CTAH Workshop: Coming to Terms With Progress

Social and Political Change in the 19th Century

The U.S. and the World in the 20th Century

After-School Workshop, March 27, 2003

Coming to Terms with "Progress":
America in an Age of Reform (1890-1920)

Facilitator: Dr. Penelope Harper, Binghamton University

Focus on Documents:

At the CTAH we emphasize teaching with documents.

We believe that primary documents can draw students into history in ways that challenge and excite them. Through examining documents students are faced with the realities of history and they learn to be critical thinkers.

Primary documents are an increasingly important part of the curriculum and are now used regularly in New York State standardized tests.

Selection of documents available for use in teaching Progressive Reform:
GENERAL:

http://www.gliah.uh.edu/modules/progressivism/documents.cfm
Gilder Lehrer Institute's page of links to wide range of documents on the Progressive Era. Some of the links are repeated below.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Urbanization and Poverty:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/cities/nycphoto.html
photos of New York City in the early 1900s

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/cities/urban.html
photos of urbanization in the early 1900s

http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html
hypertext edition of Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

Muckrakers:

http://www.americanwriters.org/classroom/resources/tr_sinclair.asp
C-SPAN's American writers series page on Upton Sinclair and The Jungle, with lesson ideas, Progressive Era timeline

Temperance: http://womhist.binghamton.edu/wctu/doc3.htm
temperance speech

Race:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/treatise/dubois/dubois_01.htm
full text of W.E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

http://womhist.binghamton.edu/aswpl/doclist.htm
African American women writing about lynching (includes Ida B. Wells)

Conservation:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/conserve/letter.html
Roosevelt letter on conservation

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html
Chronology of conservation movement with links to documents

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS:

State and Muncipal Reform

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/cities/reforms.html
text of speech by Wisconsin's Robert La Follette outlining reforms

http://www.gliah.uh.edu/historyonline/us28.cfm
selection of quotes about urban political machines

Roosevelt:

http://www.bartleby.com/58/
text of Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life, with links to other Roosevelt writings

Woman Suffrage:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/suffrage/influenc.html
Text of suffrage speech

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html
woman suffrage timeline

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
Library of Congress document relating to suffrage

http://womhist.binghamton.edu/lobby/doclist.htm
Documents relating to suffrage tactics

Election of 1912

http://1912.history.ohio-state.edu/ChoicesIn1912.htm
Site devoted to the election of 1912, organized by issue, contains links to speeches and cartoons

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/31.htm
Roosevelt speech defining the New Nationalism

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/32.htm
Wilson's 1913 inaugural speech

ECONOMIC REFORMS:

Labor Conditions

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
Cornell's site on the Triangle Fire. Contains links to many documents

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html
Lewis Hine photos of child workers

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/30.htm
Text of Justice Brewer's opinion in Muller v. Oregon

http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Lochner/
Full text of Lochner v. New York

Trusts

http://www.gliah.uh.edu/historyonline/us31.cfm
selection of quotes relating to trusts and monopolies

Progressive Reform in the curriculum:

Social Problems
Belief in the use of government power
Increasing inequities between rich and poor
Muckrakers: The Jungle, Pure Food and Drug Act
Racial Discrimination: NAACP, anti-lynching, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington
Temperance and Prohibition: WCTU
Anti-defamation League
Conservation: John Muir, Gifford Pincot, National Park System

Government and Politics
Municipal reform
State reforms
Direct primaries
Direct election of senators: 17th amendment
Woman suffrage: 19th amendment
Roosevelt
Wilson
Election of 1912

Economic Reforms
Labor Laws: Muller v. Oregon, Lochner v. New York
Trust Busting: Clayton Anti-trust act
Railroads
Federal Trade Commission
Federal Reserve System
Income Tax: 16th amendment

Essential Questions and Unit Questions
Understanding By Design, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/wiggins98toc.html

Essential Questions

Go to the heart of a discipline.
Recur naturally throughout one's learning and in the history of a field.
Raise other important questions.

Unit Questions

Provide subject and topic specific doorways to essential questions.
Are deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student interest.

Scaffolding Questions

Are focused around a particular document or event
Lead students to answer unit questions

What are Essential Questions and Unit Questions for Progressive Reform?

Document Analysis

What scaffolding questions can we ask of these documents?
How are they related to unit and essential questions?
How could we insert them into a lesson?

Document 1: Photo of family in attic home with drying laundry
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/cities/nycphoto.html

Document 2: Letter from Roosevelt, 1909
The policy of conservation is perhaps the most typical example of the general policies which this Government has made peculiarly its own during the opening years of the present century. The function of our Government is to insure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their right to life on this continent. If we allow great industrial organizations to exercise unregulated control of the means of production and the necessaries of life, we deprive the Americans of to-day and of the future of industrial liberty, a right no less precious and vital than political freedom. Industrial liberty was a fruit of political liberty, and in turn has become one of its chief supports, and exactly as we stand for political democracy so we must stand for industrial democracy. . . .

Document 3: From Robert LaFollette's autobiography
. . . If it can be shown that Wisconsin is a happier and better state to live in, that its institutions are more democratic, that the opportunities of all its people are more equal, that social justice more nearly prevails, that human life is safer and sweeter--then I shall rest content in the feeling that the Progressive movement has been successful. And I believe all these things can really be shown, and that there is no reason now why the movement should not expand until it covers the entire nation. While much has been accomplished, there is still a world of problems yet to be solved; we have just begun; there is hard fighting, and a chance for the highest patriotism, still ahead of us. The fundamental problem as to which shall rule, men or property, is still unsettled; it will require the highest qualities of heroism, the profoundest devotion to duty in this and in the coming generation, to reconstruct our institutions to meet the requirements of a new age. May such brave and true leaders develop that the people will not be led astray. . . .

Document 4: Lewis Hine photo of Child workers
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/empty.jpg

Document 5: opinion of Justice Peckham in Lochner v. New York
It is a question of which of two powers or rights shall prevail -- the power of the State to legislate or the right of the individual to liberty of person and freedom of contract. The mere assertion that the subject relates though but in a remote degree to the public health does not necessarily render the enactment valid. The act must have a more direct relation, as a means to an end, and the end itself must be appropriate and legitimate, before an act can be held to be valid which interferes with the general right of an individual to be free in his person and in his power to contract in relation to his own labor.