Progressive Era and WWI: US History

Posted on Feb 4, 2026 in History

Unit 10: The Progressive Era & World War I

The Early Twentieth Century: Reform and Conflict

The Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)

Towards the end of the Gilded Age (1870s – 1890s), a new era started: The Progressive Era (1890s-1920s). Different people advocated for reform (though not always for the same reasons), including politicians, conservationists, muckrakers, scientists and scholars, civil rights activists, and labor unions.

Key Progressive Figures
Eugene V. Debs

Founder of the American Railway Union, he was imprisoned for his involvement in the Pullman Strike of 1894. He founded the Socialist Party of America and ran as the Socialist candidate for President in five elections (1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920). While Debs never won, his socialist political platform influenced more moderate Progressive politicians like Theodore Roosevelt. In 1905, he co-founded the International Workers of the World (IWW, “Wobblies”).

Mother Jones

Mary G. Harris Jones, nicknamed “Mother Jones,” was an Irish-American labor activist. She worked with the United Mine Workers of America to organize miners’ strikes. She organized a children’s march from Philadelphia to Roosevelt’s home in New York to protest child labor. Alongside Debs, she co-founded the International Workers of the World (IWW, “Wobblies”).

Woodrow Wilson

The 28th President (1913-1921), Wilson was a Progressive Democrat who believed in social reform, progress, and the power of the federal government to expose corruption, regulate corporations, and improve the general condition of society. However, he was also deeply racist; he segregated the federal government, removing Black Americans from positions of power, and he appeared to support the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) during their resurgence in the 1910s and 1920s.

World War I (1914–1918)

World War I broke out when Wilson was president.

  • Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.
  • Allied Powers: France, Britain, Italy, and Russia; later, Japan and the US joined.

President Wilson issued a neutrality proclamation but tried to assist the Allies without joining the war by loaning money and sending resources. The US finally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

Anti-German hysteria, fueled by propaganda-infused patriotism, resulted in open hostility toward all things German and the persecution of German-Americans. Wilson ran again in 1916 and proposed Progressive reforms (ending child labor, setting a minimum wage, providing better protections for female workers…). Wilson’s second term was dominated by WWI. During his presidency, the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, was passed (1920).

The British intercepted a telegram from Germany to Mexico, inviting Mexico to attack the United States and suggesting Japan could also declare war on the US. The American public was outraged and wanted Wilson to declare war on Germany. Even though Wilson had won reelection under the slogan “He kept us out of war,” by 1917 neutrality was no longer possible.

Strong propaganda campaigns encouraged enlistment. The government also needed financial support from the people through war bonds (liberty bonds in the US). Patriotism meant that “un-American” dissenters could be arrested or deported. Immigrants & African-Americans had more opportunities to find work and to enlist… but there was also an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment and racial segregation (Jim Crow).

The Spanish Flu and Wilson’s Peace Plan

“The Spanish Flu”: The 1918 influenza pandemic infected nearly a third of the global population, causing 20–50 million deaths. It was called “Spanish” because wartime censorship meant neutral Spain reported on it openly.

On January 8, 1918, Wilson delivered his “Fourteen Points Address” to Congress, including the creation of a “League of Nations” to address problems through diplomacy. It was a plan to end WWI and ensure peace—“the war to end all wars.” Germany surrendered on November 11, 1918. This plan was very idealistic; other countries were more focused on making Germany pay for the damage.

The Fourteen Points:
  1. “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at” (open diplomacy).
  2. Freedom of the seas.
  3. The removal so far as possible of all economic barriers (= free trade).
  4. The reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety (demilitarization).
  5. Impartial adjustment of all colonial claims (self-determination).
  6. The evacuation of all Russian territory.
  7. The evacuation and restoration of Belgium and its sovereignty.
  8. Restoration of French territory.
  9. Readjustment of the frontiers of Italy to conform to clearly recognisable lines of nationality.
  10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary should be accorded the opportunity of autonomous development.
  11. Evacuation of occupation forces from Romania, Serbia and Montenegro; Serbia should be accorded free and secure access to the sea.
  12. Autonomous development for the non-Turkish peoples of the Ottoman empire; free passage of the Dardanelles to the ships and commerce of all nations.
  13. An independent Poland to be established, with free and secure access to the sea.
  14. A general association of nations to be formed to guarantee to its members political independence and territorial integrity (the genesis of the League of Nations).
Post-War Consequences

In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference negotiated the Treaty of Versailles. This led to the creation of the League of Nations (1920-1946). Wilson attended the Peace Conference, influenced by his Fourteen Points, but without support from an isolationist Congress—he was admired abroad but resented at home. Some of the treaty’s terms were controversial, notably the “War Guilt Clause.”

