THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

The United States grew dramatically in the decades after the Civil War. In this
unit, you will learn about American expansion overseas and reforms at home that
resulted, in part, because of that growth.

The map below shows the places that came under U.S. control following the Civil
War. By the late 1800s, American companies were seeking new markets for their
products and new sources of raw materials. That quest was connected to the
Pacific islands highlighted on the map. It was also related to a massive
engineering project that took place far from the United States—the digging of the
Panama Canal in the Central American country of Panama.

If U.S. expansion in the Pacific can be linked to trade, in the Caribbean it can be
linked to democratic ideals. In this unit, you will read how Americans' call for self-
government for the people of Cuba drew the United States into a war with Spain.
However, as you will also learn, those ideals were dashed by events following the
war.

As the nation was expanding its territories in other parts of the world, some
Americans were working to improve life at home. By 1900, much of the work that
fueled the nation's industrial growth was performed by young children for low pay.
Half of American citizens still could not vote, and those who could had to choose
between candidates picked by political party leaders. By 1920, great progress had
been made in all three areas. As you read this unit, you will learn how these and
other important reforms were achieved.

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“The men who start the great new movements in the world,” said Samuel McClure
at his college graduation, “are enthusiasts whose eyes are fixed upon the end
they wish to bring about.”

Some of his fellow students may have brushed off McClure's words as mere
speech making. They shouldn't have. This immigrant from Ireland was serious
about starting what he called “great new movements.” In 1893, McClure began
publishing a journal called McClure's Magazine. McClure prided himself on
knowing what people wanted to read about. “If I like a thing,” he said, “then I know
that millions will like it.”

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In 1900, McClure decided that Americans wanted to know the truth about trusts—
gigantic business monopolies that worked to reduce competition. He hired a
reporter named Ida Tarbell to write a history of Standard Oil, one of the biggest
trusts in the country. Starting in 1902, McClure ran Tarbell's report as a serial,
printing one part at a time in issue after issue. The report told about unfair pricing
that was putting Standard Oil's competitors out of business.

McClure began hiring more journalists for his magazine. Some people called his
journalists muckrakers because they “raked up” or exposed corruption in business
and society. Writers like Tarbell adopted this name with pride.

Samuel McClure and Ida Tarbell were part of a larger reform effort known as the
Progressive movement. Progressives did not work as a single group. Some
fought railroad monopolies, while others focused on the problem of child labor.
Some worked for equal rights for African Americans, and others worked to protect
forests. Whatever their cause, most progressives wanted government to play a
larger role in helping to cure the nation's ills. They believed that ordinary people
could start “great new movements” that would improve life in the United States.
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The Progressive movement of the early 20th century focused on economic and
social injustice, the power of big business, and political corruption. But
progressives were not the first to criticize these conditions and to propose far-
reaching reforms.

Industrialization began remaking American society shortly after the Civil War. To
some, the rise of big industry meant endless progress and prosperity. Other
people, however, felt left behind. As early as the 1870s, some of these “have-
nots” began organizing mass movements to work for political and social change.

The National Grange Organized protests against the power of big business
began on the farms of the Midwest. After the Civil War, many midwestern farmers
were caught between rising costs and falling prices for their crops. Farmers felt
victimized. Banks made it hard for people to get cash loans to keep their farms
going in lean times. Grain storage companies and railroads charged high rates to
store and transport crops. And merchants paid too little for what farmers
produced.

In 1867, Oliver Kelley, a clerk at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, began

organizing self-help clubs for farmers called the National Grange of the Patrons of
Husbandry. The movement spread rapidly through the Midwest. By the mid-
1870s, the National Grange had grown into a political force. Farmers used the
National Grange to protest unfair practices by the railroads. Grangers banded
together to negotiate better prices and to start their own banks. They campaigned
for political candidates and worked for such reforms as an income tax and laws
against trusts.

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Pressure from the National Grange led some states to pass laws that limited
railroad shipping rates and prices for grain storage. Big businesses protested this
interference. In 1877, the Supreme Court sided with the Grangers. In a series of
cases, the Court said that states have the right to regulate private property when
it is used in the public interest. The National Grange had won a key victory for the
idea that government has a responsibility to help protect the common good.

Membership in the National Grange dropped in the 1880s as conditions improved

for midwestern farmers. The farmers' revolt continued, however, in the South and
West, where organizations called Farmers' Alliances took up the cause of reform.

The Farmers' Alliances angrily challenged the influence of eastern bankers and
industrialists. A favorite target was Wall Street in New York City, the nation's
financial capital. Mary Elizabeth Lease of Kansas charged,

It is no longer a government of the people, by the people,

and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by
Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people

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of this country are slaves and monopoly is the master

The Populist Party In 1892, leaders of the Farmers' Alliances founded a new
organization that came to be called the Populist Party. The organization worked
to build an alliance between farmers and industrial workers. Such a mass
movement, they believed, could break the power of big business to dictate
government policy.

