-stifling monopolies, and workers in newly erected factories endured long hours, harsh working conditions, and monotonous tasks. There were strikes and violent clashes between owners and labor unions. Women's lives changed rapidly during this period as they entered the workforce in greater numbers, and many working-class women joined unions and began demanding fairer treatment and better working conditions.

Cities struggled to provide new residents with basic services such as sewage and waste disposal, law enforcement, firefighting, safe housing, and education. Overcrowded tenements and slums fostered a rise in crime, disease, and urban blight. Political corruption was endemic at all levels of government. The American people, especially the middle class, became increasingly aware of these problems as the country entered the 20th century. Educational opportunities were rapidly advancing during this period, and many more women were receiving college degrees than ever before. This new class of educated women was often at the forefront of the battle to reform American society. Women were particularly adamant about the need to improve the lives of children. This need for change was a major focus of the woman suffrage movement, and women continued to identify men as the creators of the ills of industrialization.

The Progressive Movement

Most Americans shared a sense of optimism and a belief in the ability to achieve social justice through progress and reform. Progressive authors, magazines, and artists called public attention to problems in the hope of spurring reform. Writers such as Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and Jacob Riis were termed muckrakers by President Theodore Roosevelt when they discussed America's shortcomings. Progressive Christians, especially young urban ministers, added a key religious component by noting that improving lives was a religious as well as a social duty.

Progressive reformers sought reforms in a wide variety of areas, but they did not always agree on the best methods of achieving success. As a result, the Progressive Movement was made up of a large number of autonomous coalitions working to achieve their own goals. Key areas of Progressive reform included economic reform, social reform, and moral reform. Female reformers focused on ending child labor, passing protective legislation that guaranteed working women a minimum wage and protected them from excessively long workdays, cleaning up cities, and improving the health of the entire population. These efforts led to the creation of the Children's Bureau in 1912 and the Women's Bureau in 1920. Both agencies operated under the auspices of the United States Department of Labor.

Labor unions were a major force in improving working conditions, including shortening the 10-to-12-hour workday and six-day workweek, ending child labor, improving workplace safety, providing compensation for industrial accidents, and strengthening government inspection and regulation of businesses and consumer products. Many social reforms focused on ending discrimination against immigrants, women, and minorities.

Moral reforms were also major Progressive causes, and women often played key roles in these areas. New York City nurse Margaret Sanger began a crusade to legalize distribution of birth control information after watching a patient die from an illegal abortion. She opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 in violation of the law and organized the American Birth Control League, a forerunner of Planned Parenthood. Reformers such as Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, who brought the settlement house movement to U.S. cities, lived and worked among the urban poor. Addams' Hull House in Chicago and Wald's Henry Street Settlement in New York City provided a range of services, including showers, hot meals, nurseries, social clubs, recreation, and language classes. One of the most well-known issues of the Progressive reform movements was the call for the prohibition of alcohol. Notable Prohibitionists included Carrie Nation, who after losing her first husband to alcohol experienced a religious calling and began smashing saloons with bricks and hatchets throughout Kansas in conjunction with other members of the Anti-Saloon League. This desire to reform society provided new momentum for the woman suffrage movement, which had begun with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

Politics During the Progressive Movement

Progressive reformers considered entering the political arena at all levels essential because politicians had the power to pass legislation designed to bring about desired reforms. Progressivism in politics began at the municipal level and spread to state and federal levels. On the municipal level, there were movements to end the endemic corruption of political machines, which were made up of Republican or Democratic Bosses who controlled city governments. The most well-known political boss of the period was William Marcy Tweed, who controlled New York City politics through Tammany Hall. Although political machines aided city immigrants and the poor, they often did so to gain loyal voters. Political machines were also notorious for accepting bribes and kickbacks and rewarding loyal party workers with jobs. Without the vote, women's influence on politics was more indirect than that of males. Their voices were stronger when they spoke as a group, and women's clubs and settlement house leaders were a strong political presence throughout the United States as women joined the fight to expand city services and improve the lives, housing, and health of urban residents.

Wisconsin and its Progressive governor, Robert M. Fighting Bob La Follette, led the way in reform at the state level. President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the state as a laboratory of democracy, and La Follette's reforms, known as the Wisconsin Idea, were widely adopted by other states. These reforms included a railroad commission to ensure that rates remained reasonable, passing laws governing workmen's compensation and women's and children's working hours, and creating a state forest reserve to conserve natural resources. Politically, reforms included limits on lobbying and campaign expenditures, instituting a state civil service requiring that government jobs be awarded on merit, introducing the initiative allowing voters to propose legislation, voter recall of public officials, and implementing the direct primary election giving voters rather than political machines the right to choose candidates.

