Reform Movements in America

Jacksonian Eras Reforms Goals

- Improvement of Primary and Secondary Education
o Goals:
 Tax supported, free public education
 Education for democracy
 Jefferson’s legacy
o In order for dem to work people who vote much be edu in order to
make best decision
o Necessary because universal white manhood suffrage
o Make sense: more votes, more kids want to be educated, free
education
 More schools
 Better teachers
o Accomplishments
 Tax supported, free primary education
 Insurance policy- not as prominent in the south because of aristocracy
 Horace Mann campaigns successfully
 Sec of state en MA.
o After changes impl. En MA
o TA to be better trained and better paid
o Expansion of curriculum
o Successful in campaign
 Noah Webster improved textbooks
 Dictionary
o Standardized the language
o Standardized the education
 Wrote readers and textbooks
o Readers- books used in elementary school to teach how to read
 Taught about patriotism
 McGuffey’s grade school reader
 Patriotic
 Much more wide spread
 Talked about morality
 By 1860 only about 100 public secondary schools
 Even though there is now tax supported free education
 Lots of tax dollars to buy resources/ supplies
 Increase in public education (at high school level) in the whole country
 More basic education
 There isn’t a lot of higher level learning
 Most of the working class is going to want their kids to have a job
- Acces to Higher Education
o Goals:
 Advanced curriculum
 Intellectual vitality
 Opportunities for women
 Quench adults’ thirst for knowledge
 More voters = more people want to learn = need for more knowledge available
o Accomplishments
 State supported Universities
 Federal Land Grants
 o No longer tied to a religion or local politics
o Greater freedom in terms of great
 University of Virginia 1819: first no longer to be tied to a religion or local
politics
o Father: Thomas Jefferson
o Focused on science as opposed to Greek and Latin
o Focused on modern languages
 Colleges for Women
 Believed to much learning would injure the female brain
 Emma Willard- Troy Female Seminary 1821
o Still taught religion
 Mount Holyoke 1837
o First all women’s institution (modern for the 1800s)
 Oberlin College goes co-ed
o Accepted women and Black Americans
 Majority of Americans didn’t not agree with it
 Libraries- private and public
 Both tax supported libraries and private libraries
 Lyceum Libraries
 People going from town to town talking about literature
 Lyceum lectures were highly transcendalist based
o Ralph waldo emerson was one of the people who were greatly
involved
- Increase in Women’s Rights
o Goals:
 Freedom
 Women in America were in a better position that women in Europe
o Could be beaten by their husbands (legally)
 Believed that women were supposed to be the keepers of society’s consciences
o That’s why they were important in society to raise good men
 Called the cult of domesticity
o Treated with respect even though they are limited with what they can
do
 Self determination
 Suffrage
 Some believed that suffrage would be too much freedom
o Accomplishments
 Rape punishable by death
 Contrast to many European countries
 Not considered a serious offense in Europe
 Seneca Falls (1848) New York Women’s Rights Convention = Declaration of Sentiments
 Women from all over the country got together and talked about what the
future of women should
 Dec of Sentiments
o What women believed that they need and what they demanded from
the government and society
o Modeled after the Declaration of Independence
 Publicly demanded the Ballot
 Any idiot off the streets could vote but most educated women couldn’t vote
 Birth of the suffrage movement
o People
  Catherine Beecher
 Lucretia Mott
 Started out as an abolitionist
 When women at abolitionist convention weren’t recognized they decided to
move to woman’s suffrage
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
 Biggest advocate for suffrage
 Big deal because she was seen as bold
 Refused to say honor and obey your husband
 Susan B. Anthony
 Strongest even though people would through stuff
 Important for women’s rights movement
o Suffragists were referred as Susie B’s
 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
 First female grad of med college
o A lot of the women who fought for women’s suffrage fought for African American rights
o Movement came really slow 1820 till 1920
 Started w/ college admissions then with divorce law
- Temperance
o Goals:
 Get men to stop drinking
 To publicize the evils of drinking
 Not only was it immoral and that it was bad for society
 To get drinkers to sign the temperance pledge
o Problem because it was the culture of America
o More likely to happen in the lower class
 Result of long work hours and poor life styles
o Accomplishments:
 American Temperance Society (1826)
 A thousand temperance societies forms after who got people to sign the
temperance pledge
 Organized children’s clubs (Cold Water Army)
 Children who would try to stop their parents from drinking
 Neil S. Dow- the father of prohibition
 Leader of trying to get the government to promote prohibition
 Maine law (1851), 12 states followed 1857
 Basically said it was illegal to sell and transport alcohol
 By 1860, drinking goes down, especially by women
 Even though laws weren’t successful drinking went down
- Extension of Democracy
o Goals:
 Universal Manhood Suffrage
 Political representation of the common man
 Control of executive and judicial branch (state level)