That same year, the Populist Party adopted a platform calling for such reforms
as an eight-hour workday and government ownership of railroads. That fall,
Populist candidates won election to hundreds of state and local offices. The
Populist candidate for president, James B. Weaver of Iowa, received over a
million votes, winning six of the Mountain and Plains states. But that was the high
point for the Populist Party.

Four years later, the Democratic Party adopted some Populist ideas as part of its
platform. The Populists decided to support the Democratic presidential candidate,
William Jennings Bryan. The Republican candidate, William McKinley, drew
heavy support from business and financial interests. The battle lines were drawn
between eastern capitalists and reform-minded farmers of the South and West.

McKinley won the election handily. His victory was a triumph for those who were
opposed to radical change. The Populist Party, which had lost its identity after
fusing with the Democrats, soon dissolved. For the moment, big business and its
allies reigned supreme. It would be up to other reformers to continue the fight
begun by the Grangers and the Populists.

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When business leaders like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller looked at
the United States in 1900, they saw progress everywhere. Railroads linked towns
and cities across the nation. The increased ease of delivering goods by rail had
nourished countless new industries, including their own. Both men were proud to
be “captains of industry,” leading the way in this growth. “Mere money-making has
never been my goal,” wrote Rockefeller. “I had an ambition to build.”

Industry Brings Progress New industries meant more jobs for a growing nation.
With immigrants pouring into the country, the population of the United States
tripled between 1850 and 1900. Every new factory or mill created jobs for the
newcomers. Carnegie Steel alone employed more than 20,000 workers, many of
them immigrants.

The nation's new industries turned out a wealth of new products at prices ordinary
Americans could afford. “The home of the laboring man of our day boasts luxuries
which even in the palaces of monarchs as recent as Queen Elizabeth were
unknown,” wrote Carnegie. “What were the luxuries,” he noted, “have become the
necessaries of life.”
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The Benefits of Bigness According to business leaders, the growth of big

business made progress possible. Only big business enterprises could deliver
quality goods at prices everyone could afford. As Carnegie explained in an article
defending big business to its critics,

[The] cheapness [of goods] is in proportion

to the scale of production . . . The
larger the scale of operation the cheaper
the product . . . Instead of attempting
to restrict [growth], we should hail every
increase as something to be gained,
not for the few rich, but for the millions of poor.

In Carnegie's view, the growth of big business was the expected result of
competition. According to this view, when many small companies compete in the
same industry, some are more likely to do well than others. Those that are run
most efficiently will grow larger.

Those that are not well run will perish. “The law of competition,” Carnegie argued,
“may be sometimes hard for the individual, [but] it is best for the race, because it
ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”

When Carnegie wrote about “the law of competition” in business, he was

borrowing an idea from the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Darwin had
observed that, in nature, animals and plants compete for food and living space.
Those that are best adapted to their environments are the most likely to survive.
This idea was popularized as “survival of the fittest.”

Before long, some people began to apply Darwin's idea to human society. The
result was social Darwinism. According to this theory, people and societies
compete for survival just as plants and animals do. The most fit become wealthy
and successful. The least fit struggle just to survive.

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Social Darwinism seemed to provide a “scientific” justification for huge differences

in people's wealth and power. It also lent support to the economic concept of
laissez-faire, the idea that businesses should operate with a minimum of
government interference. The best possible economy will then emerge naturally.
By this line of thinking, it is misguided for government to try to correct such
problems as child labor, poor working conditions, and unfair business practices.

Giving Away Wealth In 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company for $250
million. Then he retired to devote his life to philanthropy, or generosity to charities.
Carnegie believed that rich people have a responsibility to use their wealth to help
others. “He who dies rich,” he wrote, “dies disgraced.”

Carnegie used his wealth to build concert halls, universities, and hospitals. Most
of all, however, he loved building libraries. A library, he said, “outranks any other
one thing that a community can do to benefit its people.” Before 1880, few
Americans had access to free public libraries. Just one generation later, 35 million
people a day were using libraries that Carnegie had helped to build.

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“Your example will bear fruits,” John D. Rockefeller wrote to Carnegie. “The time
will come when men of wealth will more generally be willing to use it for the good
of others.”

Rockefeller used his own fortune to fund universities, medical research, the arts,
and education for all. During his lifetime, he contributed about $182 million to the
Rockefeller Foundation, a charitable organization he established to promote “the
well-being of mankind throughout the world.”

Not everyone admired big business the way Rockefeller and Carnegie did. Many
thought big businesses took unfair advantage of workers and consumers. In 1890,
Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to prohibit any form of business
monopoly. The law was so vague and big business so powerful, however, that for
years the law was not enforced. The Sherman Antitrust Act got its first real test
only after Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901.

