Chapter 17 Section 1 Guided Reading

Social Reforms:

1) Social welfare reform movement:
- People and groups involved: The YMCA opened libraries, sponsored classes and built swimming pools and handball courts; The Salvation Army fed poor people in soup kitchens, cared for children in nurseries and sent “slum brigades” to help immigrants ho were middle class on the values of temperance and hard work; Florence Kelley was a women’s and children’s rights activist (p. 513).
-Successes (laws, legal decisions, etc.): After she assisted in the passing of the Illinois Factory Act in 1893, which made child labor illegal and limited the working hours for women, Florence Kelley was made the chief inspector of factories in Illinois (p.513).
2) Moral reform movement:
-People and groups involved: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, formed in Cleveland in 1874, had its members enter saloons, singing, praying and asking the owners to stop selling alcohol. Francis Willard changed the group from being a small religious group to being a national organization. As well as temperance addressing temperance issues, the WCTU opened kindergartens for immigrants, visited the inmates of asylums and prisons, and worked for suffrage. They were also involved in the settlement house movement (pgs.513-514). The Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1895, trying to close saloons and thus fix the problems of society. But this caused problems between the group and the immigrants whose customs involved drinking alcohol, as well as providing meals and cashing paychecks (p. 514).
-Successes (laws, legal decisions, etc.): The reform activities of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union expanded roles in public for women, which they also used to justify giving voting rights to women (p. 513).
3) Economic reform movement:
People and groups involved: The American Socialist Party was started in 1901with the help of Eugene V. Debs. This was a result of many Americans questioning the economic system of the United States, capitalism, causing many Americans, particularly laborers, to embrace socialism. Journalists who wrote about how corrupt the businesses and public life of the times were called muckrakers. They succeeded in bringing light to the cutthroat tactics of business owners such as John Rockefeller (p. 514).
-Successes (laws, legal decisions, etc.): A new political party was started for people who wished to make a change in the direction that the relationship between business and government were going (p. 514).
4) Movement for industrial efficiency:
- People and groups involved: Lawyer Louis D. Brandeis defended laws that limited women’s working hours to 10 hours a day. Brandeis’s method, which involved looking at the cost to the individual and society resultant of long working hours, rather than the legal aspects, became the “model for other reform litigation”, called the “Brandeis brief”. Frederick Winslow Taylor started to use a method to improve efficiency in manufacturing by breaking tasks into simpler parts. This became a management fad, called “Taylorism”, and industry reformers “applied these scientific management studies”, to see how quickly the tasks could be done. Basically, it was the start of the “assembly line” method. The system exhausted workers, often causing injury. Henry Ford, one of the pioneers of the assembly line method, pacified his workers and avoided strikes by paying $5 a day and having 8 hour work days (pgs. 514-515).
- Successes (laws, legal decisions, etc.): Lawyer Louis D. Brandeis defended an Oregon law that limited women who worked in factories and laundry places to a 10 hour work day. Instead of focusing only on legal arguments, he presented data that showed the effects of long working hours on the individual and society. This argument, later known as the “Brandeis brief, set a precedent for future reform litigation (p. 514).
5) Movement to protect workers:
- People and groups involved: Florence Kelley, a women’s and children’s rights activist, assisted in the passing of the Illinois Factory Act in 1893, which prohibited child labor and limited women’s working hours (p. 514). The National Child Labor Committee was formed in 1904, and sent investigators who would gather evidence that children were working in harsh conditions, and then have exhibitions with statistics and photos of the children. Other labor unions joined in the plight of the NCLC, arguing that child labor lowered wages for all workers (p. 516). Louis D. Brandeis, with the help of Florence Kelley, convinced the Court to uphold an Oregon law that limited women to a 10 hour workday, using the argument that poor women were much less economically stable than large corporations. Another Brandeis brief in Bunting v. Oregon convinced the Court to uphold a 10 hour workday for men as well, in 1917. Progressives succeeded in getting “worker’s compensation to aid the families of workers who were hurt or killed on the job”. Maryland was the first to pass this legislation, in 1902, and was followed by the other states that required employers to pay benefits in death cases (p. 517).
-Successes (laws, legal decisions, etc.): Florence Kelley assisted in the passing of the Illinois Factory Act of 1893, which prohibited the child labor and limited women’s working hours (p. 514). Labor unions with the National Child Labor Committee pressured politicians to pass the Keating-Own Act in 1916, which prohibited moving goods produced with child labor across state lines. This, however, was declared unconstitutional 2 years later because it interfered with state’s rights to regulate labor. Reformers did manage to set maximum hours and prohibit child labor in nearly every state with legislation. A Brandeis brief in Bunting v. Oregon persuaded the Court to uphold a law giving men a 10 hour workday, as well as an earlier law was passed with the help of Brandeis and Kelley in Oregon limiting women to a 10 hour workday. Progressives got worker’s compensation to help the families of employees hurt or killed while working, and many states passed legislation that required employees to pay benefits to the families of workers if said worker died (p. 517).