readily available was through the creation of mass-circulation magazines such as the McClure’s. These magazines began to push issues such as working conditions in Chicago meat factories initially described by Upton Sinclair in his novel the “Jungle”, in order to gain readership and promote issues that desperately needed reform. In some cases as in this one inciting enough public outcry that it forced the government to act as they did with the Pure Food and Drug Act, which was established in June of 1906.[i] The tide was turning and the American public was no longer just concerned with industrial growth and the material things which they could gain but also with the ability to have the time to be able to enjoy those items and the rights to seek education in order to achieve the America dream. In this light Progressivism can be seen over the course of the 40 years following the turn of the century as many separate grassroots movements fighting for specific gains combined together under the umbrella term of progressivism to help America improve the standard of living and rights for all who live within its borders. There is no greater example of this than women and their fight to better themselves, their families and their communities between 1900 – 1940 in varied ways depending on regional location, economic status and ethnic background. The group of women most politically linked to bring about reform during the period from 1900-1940 were white middle class urban women.
These women campaigned for programs that were to benefit the working class immigrants in urban settings. Many of these women differed in their approach but were united in their campaign for change do to the conditions being faced in the urban ghettos of the time period. Most of these reformers believed in setting a moral tone within newly created programs by aiding only those who deserved help. The goal was to build a social safety net to help women in need due to difficult circumstances. They believed there was a distinct difference between those who deserved aid and those who did not. They were also fighting for the women’s suffrage movement by demonstrating women’s ability to help themselves. A sense of togetherness was created amongst these women as they gathered to discuss and combine their efforts in places such as the YWCA and the New York Women’s Club.[ii] These clubs allowed a network of like minded women to unite giving them greater political power, a strong organizational structure, and maybe, most importantly, a support group. This togetherness, much like their programs, grew progressively from within their own cities to the national level allowing the sharing of ideas across urban centres to create consistency among programmes. Many of the women also lived together and mentored each other in the settlement houses they created. Such was the case with Jane Addams and her work with many women who considered themselves to be social workers at the Hull House in
Chicago.[iii] Jane Addams is the women most symbolic in the early building of these programs. She started the now famous Hull House of Chicago in 1889 with a $50,000 inheritance. It became the first settlement house in the United States and at its height, was visited by some 2, 000 area residents per week and housed 25 women social workers. It offered a variety of programs including a public kitchen, gymnasium, a girls club, bathhouse, library and night school for adults which was the forerunner to continuing education to name a few. One of the most important programs created at Hull House was a kindergarten. The kindergarten programme allowed single women to be able to go to work during the day while having care provided for their children.[iv] Addams struggled in her decision to offer the programme because she believed it would create a double day for women (job during the day, taking care of the house and family at night) while allowing women to be exploited as inexpensive labour. She was one of the few women in the network who provided this program despite its great demand in the northern United States. By doing so she gave deserving women many opportunities to better themselves and help provide for there families. The many programmes offered allowed the women who ran the Hull House to attempt to have a positive impact on the lives of women and their future. It also provided Adams the chance to mentor the other women of Hull House some of whom would move on to other initiatives around the United States, helping her expand her impact within the social network of women and beyond. One of the women who examplies the spread of the programs and mentoring within the network is Florence Kelly. Kelly was an activist who fought for women’s suffrage, African american civil rights and changes to labour laws to create a eight hour work day and stop children from working until they were at least 14 years of age.[v] She lived in the Hull House and helped supervise programs from 1890-1899 becoming an important aid to Jane Addams. She then left and went to New York where she played a key role in with Henry House from 1899-1926. Here she continued many of the same programs and started some of her own. As these networks grew and women’s rights continued to expand do to the level of these women they were able to seek greater and greater gains such as the passing of the 19th amendment in 1920, allowing women the right to vote. This came from women’s growing political status symbolized by Jeannette Rankin who was the first women elected to congress in 1916.