Breaking a Railroad Trust Roosevelt came into the White House with a
reputation as a reformer. As president, he attacked business monopolies with

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great energy. “We do not want to destroy corporations,” he assured the public,
“but we do wish to make them [serve] the public good.”

Roosevelt's first target was a railroad monopoly called the Northern Securities
Company. This company controlled nearly every rail line between Chicago and
the Pacific Northwest. Roosevelt had the Justice Department sue Northern
Securities for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Supreme Court ordered the
monopoly to be broken up into smaller railroad companies.

Trust-Busting Expands Just after Roosevelt filed suit against Northern

Securities, McClure's Magazine began publishing Ida Tarbell's history of the
Standard Oil Trust. In her report, Tarbell documented how Rockefeller had driven
his competitors out of business. She told about secret deals he had made with
railroads to ship his oil at lower prices than other oil companies paid. She
explained how Rockefeller had cut his oil prices below what the oil cost to
produce. This attracted customers away from other oil companies. After his
competitors went out of business, Rockefeller raised prices again.

A shocked public demanded action. Roosevelt filed suit against not only Standard
Oil, but against 44 other trusts as well. In 1911, Standard Oil was “busted”—
broken up into five major oil companies and several smaller ones.

President Roosevelt thought that government regulation, or enforcement of laws,

was a good long-term solution to bad business behavior. “The great development
of industrialism,” he said, “means that there must be an increase in the
supervision exercised by the Government over business enterprise.”

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In 1890, Robert La Follette of Wisconsin ran for reelection to Congress and lost.
Still a young man, he returned to his work as a lawyer. Then, in 1891, Senator
Philetus Sawyer, a powerful Republican Party boss, reportedly offered La Follette
a bribe to “fix” a court case. Sawyer thought that he could pay La Follette to
guarantee that he would win the case. An insulted La Follette reported the bribery
attempt to the newspapers.

An equally insulted Sawyer decided to crush La Follette. But “Fighting Bob” was
not an easy man to put down. Sawyer had made him so mad that La Follette
decided to run for governor of Wisconsin. As governor, he could work to put the
party bosses out of business.

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In Wisconsin and other states, political machines, or groups run by party bosses,
controlled local and state governments. To make sure their candidates were
elected, corrupt bosses were known to bribe voters and “stuff” ballot boxes with
fake votes.

Thus, the bosses—not the people—chose each party's candidates for office. The
candidates, men like lumber millionaire Sawyer, usually represented powerful
business interests. Without the party's support, upstart reformers like La Follette
had little chance of reaching voters. La Follette was defeated twice by Wisconsin's
powerful Republican “machine” but finally won election as governor in 1900.

Once he took office, La Follette pushed reforms that put the people in charge of
politics. Wisconsin became the first state to adopt the direct primary. This election
system allowed party members, not bosses, to choose party candidates. By 1916,
more than half the states had adopted the “Wisconsin idea.” With the people
choosing their leaders in primary elections, reform governors were swept into
office across the nation.

Oregon introduced three other reforms that put political power into the hands of
the people. The initiative allowed citizens to enact laws by a popular vote. The

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referendum allowed voters to overturn an existing law. The recall allowed voters
to remove an elected official from office.

What all these reforms had in common, wrote La Follette, was a belief that each
state could become a place where “the opportunities of all its people are more
equal . . . [and] human life is safer and sweeter.”

In 1903, labor leader Mary Harris Jones—known as Mother Jones—went to

Pennsylvania to support a strike by 75,000 textile workers. About 10,000 of the
strikers were children. Jones wrote of these young workers,

Every day little children came into Union Headquarters,

Some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with
their fingers off at the knuckle. They were stooped little things,
round shouldered and skinny. Many of them were not over ten years
of age.

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Child Labor Laws The situation Mother Jones found in Pennsylvania was not
unusual. In the early 1900s, more than 1 million children under the age of 16
worked in mines and factories for up to 13 hours a day. To publicize their plight,
Jones led a "March of the Mill Children" from Pennsylvania all the way to Oyster
Bay, New York, to petition President Roosevelt to support child labor laws.

The children's march prompted stories and photographs of child workers in

newspapers and magazines. Across the country, reformers demanded an end to
child labor. Employers claimed that abolishing child labor would produce "a nation
of sissies." By 1909, however, 43 states had passed laws that outlawed the hiring
of children.

Improving Work Conditions Progressive reformers also worked to improve the

lives of adult workers. In 1903, for example, Oregon passed a law that limited
women workers to a ten-hour workday. Maryland set up a program to assist
workers who had been injured on the job.

New York responded to the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire by setting

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up a state committee to investigate conditions in factories. Based on the

committee's work, the state legislature passed 56 worker-protection laws. Many of
these laws called for improvements in factory safety. One permitted women
workers to take pregnancy leaves. (A leave is time away from work.) Another
required employers to provide garment workers with chairs that had backs, rather
than simple stools.