Theodore Roosevelt, who took over the U.S. presidency after William McKinley's death from an assassin's bullet in 1901, became the leading national figure of the Progressive Movement. His domestic agenda became known as the Square Deal. From his Bully Pulpit, which referred to a superb platform for ideas, Roosevelt became a trust buster by instituting government regulation leading to the dissolution of monopolies, which had allowed big businesses to stifle all competition. Roosevelt also fought for consumer protection laws such as the 1906 Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. The latter was considered a victory for women, particularly for the General Federation of Women's Clubs, which had conducted a lengthy battle to win government oversight of food and drugs as a way of protecting their families. Roosevelt also strengthened the national park system and implemented policies to promote the conservation of natural resources and public lands. He became known for his aggressive foreign policy, arguing that the United States should speak softly and carry a big stick.

The Progressive Movement came to an end as Americans turned their attention overseas with the outbreak of World War I in Europe, but it had a lasting impact on American politics. Constitutional Amendments added during the Progressive period included the Sixteenth Amendment giving Congress the authority to collect income taxes; the Seventeenth Amendment providing for the direct election of U.S. Senators; the Eighteenth Amendment, which established Prohibition by outlawing the manufacture, sales, or purchase of alcohol; and the Nineteenth Amendment granting women's suffrage. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in 1933. Many historians feel that the Progressive Movement was the forerunner to the development of the modern welfare state created under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and expanded by President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Foreign Affairs

The United States watched as tensions arose in Europe over the rise of nationalism and the competition for colonies and power intensified at the beginning of the 20th century. World War I, known at the time as the Great War, erupted in 1914 after a Serbian terrorist's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. The struggle became global due to a system of alliances between nations, most notably the Allied Powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia, and the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Most Americans supported President Woodrow Wilson's declaration of neutrality at the war's outset, even though most of their sympathies lay with the Allied Powers of Great Britain and France because of strong cultural ties. The United States did aid the Allies through the provision of loans and armaments. Wilson also offered his services as a mediator in attempts to end the conflict. Many women opposed American entry into World War I and became active in various peace movements. Social reformer Jane Addams, for instance, had been a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom since its creation in 1915.

Although Wilson had consistently claimed, There is such a thing as a nation being too proud to fight, German actions at sea increasingly angered the president and other Americans who believed the neutral right to freedom of the seas was being violated. Both Germany and Britain had blockaded the other's coast, and the British were disguising their ships by flying flags of neutral countries. German U-boats (submarines) retaliated by sinking ships without formal warning as required by international law. The most famous incident involved the May 7, 1915, sinking of an unarmed British passenger ship, the Lusitania, which was secretly carrying munitions. Some 128 Americans were killed in the attack, and 94 of the 129 children on board perished. President Wilson issued an ultimatum warning Germany against future attacks, and the Germans agreed to the so-called Sussex Pledge, whereby they promised not to sink passenger ships without warning. Wilson also began a plan of national preparedness by building up U.S. armed forces for defensive purposes.

The United States Enters World War I

Although Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 with a campaign slogan stating he kept us out of war, several German actions shortly propelled the United States into World War I. President Wilson broke U.S. diplomatic relations with Germany in 1916 when Germany declared that U-boats would sink all ships without warning in a declared war zone, which encompassed the coasts of Britain, France, and Italy. The Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in direct violation of the Sussex Pledge. Around the same time, British intelligence intercepted the so-called Zimmerman Telegram between the German foreign secretary and the German minister in Mexico. The telegram proposed an alliance between the two countries, promising Mexico the return of the former Mexican lands of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona if Mexico entered the war against the United States. President Wilson publicized the telegram and asked Congress for a declaration of war. The United States officially entered World War I on April 6, 1917. At the time, Germany had the upper hand while the Allies had been economically devastated. Russia, a former Allied power, had backed out of the war after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union.

The United States immediately began mobilizing and making preparations for war. During the course of World War I, the U.S. government began exercising more direct control of the economy, cooperating with business and industry to ensure the seamless production of war goods. War boards such as the Council for National Defense, the Food and Fuel Administrations, the War Industries Board, the Railroad Administration, and the National War Labor Board were created to coordinate and control all aspects of production. War funding was largely derived from taxes and the public sale of government savings bonds, known as Liberty Bonds or Victory Loans. Throughout the country, women sold war bonds and supported the war effort through rationing and volunteer work. Women and children planted Victory Gardens designed to feed their own families and provide surpluses to mitigate food shortages in Europe. They also participated in scrap metal drives to gain material for weapons.

World War I brought about an economic boom and proved to be a turning point for many Americans. African Americans left the rural, agricultural south and headed to factories in the northeast and Midwest in record numbers, searching for employment in what became known as the Great Migration and precipitating a number of wartime race riots in U.S. cities as African Americans clashed with whites and immigrants who unfairly blamed them for job and housing shortages. Women also entered the workplace in unprecedented numbers, filling positions left vacant by males who had departed for the front and taking on new jobs created by the needs of a nation at war. In addition to women who saw employment simply