Progressive Era Reading Guide

Chapter 28

1. Elimination of society's evils (corruption, monopolies, social injustices)
2. The operations of trusts/ monopolies (McClure's and Standard Oil Trust), dirty practices on Wall Street (Lawson), life in the slums, false advertising
3. Power for the people, not "interests" or "big business"
   Initiative as a way for citizens to propose legislation themselves
   Referendum as a way for citizens to be final approval for laws
   Recall as a way to remove unwanted public officials
   [What is an Australian ballot?]
   Direct election of senators (17th Amendment)
   Women's suffrage
4. Locally-elected city management established
   Fought "slumlords," prostitution, juvenile delinquency
   Wisconsin fought trusts at the state level under Robert M. La Follette
   Regulated railroads
5. Fairly successful given the passage of Constitutional Amendments (17th and 18th), increased regulation of industry and transit (trains and workers' compensation
6. Control of the Corporations
   Consumer Protection
   Conservation of Natural Resources
7. Roosevelt actually believed that consolidation (basically monopolization) was a product of the 20th century and the regulation was more necessary than dissolution
8. Led to Roosevelt's passing of Meat Inspection Act (1906) and Food and Drug Act (1906) to investigate factory conditions
9. Roosevelt's identity as a naturalist/ outdoorsman President
   Call of the Wild and other bestsellers glamorized the "great outdoors"
10. Increased supply of currency (Aldrich-Vreeland Act, Federal Reserve Act)
11. Young, energetic conservationist/ progressive
    "Trustbuster"
    Allowed Taft to win Presidency in 1908
    Highlighted America's role in the world at large
12. He sure was!
13. Using American money to boost foreign interests ("If we invest in a country the other guy can't")
    Manchuria: US attempted (and failed) to buy Chinese railroads ahead of Russia and Japan
    Caribbean: money pumped into Haiti, Nicaragua, etc.
14. [I do not really understand]
15. Roosevelt realized that Taft was not the successor he was supposed to be and decided to run for a third term against Taft after being rejected by the Republican Party

Chapter 29

1. New Nationalism (Roosevelt): consolidation and regulation, women's suffrage, social reform and aid
   New Freedom (Wilson): small enterprise and an unregulated, monopoly-free market, "competition drives toward prosperity"
2. Wilson would certainly not have won if it was a competition between two parties; Roosevelt would certainly have won if Taft had not run and vice versa
3. Appearance and mannerisms of a professor
   Oratory skills and stubbornness of a fervent Presbyterian
   Belief in citizens' rights as a product of the former Confederacy
   "loved humanity in the mass rather than the individual person"
4. The tariff
   The bank
   The trust
5. Regional reserve districts allowed emergency currency and Federal Reserve Notes to actually be distributed beyond the largest cities
6. Federal Trade Commission (presidentially-appointed investigation committee) and Clayton Anti-Trust Act (basically a reworking of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act)
7. Positive: actually accomplished his original goals, benefited all sorts of Americans (laborers, civil-service employees, sailors)
   Negative: advocated segregation
8. Conservative foreign policy, "war on dollar diplomacy" and pulled out of China
   Wilson was forced to intervene in revolutionary Haiti and Dominican Republic
9. Tampico Incident almost resulted in a war between a reluctant Wilson and the violent Huerta
   Pancho Villa hated "gringoes" and was assailed by licensed cool cat John J. "Black Jack" Pershing
10. A system of alliances meant that disputes between two countries could escalate into wars involving all of Europe (in this case, the murder of Austrian heir Franz Ferdinand
11. Kaiser Wilhelm's autocratic tendencies, German industrial sabotage and violence
12. German u-boats sank a passenger liner with Americans on it and unsurprisingly refused to apologize
13. The Republican candidate was not a politician and was plagued by Roosevelt's refusal to go away
    Most people really didn't want a war
    West woved Wilson