Mother Jones saw progress for the worker in such reforms. "Slowly his hours are
shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think," she wrote. "Slowly the cause
of his children becomes the cause of all."

John Muir was so clever with machines that he might have been a great inventor.
But one day in 1867, a file slipped from his hand and hit him in the eye. This
accident sent Muir's life down a different path.

After recovering from his injury, Muir decided to spend his life roaming wild
places. “I might have become a millionaire,” he said. “I chose to become a tramp.”

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Muir found his wilderness home in Yosemite Valley, a place of great natural
beauty in California's Sierra Nevada. “God himself seems to be always doing his
best here,” he wrote of Yosemite.

Humans, in contrast, seemed to be doing their worst. Loggers were cutting down
Yosemite's ancient redwood trees. Herds of sheep were stripping its meadows
and hillsides bare. “To let sheep trample so divinely fine a place seems
barbarous!” wrote Muir.

Yosemite was not the only wild place threatened by human activity. Rapid
industrial growth and urbanization were causing massive environmental changes.
Loggers were felling the nation's forests at an alarming rate. Miners were scarring
mountains and polluting rivers. Many species of birds and animals were near
extinction or already lost forever.

Concerns over such changes had given birth to a small but growing
conservation movement. Some conservationists worried most about dwindling
natural resources. They advocated careful development of the wilderness.
Others, like Muir, wanted to preserve wonders like Yosemite in their natural state.

To rally the public to his cause, Muir started publishing articles urging the
passage of laws to protect wilderness areas. By 1890, his writings had attracted
enough support to convince Congress to create Yosemite National Park.

Conservationists found an ally in President Theodore Roosevelt. While Roosevelt

was in office, he increased the amount of land set aside as national forest from 47
million to 195 million acres. He also doubled the number of national parks. To
Muir's delight, the president also prohibited logging and ranching in Yosemite and
other national parks.

“Wilderness is a necessity,” said Muir. “Mountain parks and reservations are

useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

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In 1897, a black sociologist named W. E. B. Du Bois joined the faculty of Atlanta

University. His plan was to study social problems “in the light of the best scientific
research.”

Everywhere he looked, Du Bois saw the terrible effects of racism on African

Americans. In the South, Jim Crow laws segregated schools, trains, parks, and
other public places. These laws also banned blacks from voting in most states.
Blacks in the North were not legally segregated, but they still faced discrimination,
particularly in housing and jobs.

African Americans who fought these injustices risked being lynched, or brutally
attacked and killed. Between 1892 and 1903, almost 3,000 African Americans
were lynched across the South. “One could not be a calm, cool, and detached
scientist,” Du Bois found, “while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved.”

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Du Bois wanted to do something, but what? Booker T. Washington, the best-

known black leader of the time, advised African Americans to make the best of
segregation. Washington was a former slave who had founded the Tuskegee
Institute, a vocational school for blacks. He believed that job skills for African
Americans would lead to economic progress and eventual acceptance. “The
wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality
is the extremest folly,” he said.

Du Bois could not accept such thinking. In 1905, he gathered influential African
Americans at Niagara Falls to push directly for voting rights. He wanted to see an
end to discrimination.

This group of African Americans became known as the Niagara Movement. They
continued to meet each year. In 1909, they joined a group of white reformers who
were also dissatisfied with Booker T. Washington's cautious approach. Together,
they formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The new organization pledged to work for equal rights and opportunities for all
African Americans.
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By 1920, the NAACP had over 90,000 members. Their goal was to make 11
million African Americans “physically free from peonage [servitude], mentally free
from ignorance, politically free from disenfranchisement [denial of rights], and
socially free from insult.”

When Upton Sinclair wrote a novel about the horrors of slavery, few people
bought his work. Then a publisher asked if Sinclair would write a book about
factory workers who were treated like slaves. Sinclair jumped at the chance.
Workers at a Chicago meatpacking plant had just been brutally defeated in a labor
dispute. Sinclair decided to write about them.

Meatpacking Horrors In 1900, Chicago was the home of the nation's biggest
meatpacking companies. Disguised as a worker, Sinclair spent seven weeks in
the slaughterhouses in 1904. There he observed how cattle and hogs became
steaks and sausages. He saw employees with missing thumbs, and others whose
fingers had been eaten away by acid. He heard stories of deadly falls into cooking
vats.

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Based on his research, Sinclair wrote a tragic story of poor immigrants trapped in
poverty by greedy business owners. In his 1906 novel The Jungle, he described
the horrors of meatpacking plants in great detail. He told of sick animals being
processed into food. He described sausage made from old, rotten meat mixed
with everything from sawdust to rodents. “Rats were nuisances,” he wrote, “and
the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats,
bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.”

