The Progressive Era

The Anti-Saloon League successfully combined propaganda, religion, and political coercion to make alcohol a wedge issue in elections.

In 1840, six hard-drinking friends in Baltimore swore to never drink again and established a society of reformed drunkards. The country had entered a new era of reform. Temperance movements would eventually insist on complete abstinence from all forms of alcohol. Church-based organizations embraced reform, as well as the women's suffrage movement.

Frances Willard was a pioneer in women's education and a champion of women's rights. In 1879, she took the reins of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She forged an alliance between the WCTU and the women's suffrage movement. Willard appointed Mary Hanchett Hunt in charge of the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction, an arm of the WCTU that worked to push anti-alcohol indoctrination in the public schools. Learning Objective: Students will know who were the women behind the Prohibition movement.

Carry Nation was the president of her local Kansas chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She vandalized saloons across Kansas in 1900, smashing them up with a hatchet.

Wayne Wheeler, the superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, was the most powerful man in Washington, D.C.

View images of reformer Carrie Nation and other reformers of the prohibition era. From 1920-1933, the United States was a dry country. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the making, transportation, and sale of alcohol. The amendment grew out of the pervasive alcohol abuse, especially among men and immigrant populations, of the 19th century. Women had few legal rights, and their lives were often ruined from dealing with alcoholic and abusive spouses. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League grew out of concern for the rights of women and children, and both organizations pushed for the 18th amendment. Learning Objective: Students will analyze how women were the driving force behind the Temperance movement and helped get the 18th Amendment passed.

Examine the powers of the Executive Branch with these video segments from Ken Burns' The Roosevelts. Presidents Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt expanded the powers of the executive branch as few other presidents before them had. Their administrations played key roles in the evolution of Americans’ relationship with their government and the role of the United States on the world stage. In the activity that follows, students will analyze the powers granted the presidency in Article II of the U.S. Constitution and to consider how past presidents have exercised this power in practice. Students will discover that the powers of the president are sometimes a matter of interpretation and circumstance. Students will then analyize the exercise of presidential power by the Roosevelts during their respective terms in office.  Learning Objectives: Determine what role the government should play in the regulation of business and the economy. Identify and determine the powers granted to the president in the Constitution’s Article II and how these powers help fulfill the president’s duties. Analyze the extent to which both Presidents Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt exercised their power in domestic and international affairs, and how they expanded presidential power beyond the traditional interpretation of the Constitution. Opening Activity: Students will consider the powers of the executive branch from two different perspectives: the literal and the pragmatic. In this activity, students examine presidential authority as defined in Article II of the Constitution. Students will match this outlined authority with the responsibilities of a president.  1. Divide the class into think-pair-share groups or have students complete the activity individually. 2. Distribute tos students Handout: “Understanding the Powers of the President” and review the directions with students. 3. Review Article II of the Constitution, making sure students understand the language of the article and its content. Then have students review the “Roles and Responsibilities of the President” to identify where these responsibilities are enumerated in Article II. 4. When students have finished the activity, review their answers with the answer key.

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt worked to restrict the amount of power held by corporate America. Roosevelt took on Industrial Trusts and J.P. Morgan Bank, and was successful in breaking up monopolies.

In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt established the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The Corollary stated that the U.S. could intervene in the affairs of an American republic threatened with seizure or intervention by a European country. Roosevelt's view on what makes a "civilized nation" greatly influenced his foreign policy. Roosevelt argued that it was the responsibility of civilized nations, mostly industrial and white, to govern the uncivilized nations that produced raw materials and were "incapable" of governing themselves. Roosevelt's "big stick diplomacy" signified that the U.S. would negotiate peacefully but maintain strength to exert when needed.

Theodore Roosevelt was a leader of the Progressive Era, passing legislation like the Hepburn Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act and expanding the size of the National Parks system. These legislative successes improved life for Americans, and the process by which Roosevelt campaigned stretched the powers of the presidency, re-writing the role of the goverment in everyday life.

How did early country musicians get started in an industry that did not yet exist? Students will examine the personal and broader historical circumstances in which select country artists of the period 1920-1945 got their starts.  The story of DeFord Bailey’s tumultuous tenure with the Grand Ole Opry offers an opportunity to examine race relations in the era through the lens of the music industry. Students will understand how the genre’s first stars, the Carter Family, produced their 1927 landmark recordings and became famous, despite facing poverty and personal struggle and despite there being no precedent for making a living by selling records. Finally, Students will be introduced to the Maddox Family, whose trek from the rural south to California during the Dust Bowl offers a framework to further explore the workings of the industry in the context of 1930s mass migration, economic hardship, and marginalization.  An historical overview of this era, included in the support materials, provides additional historical context about the period to offer a broader perspective about these artists’ circumstances. These artists’ stories can be explored individually or as a gallery. The discussion questions and historical context included support either approach.

During William Howard Taft’s presidency, a divide formed between Taft and Theodore Roosevelt as they became the heads of two distinct wings of the Republican Party. Roosevelt led the Progressives, also called the “Bull Moose Party,” and Taft represented conservative Republicans. Progressive Republicans campaigned for ecological conservation, workers’ rights, and restrictions on the employment of women and children. Conservative Republicans supported high tariffs on imported goods, opposed the popular election of judges, and generally favored business leaders over their employees. This split became deep enough that in 1912, Roosevelt launched a third-party campaign against Taft. A precedent for doing so had been established in 1854, when the Republican party split to better represent voter needs.