 Able to make laws that are friendly to the people
 Esp. since different states had different needs
 States wanted control so they could do what was best for them
 Control of political party nomination
 Give state power over sanctity of business contracts
 State should have precedent of any individual private interest
o Accomplishments
 White men w/o property could vote
  Minor offices open to election
 Especially judges
 People directly elect governors
 Nominating conventions v. caucuses
 Caucuses were considered shady as opposed to a national convention
 Someone who is nominated via caucus is looked down upon because they are
associated
 1837: Charles River Bridge Case
 State promised right to build bridge then promised another the same
o One complained that it would destroy their business
 Supreme court gives the benefit to state
o State has the right to oversee business contracts
o Private interest has over public interests
- Reform of Prisons and Asylums
o Goals:
 Get rid of debtor prisons
 Didn’t make sense
 Lighten criminal codes
 Very common to beaten or whipped as a punishment that would be considered
criminal offenses
 Punish and reform criminals
 More human conditions for wards of the state
o Accomplishments
 By 1830s-40s states abolish debtors prisons
 Reformatories, houses of correction, penitentiaries
Dorothea Dix pushes legislation 1843
 Deplorable conditions
 Mentally ill not morally deprave
- Abolition of Slavery
o Goals:
 Back to Africa
 One of the goals of the abolition movement
 We don’t want them as slaves but we don’t want them taking the jobs
 Spread message of cruelty and immorality of slavery
 Black Speaks Out
 A lot of free blacks speak out
 Attempts to incite slave rebellions
o Accomplishments
 American Colonization Society 1817
 Help more previous slaves go to Liberia
 Republic of Liberia 1822
 Liberia is created by America
 Many of the slaves want to stay in America because their parents,
grandparents were born in America, they had no connection to Africa or Liberia
 Traveling abolitionists
 Pamphlet: ‘American Slavery As It Is’ (Weld) 1819
 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
o Harriet Beecher Soviet
 John Brown’s raid
o Attempt to incite slave rebellion
o Create a free sanctuary state and not have to return to their owners
o Later captured and put to death
 o People to know
 Theodore Dwight Weld, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown,
Sojourner Truth, Martin Delaney, David Walker, Frederick Douglass
Reconstruction 1865-1877
- Goals and Accomplishments
o Emancipate slaves and abolish slavery in nation
 Only abolished slavery in succeeded states
 Emancipation Proclamation 1863
 13th Amendment 1865
o Reconstruct society
 Reconstruction Act of 1867
 Creates 5 military districts
 Agree to ratify the 14th amendment
o Citizenship
 Personally apologize and appeal to Johnson in order to have the right to vote
o Make freedmen equal citizens of nation and state, due process rights
 Civil Rights Bill, 1866
 Ineffective thus 14th amendment
 14 Amendment 1868
th

o Establish and recognize right to vote and enforce this right

 15th amendment 1869
 Force Acts of 1870-71
 Brought in federal troops to enforce these new laws
 Lots of violence, KKK used intimidation tactics
 Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner
 TS- leader of Rad Repubs in the House
 CS- leader of Rad Repubs in the Senate
o Organize black to take initiative to organize politically
 Urban League
 Educate freedman on civic duties
o Educate and provide basic necessities
 People literally had nothing, couldn’t read or write
 Freedman’s Bureau
 Provided basic necessities
 Educated about 200k free slaves so that they could take care of themselves
 Settled very few on land, instead promoted labor contracts
Populists
- Issues
o Plutocrats in east
 Society runned by the wealth
 Wealthy people who have political influence
 Plutocrats have too much influence and westerners don’t have too much voice
o Railroads
 Charge more money if you were shipping short and less
 Charge really had grain storage
 Needed grain storage because they had surpluses so they could store grain
until prices to go up and then sell it
o Needed inflation
 Farmers are always in debt
 Allows them to pay back with cheaper money
o Over production
 Need more money = increase in production
 - Grangers (1867-1886): Minnesota—Oliver Kelly
o Evolved into political activism
 Established cooperatives
 Stores
 Grain elevators
 Granger laws regular railways and grain elevator fees
 Are state laws that are passed after being pushed by grangers
 Overturned by Wabash case 1886
o Said they couldn’t control interstate commerce
 Interstate Commerce Act 1887
 Federal gov’t passes this
 Banned selective prices and publish it to everyone
 Not allowed to charge more for certain amount of goods
 Abolishes rebates and creates the ICC
- Greenback Labor Party 1870s
o Short lived
o Joining together of farmers and laborers
o Wanted labor reform and wanted greater inflation
o Did have some success
o Elect 14 members to Congress
- Farmers Alliance- late 1870s
o Internal divisions
o Formed to break group of railroads and manufacturers
 Especially since at this time there was no ICC
o Platform:
 Nationalized railroad
 Put under government control
 Abolish national banks
 Graduated income tax
 Federal subtreasury
 Used by gov’t to purchase storage warehouses to store the grain until prices
high enough.