The Jungle became the nation's biggest best seller since the Civil War–era's
Uncle Tom's Cabin. But readers were more upset about the contents of their
sausage than the treatment of the “wage slaves.” “I aimed at the public's heart,”
said Sinclair, “and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

Safer Food and Drugs After reading The Jungle, President Roosevelt ordered an
investigation of the meatpacking industry. When his investigators confirmed that
conditions were as bad as Sinclair had claimed, Congress passed the Meat
Inspection Act in 1906. This established health standards for the meatpacking
industry and federal inspection of meat.
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Other muckrakers revealed similar problems in the food-canning and drug

industries. Also in 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. This law
requires manufacturers to use safe ingredients in their products and to advertise
them truthfully. Future decades would bring more laws protecting American
consumers.

By 1900, women had won their fight for suffrage, or the right to vote, in four
western states. Elsewhere, the drive for voting rights seemed stalled. The
Progressive movement, however, breathed new life into the campaign begun at
Seneca Falls in 1848. Many progressives believed that their reforms would be
adopted more quickly if women had the right to vote.

A New Suffrage Movement In 1916, a young reformer named Alice Paul formed
what came to be known as the National Woman's Party. Older women's groups
had worked to win the right to vote state by state. Paul and her supporters were
determined to win the vote by a constitutional amendment.

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To build momentum for a suffrage amendment, Paul organized a parade in

Washington, D.C. More than 5,000 women marched amidst jeers and insults from
onlookers. Newspapers applauded the courage of the “suffragettes,” as the
activists came to be known.

Passing the Nineteenth Amendment By 1918, women could vote in 12 states,

but they had made little progress on the suffrage amendment. The National
Woman's Party began holding silent vigils outside the White House. The
protesters held banners that read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do for Woman
Suffrage?” and “How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?”

Police arrested 200 women for blocking the sidewalk. While in jail, Paul and her
supporters went on a hunger strike. When the jailers tried to force-feed them, the
public became enraged. The women were released to a hero's welcome.

Less than two months later, a suffrage amendment was approved by the House of
Representatives by just one vote more than the twothirds majority required. The
amendment had been introduced by Jeanette Rankin of Montana, the first woman
elected to Congress.

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Senate approval took another 18 months. The states finally ratified the Nineteenth
Amendment on August 26, 1920. That year, women across the country voted in
their first national election.

Paul went on to draft another amendment guaranteeing equal rights to women. “I

never doubted that equal rights was the right direction,” she said, even though the
amendment was never ratified. “Most reforms, most problems are complicated.
But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

In this chapter, you learned about the Progressive movement of the early
20th century.

Sowing the Seeds of Reform As early as the 1870s, farmers organized to

protest the government's laissez-faire policies and the growing power of big
business. The Granger and Populist movements championed the cause of the
common man and helped sow the seeds of Progressive reform.

Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller To men of industry like Carnegie

and Rockefeller, calls for reform were misguided. All of America, they argued, had
benefited from industrialization. The country was growing in wealth, and ordinary
Americans enjoyed luxuries that were previously unheard of.

Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette Unlike industrialists, many people

thought big businesses took unfair advantage of workers and consumers. As
president, Roosevelt broke up business monopolies, including the Northern
Securities Company railroad monopoly and the Standard Oil monopoly. As
governor of Wisconsin, La Follette helped put party bosses out of business by
pushing reforms that put people in charge of politics.

Mother Jones Labor leader Mary Harris Jones—known as Mother Jones—fought

hard to end child labor. Because of her influence, 43 states passed laws by 1909
outlawing the hiring of children.

John Muir Naturalist John Muir spurred on the growing conservation movement.
His writings called for laws to protect wilderness and helped convince Congress
to create Yosemite National Park.

W. E. B. Du Bois Sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois fought racism and discrimination

against blacks. He helped to form the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, which pledged to work for equal rights and opportunities for all
African Americans.

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Upton Sinclair In his 1906 novel The Jungle, Upton Sinclair described the
horrors of meatpacking plants. The best seller prompted a federal investigation of
the meatpacking industry and led to new laws protecting American consumers:
the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Alice Paul In 1916, Alice Paul formed what came to be known as the National
Woman's Party. Her work led to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in
1920, giving women across the country the vote.

The rise of industry changed the lives of even the youngest members of
American society. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, children—some as
young as four—worked in mines and factories. They worked on city streets
and in tenement rooms. It would take decades of struggle to outlaw this
kind of child labor.

Rows of boys—some only five years old—sat on wooden planks that lay across
long chutes. High above the boys, huge carts dumped tons of coal into the
chutes. As the coal came tumbling down, the boys sorted it, removing pieces of

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slate and stone.

The coal came from deep in the earth, where older boys and men had mined it.
The boys who sat on the planks were called “breakers,” because it was their job
to break up the coal and remove the impurities.

Work was hard and days were long. Lewis Hine, a photographer, described a
typical workday for the breaker boys. As part of a campaign against child labor,
Hine was taking pictures of children at work.

