HIST 10613 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Self-Service Laundry, Straitjacket, Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
2/2-2/5 The Progressive Era (1890-1920)
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
3:03 PM
Characteristics
• Reform-minded
• Active Government intervention
• Emphasis on expertise, professionalism, scientific knowledge
• Elitism - top down economics and social
• Pragmatism- "If it works, go with it" "ends justify the means"
• Historicism- looks at the past and says that ideas, traditions, and truths to be contained within
their era and a product of their own time, truth can be relative
• Evolution
• The "common good" or "public welfare" trumps individual and property rights
Populism:
• Prelude to progressivism
The Wisconsin Idea
o Regulation of railroads
o Corporate & property taxes
o Municipal ownership of utilities
o Electoral reforms
• Primaries
• Initiative- voters can put a bill forward to their legislature
• Referendum
• Recall- if you get enough votes you can vote them out of office
Social Reform:
• Wanted to do away with child labor
• Life in the city:
o Immigrants are pouring in and the city population is over packed
o Slums in the city
• Safety in the workplace:
o Triangle shirt waste fire- women garment workers were locked into the workplace. A fire
broke out and the employees could not escape the locked doors
"Muckrakers":
o Journalists who were only interested in portraying American society at its worst
o Socialists- reject capitalism and the free market system
o Upton Sinclair-
• wanted to illustrate the plight of the working man and convince people to be socialists
• Exposed the meat packing industry
Progressive Law
"Sociological Jurisprudence"
• Judges look at information and the law and try to decide what the best sociological outcome is
• Regulating work hours and right of contract:
o Lochner v. New York
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Social reform: wanted to do away with child labor. Immigrants are pouring in and the city population is over packed: slums in the city. Safety in the workplace: triangle shirt waste fire- women garment workers were locked into the workplace. A fire broke out and the employees could not escape the locked doors. Judges look at information and the law and try to decide what the best sociological outcome is: regulating work hours and right of contract, lochner v. new york. Lochner had people working longer than the legal hours were. Judge declared the work hours laws were unconstitutional because limiting how long someone can work in unfair: muller v oregon. Female employees at a laundromat: brandeis brief, 15 pages of legal president, 102 pages of sociological evidence. Jane adams & the settlement house movement- provide skills, healthcare, education, and child care to woman immigrants: attempt to relieve the overcummulation at one end of society and the destitution of another.