 Borrow more money are lower rates while storing their grain.
- Populists
o 1892 elections: democrats (Cleveland), republicans (Harrison), populists (James Weaver)
o Platform:
 Free and unlimited silver @ 16-1
 Graduated income tax
 Government ownership of public utilities and railroad
 Direct election of senators
 One term limit of president
 Initiative, referendum, recall
 Call for shorter workday and immigration restriction
o Populist earn 22 electoral votes (1 million+ votes)
o Election of 1896: Democrats steal their platform
 Bryan’s Cross of Gold
o Most successful third party in history
Progressives
- Fought for lower class issues
- Middle class reformers addressed social problems
o Muckrakers
o Questioned role of corporations
 o Is capitalism good? Should there be more gov’t role?
o Struggle for a responsive government
- Goals:
o Protected social welfare
 Soften effects of industrialization
 Salvation army
 Appealed to people who were the worst position in society
 Did a lot of practical good in addition to spiritual guidance
 Settlement Houses
 Jane Addams’ Hull House
o Provided opportunities to help immigrants
 Social Gospel
 Applying Christian ethics to social problems
 Opposite of Gospel of Wealth
o Promote Moral Reform
 Social gospel
 Women’s Christian Temperance Union
o Frances Willard
 Grew organization
 Opened kindergartens for immigrants
o Young people are shaped at a really young age
 Visiting inmates in prison
 Working for suffrage
o Isn’t really social gospel
o Recognizing the humanity of everybody
o Create Economic Reform
 Panic of 1893
 People started to question capitalism
 People decided the socialism was the answer
 American Socialist Party founded by Eugene Debs in 1900
 Ran for president
 Do start to gain support and even people who aren’t socialist choose to vote
for him
 Elkins Act 1903
 Applied fines to railroads for taking rebates, eliminates rebates,
 IT’S EFFECTIVE RAILROAD LEGISLATION AND ACTUALLY ENFORCED.