The pieces [of coal] rattled down through long chutes at which
the breaker boys sat. It's like sitting in a coal bin all day long,
except that the coal is always moving and clattering and cuts
their fingers. Sometimes the boys wear lamps in their caps to help
them see through the thick dust. They bend over the chutes until
their backs ache, and they get tired and sick because they have to
breathe coal dust instead of good, pure air.

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The boys got to work at 7:00 in the morning (many of their mothers walked them
to the mine) and did not go home until 6 or 6:30 at night. At best, the work was
uncomfortable. The boys were not allowed to wear gloves because doing so
could make them less efficient. So their fingers would swell, crack, and bleed until
they hardened after a few weeks on the job. At worst, the work was dangerous. A
breaker boy who leaned too far over might fall into a chute and be crushed or
smothered to death. Boys who caught their fingers in the conveyers might get
them cut off.

When the boys turned 12, they moved to jobs in the mine itself. One such job was
“door boy.” The door boy sat 500 feet below ground. He listened for the coal cars
coming from the mine and opened the door for them when they arrived. Lewis
Hine described the lonely job, explaining that the door boy was “by himself nine
or ten hours a day in absolute darkness save for his little oil lamp.” The boy could
not fall asleep, though. If he did, a cart filled with tons of coal might smash through
the closed door and crush him.

An 1885 law in Pennsylvania, the site of many coal mines, said that breaker boys
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had to be at least 12 years old. A 1902 law raised the age to 14. But the law was
never enforced. Fake birth certificates were easy to come by. They cost only a
quarter, and so a little boy might be identified as “small for his age” in order to
pass for 12 or 14.

The 1900 census reported that 1.75 million children under the age of 16 were
working in jobs in the United States. Considering how easy it was for underage
children to get jobs, that figure is probably lower than the actual number of
working children.

During the Progressive era—the first two decades of the 1900s— reformers like
Lewis Hine exposed the terrible conditions that children endured in industrial
workplaces. They wanted to see child labor outlawed. But it would take until the
1930s for their efforts to win out. In the meantime, children labored at terrible jobs
to make money that would help their families survive.

Working at Home and on the Streets

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Coal mines were not the only place where children worked. They worked in mills
where cloth was made, in factories where glass was made, and in canneries
where fish was packaged. On farms, they picked crops and hoed fields.

Many children also worked at home, but they did far more than help with
household chores. In the early 1900s, many adults brought work to their homes
and did it there. This work was called “piecework,” because workers were paid for
each piece they completed, no matter how long the work took.

One reformer described four-year-old Anetta Fachini working with her mother late
into the night.

The frail little thing was winding green paper around wires to
make stems for artificial flowers to decorate ladies' hats. Every
few minutes her head would droop and her weary eyelids close,
but her little fingers still kept moving—uselessly, helplessly,
mechanically
moving. Then the mother would shake her gently, saying
. . . “Sleep not, Anetta! Only a few more—only a few more.”

—John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children, 1906

In the “home industries,” he continued, “the kindergartens are robbed to provide

baby slaves.”

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Children also worked on the city streets. Some boys worked as “bootblacks,”
polishing men's shoes for a fee. Others delivered telegrams. The most common
job for boys was selling newspapers. In 1899, “newsies,” as they were called,
could buy 100 newspapers from the publishers for 50 cents. Then they sold the
papers for one cent apiece. If they sold all their papers, they made a profit.

Selling newspapers was hard work. The boys waited outside the newspaper
offices in the early morning hours to get their papers. Then they rushed out to sell
their papers, using whatever skills and tricks they could come up with.

Selling newspapers could also be dangerous. Newsies who jumped on and off
streetcars might slip and have an arm or leg run over. When a reformer raised
money to buy wooden limbs for the injured boys, the boys refused to wear them.
They preferred to get the sympathy of potential buyers.

Reformers worried about the newsies. The boys knew their way around the cities
—including the saloons, the gambling houses, and other unsavory places. But the
boys themselves often liked their work. They felt proud and independent.

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Fighting Back

Neither children nor reformers simply accepted child labor. The kids themselves
fought for higher pay and better working conditions. For example, some frustrated
Pennsylvania breaker boys fought back against one of the foremen who was
particularly mean to them. They decided not to go to work one day. Instead, they
went to a local swimming hole to play. When the nasty foreman came to get them,
the boys pushed him into the water and dunked him. Eventually, another
company man rescued him, but the boys won their case. They got a new
foreman.

Children also followed the lead of older workers and went on strike. In the summer
of 1899, the newsies struck against the New York Journal and the New York
World. The papers' publishers had raised the price they charged newsies to 60
cents for 100 papers.

The boys decided to boycott the two papers. As the boys' leader, Kid Blink, said,
“I'm trying to figure out how ten cents on a hundred can mean more to a
millionaire than it does to a newsboy. I can't see it.” After a two-week strike, the
boys accepted a deal. They would pay the 60 cents, but they would be able to
return their unsold papers.

