11: Populism and Progressivism

11: Populism and Progressivism

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If Google Street View existed in 1911
If Google Street View existed in 1911
Not all information about ane era is contained in books, web sites and documentary videos - photographs of the era can tell a lot too - let students tell you what these images teach them about the Progressive Era
If Google Street View existed in 1911
At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction | Farm to Fable | Food | Tampa Bay Times
At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction | Farm to Fable | Food | Tampa Bay Times
If you'd like to drag students into a 21st century version of "the Jungle" perhaps this might do it. It's not that the food is unhealthy or harmful to your health, but what you eating is not necessarily what you think you are eating. And according to this article, it most certainly is not what you are being told you are eating.
At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction | Farm to Fable | Food | Tampa Bay Times
Museum Syndicate: Art by Jacob Riis
Museum Syndicate: Art by Jacob Riis
More than eighty Riis photographs on one page. Students looking for project material or teachers in need of Riis photographs should go here first.
Museum Syndicate: Art by Jacob Riis
How the Other Half Lives: Jacob Riis (Book)
How the Other Half Lives: Jacob Riis (Book)
The entire book at archive.org. Instant lesson plan? - Just split class into enough groups to have each grab a chapter and read/scan through it in 15 minutes - then discussion. Or have half the class read the text and the other half look at the pictures, then discuss Riis's views.
How the Other Half Lives: Jacob Riis (Book)
From Abolition to Progressivism: Women in Public Life
From Abolition to Progressivism: Women in Public Life
"This assignment introduces students to the history of women's suffrage in the context of other nineteenth and twentieth century reform movements using a combination of photographs and written documents. The goal is to teach "form" along with "content," so that students will look at both the images and the written documents for their uses of gendered rhetoric in addition to their more obvious content. The project starts with a "slideshow" that students can either do at home or that the teacher can show in class (or both) and finishes with group discussions and an individual writing assignment."
From Abolition to Progressivism: Women in Public Life
Progressivism in the Factory – America in Class – resources for history & literature teachers
Progressivism in the Factory – America in Class – resources for history & literature teachers
This lesson from the National Humanities Center comes with a narrative understanding of the Progressive Era that is seldom, if ever, taught. Sharing it with students can help facilitate learning in this lesson which has students reading from Frederick Winslow Taylor's "Scientific Management" . THis lesson provides the text and questions annotated to the text itself
Progressivism in the Factory – America in Class – resources for history & literature teachers
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition educates the public about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire through its on-going projects, educational outreach, and social media sites
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Remembering Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Remembering Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
At only 5 1/2 minutes, this brief video is comprised mostly of the testimony of Serf Maltese, a NY state senator and grandson and nephew of victims of the fire. Without too much drama, the video relates important information.
Remembering Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Teaching American History: Progressive Era
Teaching American History: Progressive Era

Teachers looking for a unit's worth of Progressive lessons could use this approach. Although it is a lesson that uses the traditional divide and conquer, do a project approach, but it does it based on primary documents.

  1. How does the Progressive Movement represent a change in American ideals? 2 What is the long-term impact of Progressive goals?
  2. How do labor unions continue to represent the ideals of the Progressive Movement?
Teaching American History: Progressive Era
Social Studies in the Spotlight: Inquiry, Primary Sources, and Informational Reading, 7-12
Social Studies in the Spotlight: Inquiry, Primary Sources, and Informational Reading, 7-12

This lesson has students reading letters opposing and in support of the the Keating-Owen Child Labor Acts of 1916 (act). The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This primary doc exercise can be combined with an analysis of Lewis Hines photography 1916 - Letter from Suzanne Heber Supporting Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill (letter) 1916 - Letter from Lyons Township High School Students supporting Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill (letter) 1916 - Letter from Marshall Dilling Opposing Keating-Own Child Labor Bill (letter) 1916 - Letter from Operatives of Cherokee Falls Manufacturing Company Cotton Mill in Opposition to Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill"