 Sherman Anti Trust Act
 Muckrackers
 Ida Tarbell: History of Standard Oil
 Lincoln Steffens: Shame of the Cities
 Upton Sinclair: The Jungle
 Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives
 Lewis Hines: photographer of child labor
o Foster Efficiency
 Foster Efficiency
 Frederick Winslow Taylor
o Scientific management
 Assembly Line
o Higher production could mean less working hours but higher pay
o Didn’t work meant more people were getting laid off because they
didn’t need that many people to work
 - Reform Local Government
o Hazen Pingree- Mayor of Detroit
 Fair tax structure
 Lower fares for public transit
 Lowered gas rates
 Appointed competent people
o Tom Johnson- mayor of Cleveland
 Dismissed corrupt owners of utility companies and converted them to publicly owned
companies
 He took over the utilities
 Tom Johnson started the idea of local governments owning utilities
 Tom Johnson was a socialist
- Reform at the social level
o Bob LaFollette in Wisconsin
 Served 3 terms as governor before becoming a senator in 1906
 Railroads were his main targets: regulated rates
 Other reform governors: Charles Aycock (N. Caroline), Albert Cummins (Iowa), James
Hogg (Texas)
 Wisconsin was the first to adopt a direct primary in 1903
- Protecting Workers
- Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
- Outrage at child labor
- Children develop health problem
o Underweight, stunted growth, curved spine, respiratory diseases
o National Child Labor Committee 1904
o Keating-Owens Act 1916
 Unconstitutional 3 years later
- Effort to limit working hours
o 1908: Muller v. Oregon- a state can limit the working hours of women
o 1917: Bunting v. Oregon- 10 hour workday for men and women
o Workers Compensation
 Successful
- Reform Elections
o Initiative: bill originates with people
 Propositions: are initiative, recall, and referendum
o Voters can decide to accept it by referendum
o Recall: enable voters to remove politicians
o By 1920, 20 states adopted these reforms
o 17th amendments
 Direct election of senators
New Deal
- The New Deal purged American capitalism of some of its worst abused
o Changes were made by regulating capitalism and regulating the economy
- Bold reform
o Most of the stuff wouldn’t have happened if it were not for the great depression
- Echoes of Jefferson’s “forgotten man”
o Idea that government often forgot the common man
- Echoes of Hamiltonian big government
o Idea that national bank was necessary
- FDR’s New Deal programs were aimed at 3 R’s: relief, recovery, and reform
- Short range goals: relief and immediate recovery
- Long range goals were permanent recovery and reform abuse
 - 3 R’s often overland and got in each other’s way
- Historians distinguished 1st New Deal of 1933 from the 2nd New Deal (1934-37)
- 1st new deal
o Nearly every organized groups gained much of what they demanded
 Fiscally conservative
o Experimental, pragmatic
- Relief, Recovery, Reform
o Relief was the immediate effort to help the 1/3 of the population that was hardest hit by the
depression.
o Go back and review these programs:
 Federal emergency relief Administration
 Civilian Conservation corps
 Public Works Administration
 Works Progress Administration
 Social Security Act
 Farm Security Administration
o Recovery: goal of restoring the economy to pre-depression levels through
 Deficit spending
 Spending more than you have an know that you are spending more and do it
any way
 Dropping the gold standard
 FDR drops the gold standard
 Gold standard- every single dollar is redeemable for gold
o Can no longer use gold as legal tender and must use American Dollar
o Meant that the government could print more money
 Means that government had more control of the currency
 Efforts to re-inflate farm prices that were too low
 Efforts to increase foreign trade
 Reciprocal trade Agreement in 1934
o Undoes Hawley Smoot Tariff
o Reform attempted to prevent instability of the economy and the market
o Go back and review the following reform programs
 National Recovery Act (1933)
 Securities Exchange Commissions (1933)
 Agriculture Adjustment Act (1933 and on)
 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (1933)
 Wagner Act (1933)
 Tennessee Valley Authority (1933)
 National Youth Administration
The First 100 Days
- FDR hurled blame at businessmen and bankers with religious rhetoric
- Bank holiday March 5, 1933
- Emergency Banking Act March 9, 1933
o Provided for system of reopening sound banks under Treasury supervision, with federal loans
available if needed
- Economy Act
o Passed March 20, 1933
o Saved $500 million a year (numbers could be up to $1 billion)
 cut government spending and ruined peoples lives
o Showed him to be fiscally conservative
o Reflected classical Democratic Party position, dating back to Jackson
o FDR was initially in favor of balancing the budget
 - Farm Programs
o FDR: true prosperity wouldn’t return until farming was prosperous
o Subsidies and production controls to protect farmers
o AAA: passed in May 9133
 Farmers were getting paid to produce less, processors taxed more to process
o “domestic allotment” system
o Other major programs geared towards farmers, especially marginalized ones:
 Resettlement Administration
 Farm Security Administration
 Rural electrification Admin
 Tennessee Valley Authority
 Rural welfare projects sponsored by WPA, CCC
 1936: AAA deemed unconstitutional but was replaced by a similar program
- Reform (NIRA)