[vi] Rankin provided women their first official voice in Congress. She helped bring to light the position of many of the women within the network and to secure government funding for the expansion of many network created programs. One example of this is Rankin’s campaigning for legislation to help reduce the infant mortality rate. This resulted in the creation of the Sheppard-Towner Act which modeled the Maternity Center’s which originated in New York City under the supervision of the New York Women’s Club.[vii] It was also aided by the statistics Florence Kelly compiled on infant mortality. This was only made possible through her contact with the various settlement houses around the country. In the southern United States a similar movement was taking place throughout the African-American women but with a different focus. The African-American experience was dissimilar because it did not have the same ties to government due to the racism which existed during the time period.[viii] These women focused on providing their people with the opportunity to better themselves and their community. They did so by setting up schools, old people’s homes and medical services. All programmes the government would not provide due to racism. The priority for the African-American women was to create universal education because their ultimate goal was to uplift their race in order to earn the respect of the white people and be accepted within society.[ix] As Ferdinand Barnett said in 1879 “One vicious, ignorant Negro is readily conceded to be a type of all the rest, but a Negro educated and refined is said to be an exception. We must labor to reverse this rule, education and moral excellence must become general and characteristic, with ignorance and depravity the exception.”[x] As a result of their labours by 1907 there was at least 312 Negro schools providing education ranging from kindergarten to college such as the Lucy Laney’s Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia and the Arenia Mallory’s Saints’ Industrial and Literacy Training school in Mississippi.[xi] Once the initial work had been accomplished in creating and funding training schools it became much easier for these women to find funds in order to establish further programs. This was true because more African-American’s could earn a living (although they had to take jobs often well below their education level) and thus donate to the programs which had aided them in doing so. It created a cycle of giving and a close bond within the African-American community because they were all experiencing the same things regardless of where they lived. It also allowed African-American’s to gain the education necessary to open their own businesses to provide for themselves and offer jobs to their own people. This was key because it provided a sense of hope to many African- Americans who were for the first time seeing other African-Americans in positions of power even if it was in their own segregated portions of the country. At the federal political level their campaign began to see some success winning the Office of Negro Health Works in 1932 aiding them in working towards another of their goals.[xii] Regardless of the success at the National level, these women began to achieve what they set out to do in there own community. They laid the foundation for changing the way their race was seen within their own country by creating a separate society which more closely mirrored the rest of the United States which could be slowly integrated as they proved their ability to achieve to the same standards educationally, economically and morally. Thus, began the long road towards eroding the bias created by years of slavery and racism. The booming economic times of the 1920’s brought to the forefront another group of women who brought change through their independent status through challenging social norms. This movement took place in the furnished room districts of major urban centres such as Chicago. These women wished to challenge sexual taboos and were given the chance because of the need for their labour and the opportunity presented by the population density in these areas. These women wore short skirts, smoked, and had the style of a prostitute, but were respected by the males who lived these areas as working women.[xiii] Women mingled freely amongst men looking for ways to spend their hard earned money on things they enjoyed in a style they were creating in a type of neighbourhood which was new to society. “These areas, it seems, were geographic settings where behaviour considered unacceptable elsewhere was accepted matter-of-factly and even encouraged.”[xiv] This openness to behaviours which, were certainly considered to be taboo by the majority of society allowed these so called “Rowdy Girls” to gain further power within society. For example, many of the women who lived in these areas did not earn the same wages as men but were able to overcome that by supplementing their wage by going on dates. On these dates the man would be expected to pay for the dinner or drinks or whatever it might be in return for sexual favours ranging from companionship to sexual intercourse.[xv] For their part the moral women of the social networks disapproved of these behaviours as you would expect but did not blame the women themselves but rather the situation they were put in. As a result they campaigned for an organized boarding-home, anti-prostitution crusade, and the improvement of women’s wages so the so called “Sex game” was not necessary.