Child workers improved their own situations, but reformers wanted to outlaw child
labor entirely. Photographers like Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis showed the plight of
working children. Their images helped change public opinion. Union organizers
like Mother Jones led protest marches. Her efforts pressured employers and
politicians. Groups like the National Consumers' League and the National Child
Labor Committee lobbied to end child labor. They wanted children to be required
to go to school.

Change happened slowly, one state at a time, until 1938. That year, the federal
government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law restricted what it
called “oppressive child labor.” Today, the Fair Labor Standards Act restricts the
hours that children under 16 can work. And it prevents children under 18 from
doing dangerous jobs. The days of breaker boys and newsies are long gone in
the United States.

What was education like in the United States as the 20th century approached? If
you had been a student in the late 1800s, this would almost certainly be your last
year of school. In 1900, only about 10 percent of Americans received a high

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school education. Even so, by going through the eighth grade you would have
learned far more than the typical American of the early 1800s.

How Schools Changed

Changes in schooling were necessary because there was more to know. Health
and hygiene were taught in many schools. Sometimes there were also lessons in
biology and zoology (the scientific study of animals, which was useful for people
who lived on farms). Many boys were trained in carpentry and other trades so
they could go right to work after they finished school.

As America grew bigger, geography became an important subject. History

became necessary too. In the early 1800s, students who wanted to know about
the Revolutionary War could ask a grandparent about it. Of course, by the late
1800s no one remained from the generation of Washington, Franklin, and
Jefferson.

In the early United States, most teachers were men. Gradually, women took over
the job of teaching. They were often trained at “normal schools.” These institutions
were early versions of teachers' colleges. A leader in the effort to create more
female teachers was Catharine Beecher. She was the sister of Harriet Beecher
Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. According to Beecher, “God designed
women to be the chief educators of our race.”

A New Purpose for Schools

Education faced a new challenge in the last decades of the 19th century.
Immigration was making America more populous, and more diverse. In 1870,
there were 7,600,000 children in America's public schools. By 1890, the number
had exploded to 12,700,000. Most of the increase was due to immigration.

The nation's leaders saw public schools as the ideal place to assimilate children
from other cultures. “Assimilating” these children meant teaching them American
ways of life.

One way schools taught American values was through lessons in the McGuffey's
Readers (see An Era of Reform Enrichment Essay-Education in the United States
1: Schools and Schooling in Pre-Civil War America). McGuffey's books taught
values along with reading and vocabulary. They stressed honesty, obedience,
hard work, and patriotism. This passage is from McGuffey's third reader, which

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was used by fifth and sixth graders:

“Don't you hate splitting wood?” asked Charlie. “No, I rather like it,”
said Rob. “It's a tough job and it's nice to conquer it.” Now which of
these boys do you think grew up to be a rich and useful man and
which of them joined a party of tramps before he was thirty years
old?

Religion and Public Schools

McGuffey was a preacher as well as a professor. When his readers were first
published in the 1830s, they were filled with religious content. Later editions
greatly reduced the religious references so that the readers were suited to
Catholic and Jewish immigrants as well as Protestants from various churches.

They were following the spirit of the times. After fighting a bloody civil war to
preserve the Union, few Americans wanted to see the nation divided over religion.
In an 1875 speech, President Ulysses Grant urged citizens to “leave the matter of
religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely
by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated.”

The next year, Congress voted on a constitutional amendment to ban the teaching
of religion in public schools. The amendment failed by two votes in the Senate,
and it was never ratified. Later in 1876, however, Congress passed a law
requiring that new states establish public schools “free from sectarian [religious]
control.”

Private Schools

Like Congress, most Americans preferred to keep religion out of schools. Deeply
religious parents, though, wanted their children to learn religion along with
reading, writing, and arithmetic. Roman Catholics, in particular, set up parochial
schools. These were private schools controlled by church organizations.
Protestants and Jews also established private schools.

Many wealthy families sent their children to nonreligious private schools. These
schools emphasized a high level of instruction and demanding classwork.
Students from well-known private schools were almost guaranteed admission to a
prominent university.

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A System to Be Proud Of

Private schools made a major contribution to American education, but most

students still attended free public schools. By 1900, the United States had the
largest public education system in the world. More youngsters went to school, and
they stayed longer. The number of students attending high school doubled every
10 years. By 1930, 80 percent of eighth graders continued their education. By
producing so many well-educated young people, public schools helped make the
United States a world power.

In 1851, Henry David Thoreau declared, “In Wildness is the preservation of the
World.” Thoreau's words capture the spirit of what became the conservation
movement. In time, the conservation movement moved forward on two major
fronts. The first was government action. The second was made up of the efforts of
private citizens and organizations.