Social Studies in the Spotlight: Inquiry, Primary Sources, and Informational Reading, 7-12
Disability History - Emerging America
Disability History - Emerging America
Topics such as eugenic sterilization, the education of disabled children, and telegrams between Helen Keller and Alexander Graham Bell combine to create a vivid collection of materials appropriate for research and education alike.
Disability History - Emerging America
The Helicon Home Colony - Upton Sinclair Letter
The Helicon Home Colony - Upton Sinclair Letter
Upton Sinclair used the proceeds from "The Jungle" to to fund a small utopian community in Englewood, New Jersey. This letter of his describes the community. Please note the use of "rigid selection" to decide who is eligible to join the commune. This rigid selection included a ban on "anyone of color"
The Helicon Home Colony - Upton Sinclair Letter
StoryMapJS: Lower East Side Walking Tour
StoryMapJS: Lower East Side Walking Tour
Wouldn't it be great to walk through lower Manhattan with a trained tour guide, providing background and historical information? Students can do that with this site.
StoryMapJS: Lower East Side Walking Tour
The 1905 Movement to Reform Football - Topics in Chronicling America (Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, Library of Congress)
The 1905 Movement to Reform Football - Topics in Chronicling America (Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, Library of Congress)
The linked articles at this site provide a wide selection of newspaper articles concerning safety in collegiate football at the turn of the century. This can be used as material for a progressive era lesson with material that has never been used for such.
The 1905 Movement to Reform Football - Topics in Chronicling America (Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, Library of Congress)
The hardcore teen bike messengers of the early 1900s
The hardcore teen bike messengers of the early 1900s
In 1908, the progressive National Child Labor Committee hired Lewis Hine, a New York sociologist and photographer, to document the exploitative working conditions of child laborers in dozens of occupations, from mining and manufacturing to farming and newspaper selling - this is his collection of photographs of bike messengers. Most of the messengers worked for telegraph companies or drug stores. The photos that Hine took became the face of the child labor reform movement and ultimately helped push through the 1916 passage of the Keatings-Owen Act, which set age and shift length restrictions for young workers. While the act was struck down by the Supreme Court, it set the stage for lasting reform to be created during the New Deal of the 1930s.
The hardcore teen bike messengers of the early 1900s
"Fitter Family" contests at State Fairs from the Eugenics Archive
"Fitter Family" contests at State Fairs from the Eugenics Archive

Most Americans know that rural state fairs feature award-winning pumpkins, blue ribbon calfs and quilting contests. But how many know that dark side of the progressive movement's popularization of eugenics as a means to improve society promoted state fair family competitions. "Fitter Families" entered these competitions to document the successful "breeding" which brought them better families. This archive includes photos, awards and documentation that families provided in these competitions .

See more evidence here - http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/themes/8.html

"Fitter Family" contests at State Fairs from the Eugenics Archive
Other people's money, and how the bankers use it : Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, (Book)
Other people's money, and how the bankers use it : Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, (Book)
The book attacked the use of investment funds to promote the consolidation of various industries under the control of a small number of corporations, which Brandeis alleged were working in concert to prevent competition. Brandeis harshly criticized investment bankers who controlled large amounts of money deposited in their banks by middle-class people. The heads of these banks, Brandeis pointed out, routinely sat on the boards of railroad companies and large industrial manufacturers of various products, and routinely directed the resources of their banks to promote the interests of their own companies. These companies, in turn, sought to maintain control of their industries by crushing small businesses and stamping out innovators who developed better products to compete against them.
Other people's money, and how the bankers use it : Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, (Book)
Letter from Upton Sinclair to President Theodore Roosevelt
Letter from Upton Sinclair to President Theodore Roosevelt
Thoroughly readable letter from the author to President Roosevelt regarding the success of his efforts to clean up the meat packing industry. Don't just have students read excerpts from the Jungle - show them the details of how difficult it was to bring change
Letter from Upton Sinclair to President Theodore Roosevelt
6 Lost Mansions of the Upper West Side and Upper Manhattan | Untapped Cities
6 Lost Mansions of the Upper West Side and Upper Manhattan | Untapped Cities
Teachers will have to tear off the lcik bait and other junk from this web site. But the homes in this series have to put alongside Jacob Riis pictures. We should not be showing students just the Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis stuff - but we should also show them "how the other, other half lived"
6 Lost Mansions of the Upper West Side and Upper Manhattan | Untapped Cities
1911 - A Trip Through New York City (speed corrected w/ added sound) - YouTube
1911 - A Trip Through New York City (speed corrected w/ added sound) - YouTube
High Quality film of New York City in the year 1911. Print has survived in mint condition. Slowed down footage to a natural rate and added in sound for ambiance. This film was taken by the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern on a trip to America
1911 - A Trip Through New York City (speed corrected w/ added sound) - YouTube
Race or mongrel: a brief history (Book)
Race or mongrel: a brief history (Book)
Race or mongrel: a brief history of the rise and fall of the ancient races of earth: a theory that the fall of nations is due to intermarriage with alien stocks: a demonstration that a nation's strength is due to racial purity: a prophecy that America will sink to early decay unless immigration is rigorously restricted. This 1908 book should be used by teachers with caution though it could be an essential element illustrating the intolerance in America. It is just as important to know how awful these views of some Americans are, just as it is important to note how they can be overcome
Race or mongrel: a brief history (Book)