The Progressive Era

Extra Credit:

Houchen Community Center:

609 Tays St, El Paso, TX 79901

Email: gtmorales@utep.edu

• Sunday before 5:00 pm

Progressive Era

Eugenics Continued

Sterilization: Surgical methods that make a person incapable of reproducing. (Social Control)

• Mainly for minorities, poor, and mentally impaired

Promote "proper" lineages

• Eugenics offices hold records for white families.

Public Good & Americanization

El Paso or the Ellis Island of the Southwest

U.S. Ports of Entry

• Americanization (a form of Assimilation )
• Ideology called for the immigrants to accept English, U.S. democracy, and to live by what is commonly referred to as the "Protestant ethic" -- to be self-reliant, hardworking and morally upright. In return, the immigrants would be "accepted" as full members of the community.
• Settlement Houses (mainly for women and children)
• Promoted public health
• Assimilation classes immigrants.
• Provide public and technical education
• Christian (but non-Catholic)
• Birth of Public Education
• Made to Americanize and instruct immigrants
• Vocational training and English-language classes, taught "good citizenship", 8 hours (amount of time in work), and provided programs in health and grooming.
• Patriotism about Public School System
• 1891, Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance.
• Mexican Schools-Bowie and Aoy

Progressive Terms

Eugenics, Social Dawinson, and Social Control

• 1916-Mexican immigrants considered health menace to the U.S. Immigration Office and El Paso Mayor Tom Lea.
• Typhus (caused by ticks) = immigrant scare
• Tuberculosis incorrectly linked to immigrants (mainly whites had it)
• 1917- Wash immigrants with Soap and Water
• Bath Riots on the Santa Fe Bridge led by Carmilita Torres a housemaid to refuse to be washed.
• 200 women joined the protest.
• 1919-Wash Immigrants with Kerosene and gas mixture.
• 1920-90% of El Pasoans were non-U.S. Citizens

• Ellis Island, New York City, New York
• Eastern Europeans
• Migrating to Eastern and Midwestern cities
• Angel Island, San Francisco, California
• Asian Immigrants mainly the West Coast
• Gentlemen Agreement of 1907
• Port Huron, Detroit, Michigan
• Canadians, Western, and Northern Europeans
• Santa Fe Bridge, El Paso, Texas
• Mainly Mexican nationals escaping the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920)
• U.S. Mexican population increase : 1910-367,510 and 1920-700,541
• Medically examined more then any other immigrant class.
• The Ellis Island for Mexicanos

Progressive Reform Groups

• Social Justice
• Reformers wanted to fix society for the common good through systematic interventions in the lives of people.
• Help poor citizens and immigrant families.
• Ex. Local Club Employment Agency to help poor find a job or occupation.
• Ex. Daycare funded by charities.
• Ex. Privately funded Carnegie Libraries
• Social Control
• Edward A. Ross’s Social Control (1901) argued that society needed an “ethical elite” of citizens who want to promote the general welfare for society.
• Society needs to be restrained and supported by the exercise of government power.
• Social and STEM Scientists used to aid government agencies.
• Ex.Sterilization and later prohibition.
• Ex. Discounted Daycare regulated by the government.
• Ex. Government regulated libraries

• Definition: The study of agencies under social control, that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally,” Sir Francis Galton.
• 1907-Intelligence Testing (I.Q. Tests for Army)
• ◦“Scientific tests” = culturally biased
• 1910
• Charles B. Davenport opens the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., which serves as a national resource for local eugenics organizations.
• Family trees and lineages to determine reproduction policies
• Increase reproduction of superior groups (White groups)
• Decrease reproduction of inferior groups (Non-white groups, poor, and the mentally impaired)
• Margaret Sanger
• Birth Control and Reproductive health for all women.
• Talks mainly to men about it.
• Stereotype that working and rural poor had multiple children.

Results

Race Relations & Civil Rights

When? 1890s-1920s

Who? Progressives

- Middle class, professionals, and women (move into the public sphere)

Why? To address the social, political, and economic problems of the time.

-Industrialization (Business regulation)

-Urbanization (political corruption and poor neighborhoods )

-Depopulation of Rural areas but increase in food production.

-Immigration (Ethnic diversity)

- Inequality & social injustice (women & racism)

• Many Progressive reforms target the poor/immigrant communities.
• Deserving vs. Undeserving Poor.
• Jim Crow was not challenged by white Progressives
• Eugenics
• Promotes scientific racism.
• Women working outside the home but still not able to vote.
• Municipal housekeepers but not in politics