At the turn of the twentieth century, conflict between classes, sexes, and immigrant groups created an environment of desire for political and social change. Articles written by Maureen A. Flanagan and Shelton Stromquist detail the importance of women and working class groups respectively, on the impact of political thought and the birth of the Progressive movement in America. Though both authors believe that one demographic had the profound influence in their common urban settings, I believe that both women and the working class had not only similar impacts, but similar goals in contributing to the rise of progressivism.
Maureen Flanagan points out the different goals for reform between the men and women of the Chicago City Clubs.1 Sanitation, education, and myriad other municipal systems concerned both men and women at the time, but “…when the members of the Woman's City Club confronted these problems, they came to a vision of a good city and specific proposals of how best to provide for the welfare of its residents that were very different from those of their male counterparts in the City Club.”2 Women angled for more governmental contributions and standards. They voiced these views and played a large part in behind the scenes politics, but were relegated to the periphery and seen as secondary citizen due to their inability to vote until 1920.
Similarly, Shelton Stomquist details the “new” and “old” immigrant classes in Cleveland in his article about the Progressive movement.3 Able to create headlines and pressure the direction of politics through strikes and sometimes violence, the immigrant working class stood as a huge proponent for reform in many municipal systems.4 One observation made by Stromquist, “ These epidsodes, often brief but intense and frequently centered around streetcar strikes, had an impact on local party alignments and the programmatic direction of reform.”5 However, again similar to women, “…political initiative most often lay in the hands of others.”6
Both groups impacted the progressive movement by influencing local politics despite their perceived limited political power. Middle to upper class men aimed to protect business interests and “private enterprise”.7 Women and the immigrant working class, evident in urban Chicago and Cleveland, strove for, as L.B. Tuckerman stated, “better hospital facilities, and more adequate health services, labor representation on the police board, public ownership of utilities and an improved school system”.8 The emphasis on public ownership and government responsibility were goals common to both women’s politics and the immigrant working class. Despite the difference in gender, both groups define progressive thought and its rise to the political forefront during the early 1900’s and widely effecting the election of 1912.
1Maureen A. Flanagan, “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era,” The American Historical Review, 94, no. 4 (Oct., 1990), 1032-1050. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2163477 (accessed Feb 15, 2012)
2Ibid.
3Shelton Stromquist, “The Crucible of Class: Cleveland politics and the Origins of Municipal Reform in the Progressive Era,” Journal of Urban History 23, no. 2 (1/31/1997). http://juh.sagepub.com/content/23/2/192.full.pdf (accessed Feb 15, 2012.)
4Ibid, 204.
5Ibid.
6Ibid.
7 Maureen A. Flanagan, “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era,” The American Historical Review, 94, no. 4 (Oct., 1990), 1037. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2163477 (accessed Feb 15, 2012)
8 Shelton Stromquist, “The Crucible of Class: Cleveland politics and the Origins of Municipal Reform in the Progressive Era,” Journal of Urban History 23, no. 2 (1/31/1997), 198. http://juh.sagepub.com/content/23/2/192.full.pdf (accessed Feb 15, 2012.)
I see that you feel that the two groups, (industrial workers and civic reformers), had roles of mutual importance in the Progressive Era. Myself, I really feel that the key group was industrial labor and its strikes, and violent riots. There had been no lack of civic reformers arguing against slavery from the birth of the Republic onwards, but the Civil War didn't become possible until the Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas and John Brown's assault on Harper's Ferry. That is when people realized that it wasn't going to be possible for slaveowners and nonslaveowners to "just get along" any more. In the 1950s Jim Crow ruled until people started worrying about race riots. Martin Luther King would simply have been quietly lynched a lot earlier, had the alternative hadn't been Malcolm X. There was been no lack of agitators for a living wage and against child labor, prior to the Progressive Era, either. One of my schools had about three dozen Horatio Alger 19th century dime novels in its library. They all had pretty much the same plot: Young teen boy demonstrate virtues of courage, constancy, thrift and hardwork, enabling him to eke out a modest living for himself and his family. He unknowingly helps wealthy, benevolent millionaire who adopts him/takes him into the firm/etc causing the boy to make it and to enter the middle class. You see the latter part? It was simply not possible for that hardworking etc. boy to make it without a Daddy Warbucks in the picture. Alger didn't write any stories about working class girls, but the authors who did, pretty much wrote Cinderella type romance novels. (Yeah, I read those, too.:) Marriage to a rich man was the only real out for women. So I feel that the riots were the key element to the reforms of the Progressive Era, because it casued the wealthy to look favorably on sharing power.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the two different groups were both key to the reform movement. While one would have the voice be heard having the other group making noise also made more people think about the matters at hand. The women of the Women's club aligned themselves with many workers unions and groups to support them and vice versa. The workers fought for their working rights and conditions and the women help lead to better education to help the next generation of workers to be better prepared.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that these two groups were key in the Progressive Era of reform. For the working class, they utilized their ability to unite across party lines to stand up for the standards that they believed in. Strikes were key to making the cause more visible within Cleveland, and the AFL leaders used that publicity to show the politicians that they needed to listen or they wouldn't receive their vote. For the women without a vote, they utilized the fact that the aspects of sanitation, schooling and policing had an affect on the household. This brought the women together to show not only how this affected the home, but publicly called out, in most cases, their husbands for dealing with these situations in a strictly business manner. The men were not thinking about the human impact but simply the financial impact, which is not always the right decision. Although these women did not have the ability to vote in order to directly affect change, they at least opened up the conversation to address the human aspects of the decisions made. Their growth in numbers, as illustrated in the Flanagan article, shows growing support for the message put out my these women.
ReplyDeleteA good post. I agree both groups were important to the Progressive movement. However the women's groups contributions were more impressive to society. They causes they advocated were for the good of all of society and cut across all social classes. The labor movement really had a narrow agenda. In addition the women were working against the interests of the cities power brokers. Yes some safety rules could help the general public, mostly they were looking for better pay and improved workplace conditions. There agenda was so narrow that the democratic party was able to absorb them back fairly easily, when the could have used their strength in numbers to expand their agenda. It was like they got what they wanted and went home.
ReplyDeleteI agree that both groups were influential but I think Patrick is right that the womens club's ideal of striving for political change for the greater good while working within a system which they could not even participate peacefully had a greater impact. I will conceed that the streetcar protests united the previously divided ethnic minority groups that was regional in its impact. However, I will also concede that nothing gets the attention of the powers that be like an angry mob!
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