Consequences of World War I in the US included:

  • Increase of anti-immigration & racist sentiments.
  • Political radicals (socialists, pacifists, unionists) labeled “un-American.”
  • Conflict between internationalists and isolationists.
  • The role of women during the war led to more advocacy for civil rights and the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
  • The end of the Progressive Era and the beginning of the “Roaring Twenties.”
  • The “Lost Generation”: younger generations who had witnessed WWI were disillusioned and alienated.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement

Carrie Chapman Catt (head of NAWSA, National American Woman Suffrage Association) linked the need for female suffrage to the role of women during WWI. Women had taken up the jobs of many of the men fighting in Europe or were hired for new jobs (e.g., the munition industry).

Female Suffrage and Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was not initially very interested in the suffrage movement. His daughter, Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre, was a women’s rights activist and influenced his father’s decisions. He eventually declared his support for female enfranchisement in 1918.

  • June 4, 1919: 19th Amendment passed in Congress.
  • August 18, 1920: 19th Amendment ratified by states.
The 19th Amendment

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Unit 11: Diversion, Depression, and Modernism: Interwar Culture

The Roaring Twenties

This period saw a great flourishing of American arts, culture, and entertainment.

Cultural Shifts

  • “The Jazz Age”: Development of jazz music as many African Americans migrated from the South looking for opportunities in Northern cities (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington).
  • “The Harlem Renaissance”: A Black arts and literature movement.
  • Hollywood (CA) quickly became the film capital in the US.
  • Art Deco: An architecture and design movement that started in France.
  • Emergence of “mass culture” through technology: phonograph records, radio broadcasts, motion pictures—the beginning of the “golden age” of Hollywood and new platforms for American artists and performers.

BUT: Much of the rich diversity of immigrant cultures was lost as standardization of tastes and language hastened immigrants’ entry into the American mainstream.

Al Jolson

Born Asa Yoelson in a Jewish village in Lithuania, he immigrated to NYC as a child. He became a famous vaudeville entertainer and “blackface” performer, starring in the first “talkie” (talking picture), The Jazz Singer, in 1927.

The Great Migration

First wave: 1915-1940. This was a period of declining immigration but increasing internal migration, as many Black Americans left the rural South for Northern cities.

The Harlem Renaissance

Harlem in NYC became one of the largest Black communities in the US, fostering a vibrant African-American creative culture known as the Harlem Renaissance.

  • Writers: Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Countie Cullen, Jessie Faucet.
  • Jazz artists: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington.
  • Blues artists: Bessie Smith.

Modernism

Modernism in American Art and Modernism in American Literature (Hurston, Fitzgerald, Hughes, Steinbeck). Modernism in Music (Meeropol & Holliday).

The Great Depression

October 29th, 1929: “Black Tuesday”—the catastrophic crash of the stock market (which started on October 24th, Black Thursday). A massive sell-off of stock caused plummeting values and huge losses.

This led to a business depression. By the end of 1930, more than 4 million workers were jobless. By 1933, almost 13 million people were unemployed (25% of the labor force). No jobs were available.

Henry Ford stated in March 1931, “There is plenty of work to do if people would do it,” yet he laid off over half his workforce just a few weeks later. When employees were not dismissed, wages were cut. Over 5,000 banks collapsed in the first three years of the depression, and the life savings of millions of people were lost.

Many in rural areas lost their homes and farms, and many in cities were evicted, leading to an increase in extreme poverty. Farmers in the southern Great Plains region were also affected by drought and over-plowing, which brought on dust storms—creating “the Dust Bowl,” destroying crops and killing people and livestock. This caused a mass migration of farmers (many to California or less affected areas of the Great Plains).

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)

The 32nd US President (1933-1945), FDR was a Democrat who served four terms (the longest presidency in US history). In his nomination acceptance speech, he pledged “a new deal for the American people.” This was similar to Theodore Roosevelt’s “Square Deal,” focusing on progressive reforms to protect working-class people and consumers.

The New Deal

The New Deal focused on “the 3 R’s”:

  • Relief for poor and/or unemployed people.
  • Recovery of the economy.
  • Reform of the financial system.

The goal was to stabilize the economy and prevent mass rebellion. Many new government agencies were created:

  • National Recovery Administration: Government control of the economy.
  • Social Security: Fund to support retired workers.
  • Works Progress Administration: Millions of jobs for public works projects (including construction of buildings and roads, but also support for the arts).
  • “Federal Project Number One”: Support for unemployed artists, writers, actors, and musicians.
  • “Federal Writers’ Project” funded a variety of projects, from American tourism guidebooks to the Slave Narrative Collection, a compilation of first-hand accounts of slavery and other documentary materials from formerly enslaved African Americans. Zora Neale Hurston was hired by the Florida Writers’ Project to continue documenting local histories and folklore.

A majority of Black Americans supported FDR (a major shift from the Republican to the Democratic Party), but in practice, the “New Deal” largely overlooked them and left them behind. Roosevelt needed southern support for his reforms, so he did nothing to end Jim Crow (racial segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching).

Jewish American musician Abel Meeropol and Black American singer Billie Holliday created one of the most famous songs in American history, “Strange Fruit” (1937/39), about lynching.