The Progressive Era in the US

• The following are study notes relating to the Progressive Era

President Roosevelt's "Square Deal"

• Distinguished between good and bad corporations.
• Did not include: public work projects for the economy, public support, weakening the Interstate Commerce Commission, or financiers of Wall Street.

Nickelodeons in the Progressive Era

• Reflected a mass-consumption society because they offered a popular and less expensive leisure activity for urban residents.
• Did not: reflect amusement parks and dance halls losing popularity, popularity in rural communities where people could not attend vaudeville shows, offer elite theatergoers a highbrow alternative to vaudeville shows, or become widely available.

Progressive-Era Immigration

• Was part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by political turmoil.
• Other forces include: massive droughts in rural southern and eastern Europe and parts of Asia, industrial contraction, the annexation of the Philippines, and the decline of modern agriculture were not factors.

Mass Consumption in the Progressive Era

• Resulted in new consumer freedoms because department stores provided city residents with access to washing machines and other goods.
• Did not: result in farmers in the heartland having more time and money to attend nickelodeon shows, cheap television sets broadcasting middle-class values across the nation, mass-produced radios advertising the availability of new factory products, or mass-produced appliances eliminating persistent poverty in the South.

Journalist William Reedy

• Joked that it struck "sex o'clock" in America because previously private intimate matters became the subject of public debate.
• This was not because: birth control had become available and free for everyone who wanted it, new urban red-light districts made prostitution more visible, gay activism led the Supreme Court to decriminalize sodomy, or there was an unprecedented baby boom due to higher rates of premarital sex.

Company Marketing During the Progressive Era

• Companies marketed goods to Americans by using "liberty" as a brand name or images of the Statue of Liberty as a sales device.
• Other methods like billboard advertisements on newly built highways, buying commercial spots on television, hiring celebrities to endorse their products or specifically targeting well-to-do consumers were not used in marketing.

Progressive Reformers

• Thought they had much to learn from Europe because Germans had pioneered several measures of social legislation.
• French (rehabilitative prison programs), Russian (ecumenical churches), and British (thoughts on racial diversity) innovations were not the focus of reformers.

Red Progressives

• Focused on fostering the common cause of American Indians.
• Believing being a modern Indian meant eradicating Native culture, aiming to eliminate Indian boarding schools, wanting to bring communist ideas to the Progressive movement, and finding themselves purged from Progressive organizations due to their radicalism, was not their focus.

Society of American Indians

• United Indians of many tribal backgrounds.
• Closing most reservations, more aid from the federal government for Indians, family farms created for Indians and increasing Buffalo numbers was not achieved.

Progressives and Government

• Progressives had faith in government run by impartial experts, who were in many respects unaccountable to the citizenry
• True.

Muller v. Oregon

• The Supreme Court argued that women were too weak to work long hours.
• It did not: outlaw child labor for children younger than age sixteen, refuse to limit work hours for male bakers, give labor the right to strike, or validate the "liberty of contract" doctrine.

Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot

• Theodore Roosevelt was not persuaded by Gifford Pinchot to refrain from setting aside millions of acres of federal land as wildlife preserves.
• False.

Socialist Party Influence During the Progressive Era

• Gained significant political influence because Jewish and other immigrant laborers supported its fight against economic exploitation of workers.
• Did not gain influence because: politicians speaking about socialism's merits, party leaders promising working-class Irish voters that the party would not supplant machine politics, politicians successfully manipulating machine politics, or promising to run exclusively for state and local offices.

Theodore Roosevelt on Slaves

• Theodore Roosevelt did not believe that slaves brought from Africa were not fit for citizenship.
• False.

Mary Terrell's 1906 Speech

• Encouraged Black people to find common cause with other Americans of color.
• Did not argue that immigrants should be kept out of reform organizations, explain that racial prejudice in the United States was worse than it was in other countries, praise the principles "practiced under the protection of the flag," or stress the importance of family planning for women's independence.

Socialist Party by 1912

• Had elected scores of local officials.
• Was not only appealed to only immigrants or industrial workers, concentrated in New York City, or had yet to elect a member to Congress.

Study notes about the Progressive Era including President Roosevelt's 'Square Deal' and Nickelodeons. Immigration was part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by political turmoil.