o New Deal started quickly on an agenda of a long term reform so another depression wouldn’t
happen
o Most important undertaking of 1st hundred days: National Industrial Recovery Act June 1933
 Right to collective bargaining
 Minimum Wage
 Abolition of child Labor
 Establish the National Recovery Administration
 Created Public Works Administration
 Spent $6 bill on 34k separate projects
 PWA was still very successful while it lasted
 1935 NIRA organization struck down as unconstitutional
The 2nd New Deal
- Spring of 1935, spurred by
o Setbacks in Supreme Court
o Skepticism in Congress
o Popular desire for more dramatic actions
- Changes from 1st New Deal
o More radical
o Pro-labor
o More anti-business
- Wagner Act (and now unconstitutional) NIRA
o Labor became a major component of the New Deal
- Nationalized unemployment relief thru the WPA
o Created hundreds of thousands of blue collar job
o NYA headed in Texas in LBJ
- Social Security Act
o Most important Act of 1935 (of the New Deal)
o Framework for modern American welfare system
Legacy of the New Deal
- Government as a protector
o Increased regulatory functions
- Increased political competition between workers, farmers, consumers
- Stabilized troubled areas of the economy
o Stock market (SEC)
o Banking system
- New Deal didn’t end the depression prevented the economy and society from economic decay
- New Deal leads to the Great Society
The Great Society
- Goals: Elimination of poverty and eliminate racial injustice
o Education
o Health
o Urban problem
o Transportation
o Consumer protection
o Environment
- Emerged in a period of unprecedented prosperity
o JFK tax cut was enacted in Feb 1964, 3 months after his death
o GNP rose 10% in the first year of the tax cut
 Just because the great society was formed because things weren’t great as a country
even though the GNP was high
o Economic growth average a rate of 4.5% from ’61-‘68
- LBJ summarized his goals in a speech
o U Of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Mayy 22nd, 1964
- Described his plans to solve pressing problems:
o “We are going to assemble the best thought and broadest knowledge from all over the world to
find these answers. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of conference and
meetings on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and other engaging
challenges, from these studies we will begin to set our court toward the Great Society”
- 1965 Legislation Program
o JFK’s New Frontier Task Forces
o KBJ continues this approach
 Could work in secret, outside of bureaucracy
 14 separate task forces
o Topics: Foreign economic policy, agricultures, anti recession policy, civil rights, education,
efficiency and economy, health, income maintenance policy, intergovernmental fiscal
cooperation, natural resources, pollution, preservation of natural beauty, transportation, urban
problems
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
o Banned racial discrimination in most private facilities open to the public
o Included gender discrimination
o Strengthened government power to enforce desegregation, especially in schools
o Federal Equal Opportunity Commission
- Affirmative Action
o Federal contracts
o Provide preference to under-represented groups
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
o Powerful in aiding blacks w/ a voice, a measurable equality
o Outlawed literacy tests
o Federal voter registrars into the south
- Education
o Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)
 Title I = textbooks, libraries, special education programs
 Helped everyone including private schools
o National Endowment for Arts & Humanities
 Designed to lift the knowledge of American culture
 Still around today
- Elderly
o Medicare (1965): Medical assistance to people on Social Security
- War on Poverty
 o Economic Opportunity Act 1965
 Head Start
 Provides preschool services for the urban poor
 Medicare/Medicaid
 Below poverty line, government would pay for your health care
 Jobs Corps
 VISTA
 The Peace Corp but within the US
o Took American skills and sent them out to underdeveloped countries
o Instead are sent to poor/urban areas to help out
- Immigration Reform
o Immigration and Nationality Act (1965)
 Abolished the “national origin” quotas (1921/1924)
 Doubled the number of immigrants allowed to annually enter
 Set limits on immigrants from Western Hemisphere
 Allowed close relatives of US citizens to enter
- Legacy of the Great Society
o Most Great Society initiatives still exist in some form
o Civil rights law remains
o Medicare and Medicaid have grown considerably since the 1960s
o Federal funding of public and higher education has expanded
o Federal funding for culture initiatives in the humanities, art, and public broadcasting
 Even though a challenge still exists today
o Interpretations of the War on Poverty remain controversial
 Several observers have noted that funding for many GS programs became difficult
beginning in 1968
 Office of Economic Opportunity was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administration
 Funding for many of these programs were further cut by Ronald Reagan’s 1 st budget in
1981
 Reagan
 Fiscally conservative program
o Alan Brinkley(historian) has suggested that the gap between the expansive intentions of the war
on Poverty and its relatively modest achievements fueled later conservative arguments that gov’t
is not an appropriate vehicle for solving social problems