[xvi] These “Rowdy Girls” unknowingly brought to light many of the double standards between men and women in society and forced the public to begin to look at ways to accept women as equals in the working world in order to attempt to remove this subculture. They also expanded on the independence shown by the social welfare networks in the first 20 years of the century because they proved women not born into the middle class could be independent too. As much as the “Rowdy girls” of the 1920’s changed the way women were viewed, the majority of society continued to have the same nuclear family structure, which had existed prior to the booming economic times of the 1920’s. With the onset of the Great Depression it was once again up to wives and mothers to continue to be the backbone of the family structure with less to work with than ever before. This created a great bond between these women of all ethnic backgrounds as they fought to be able to accomplish their traditional responsibilities with a new sense of urgency.[xvii] It was under these inordinate circumstances which housewives around America united for the second time in their history to organize food boycotts, barter networks, and to campaign for food and rent price controls all in an effort to allow them to continue to provide for their families and take care of their homes despite the poor economic times.[xviii] Despite having little or no connection to political figures in an attempt to create change, these women created their own power through consumerism and when they were not taken seriously. They took to the streets to demonstrate when they felt it was necessary. For example, in New York Jewish housewives came together to resist eviction when their families could on longer afford to pay rent. In Cleveland, Negro wives fought to keep their hydro on and when they were told it would be turned off, they hung their laundry out on the electrical lines.[xix] By the mid 1930’s these movements were taken very seriously because this group of militant housewives were seen as a united organization fighting for their needs to be considered by President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal. The power of consumerism and their power of the vote forced big business and political leaders to hear this united group of women. In some areas of the country these women even started to become involved in the creation of political organizations such as in Minnesota in 1936 with the creation of the national Farmer-Labour Party.[xx] These women were not attempting to change their role within society but were rather using their collective might for the betterment of themselves and their families in a time of desperation. They had now united as a group recognized by the mainstream which was only made possible by the changes they campaigned for in the 30 years prior to the great depression. The growth in the political power of women was substantial during the Progressive era because of women’s decision to fight to improve their standard of living regardless of their location, economic status and ethnic background. What started in the early part of the century as movements within individual communities grew as networks of women learned from each other and worked collectively to improve the situation in their own community. They built facilities in order to offer programmes such as the settlement houses in the north and educational facilities in the south. The sense of togetherness built stronger women and stronger communities which, feed from the progressive sediment that had taken hold throughout American society. The initiative of women to better themselves and their communities proved their intellectual abilities and fostered a new sense of independence. This new sense of independence led women to seek a more equivalent role to men in society by challenging social norms first in the political world with the election of Jeanette Rankin and the creation of the 19th amendment. Then throughout everyday society as in the women of the furnished room districts throughout the United States. As the economic times began exceedingly difficult with the onset of the Great Depression women of all ethic backgrounds came together to fight to be able to provide the basic needs for there families. Over the course of forty years women in the United States went from being housewives of different ethnic backgrounds struggling on their own to make ends meet, to housewives with jobs, some with political status banding together to deal with the worst economic times they had ever seen. From individual to together, the women of the progressive era helped society progress by eroding differences in their own communities, amongst themselves, and between them and men. It this way the uniting of women of different location, economic status and ethnic backgrounds to increase their standard of living truly embodies the spirit of the progressive era.
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[i] Moss, George Donelson. America in the Twentieth Century. Prentice-Hall Inc.: New Jersey, 2004. 51.
[ii] Gordon, Linda. “Black and White Visions of Welfare: Women’s Welfare Activism, 1890-1945.” Unequal Sisters. Ed. Vicki L. Ruiz with Ellen Carol DuBois. Routledge: New York, 2008. 228.
[iii] Ibid, 235.
[iv] Stebner, Eleanor J., The Women of Hull House: A Study in Spirituality, Vocation, and Friendship. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 12-14.
[v] Ibid, 117-119.
[vi] Gordon, 228.
[vii] Ibid
[viii] Ibid, 222.
[ix] Ibid, 223.
[x] Ibid, 227.
[xi] Ibid, 222.
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] Meyerowitz, Joanne. “Sexual Geography and Gender Economy: The Furnished-Room Districts of Chicago, 1890-1930.” Unequal Sisters. Ed. Vicki L. Ruiz with Ellen Carol DuBois. Routledge: New York, 2008. 325.
[xiv] Ibid, 327.
[xv] Ibid, 329.
[xvi] Ibid, 331.
[xvii] Orleck, Annelise. ““We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public”: Militant Housewives during the Great Depression.” Unequal Sisters. Ed. Vicki L. Ruiz with Ellen Carol DuBois. Routledge: New York, 2008. 401.
[xviii] Ibid
[xix] Ibid, 402.
[xx] Ibid.