National Land Policy: From Settlement to Conservation

In the 1800s, the federal government's land policy encouraged settlement in the
West. Beginning in 1800, a series of laws allowed settlers to buy western land at
low prices. In 1862, the Homestead Act made millions of acres available to
settlers. In return, homesteaders promised to build farms and ranches.

The federal government gave away land rights for other purposes as well.
Congress granted land to the states so they could build canals, roads, public
buildings, schools, and colleges. Railroad companies were given huge land grants
to build a rail system.

National land policy began to change by 1890. More and more, the federal
government moved toward a policy of protecting natural resources and scenic
areas.

As early as 1872, Congress had established Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone was the world's first national park. In 1891, the Forest Reservation
Act allowed timberland to be set aside and protected from private entry.

President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) made conservation a national priority.

During his time in office, 125 million acres of public land were transferred into the
forest reserves. Roosevelt doubled the number of national parks and established
51 federal bird reservations. In addition, he created 18 national monuments. The

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monuments protected cultural features like ancient petroglyphs (rock carvings)

and historic inscriptions at El Morro, New Mexico. They also protected natural
features like the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Congress later converted many of
these monuments to national parks.

The National Park Service

By 1916, the Interior Department was responsible for 14 national parks and 21
national monuments. However, there was no organization in place to manage
them. Then, in August 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a law creating the
National Park Service. The Park Service's mission was “to conserve the scenery
and the natural and historic objects and the wild life” in national parks and
monuments. The goal was to leave these national treasures “unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations.”

A major issue complicated this mission. There had always been a tension
between “pure” and “utilitarian” conservationists. Pure conservationists wanted
wilderness areas left undisturbed. Utilitarian conservationists believed in
combining preservation with the use of natural resources.

Early on, the National Park Service sided with the utilitarians. The service allowed
automobiles into national parks and let companies build hotels to attract visitors.
Tensions continue today over preservation versus use of resources. Americans
disagree over whether to permit oil drilling and lumbering in wilderness areas.
They also debate whether certain recreational vehicles, such as snowmobiles and
motorcycles, should be allowed in parklands and forests.

In its early days, the national park system was largely made up of lands in the
West. In the 1930s, the National Park Service expanded its mission. Under
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the park service acquired historic military parks
and other national monuments from other federal agencies. Among them were the
Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House. And adding
almost 50 historic areas in the East made the park service a truly national
organization. It also involved the service deeply in the natural preservation.

As part of his New Deal, Roosevelt established a Civilian Conservation Corps.

The CCC employed thousands of young men in conservation and construction
projects in both state and national parks.

Also during the 1930s, the National Park Service became involved with areas that

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were primarily intended for recreation. An example is the Lake Mead National
Recreation Area. This site surrounds the reservoir created by Hoover Dam, on the
border of Nevada and Arizona. Later, more reservoir areas were added to the
park system.

The National Park Service's mandate continued to grow as new types of parks
were established. They included historic sites, areas around free-flowing rivers,
and recreational areas around large cities. In 1980, a new law more than doubled
the size of the national park system by adding over 47 million wilderness acres in
Alaska. This vast area includes majestic mountain peaks and massive glaciers.

Private Conservation Efforts

Private citizens and organizations have played a major role in encouraging

conservation. One of the nation's first conservation organizations was the
Appalachian Mountain Club. The Club was founded in Boston in 1876. It worked
to establish a sense of “stewardship,” or caretaking, of New England's mountain
wilds.

The Appalachian Mountain Club served as a model for Scottish immigrant John
Muir. (Muir is discussed in Chapter 27 of History Alive! The United States Through
Industrialism.) In 1892, Muir helped found the Sierra Club. More than 100 years
later, the Sierra Club is still one of the nation's leading conservation organizations.
It works to lobby lawmakers and to educate the public about environmental
issues.

Another important conservation organization is the National Audubon Society.

The society is named for the pioneering naturalist John J. Audubon. (You met him
in Chapter 13 of History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism .)
Audubon's paintings and studies of birds and other wildlife inspired many
Americans to care for nature.

In 1896, the “Audubon movement” began with the founding of the Massachusetts
Audubon Society. The movement gave ordinary Americans a way to become
involved in the study and protection of bird life. In time, a number of local
Audubon societies came together as a national organization.

Today the National Audubon Society has more than half a million members.
Among other causes, it works to protect wetlands, protect endangered forests,
promote wildlife refuges, and protect the pathways used by migratory birds. It also

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operates more than 100 sanctuaries and nature centers in the United States.

In the 1970s, a new environmental movement attracted national attention.

Environmentalists took up the cause of preserving wilderness areas and
protecting endangered species and habitats. They also called for new measures
to fight pollution, reduce the use of pesticides, and encourage energy efficiency.

But old tensions and dilemmas surfaced in new forms. How should Americans
balance the rights of private property owners with those of the public? How should
they balance the use of natural resources with the preservation of wilderness
areas and wildlife habitats? These debates seem certain to continue long into the
future.

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