Flanagan argues that politically and socially active women focused their efforts on making the city "a place where the health and welfare of all members should be sought"1. She supports this claim by describing the ideological differences between Chicago's City Club, a men's club, and the Women's City Club, which had as members many of the wives and daughters of the City Club. On the various issues discussed in the article, namely garbage collection, public education, and the limits of police power during labor unrest, the City Club first researched the problem and then found the most fiscally sound and generally conservative path. The City Club opposed municipal control of utilities, and supported the opinions of the courts as related to strikes. The Women's City Club, on the other hand, did not rely on fiscal evidence to choose a position, rather, they supported the side which they felt would contribute most to the general well being of the populace. In doing so, they supported greater municipal regulation, and even ownership, of utilities in order to ensure public health, and sided with labor even to the point of joining the picket lines. Of these two clubs, one made up of professional men, the other of women from the same level of society, the women tended to favour the move toward progressivism, while the men took a conservative and risk averse position.
Stromquist claims that the progressive movement was "congealed in a crucible of class polarisation and conflict"2, noting that, "Class conflict and mass protest created conditions that invited reform but did not wholly dictate the outcomes"3. Organized labor and the working class, argues Stromquist, created enough unrest to unsettle establishment politics in Cleveland to force the Republican and especially the Democratic parties to reevaluate their platforms and to add some reformist planks. Because of Cleveland's labor unrest, especially the 1899 Streetcar Strike, an independent candidate for Governor, Samuel P. Jones, running as a pro-labor reform candidate, carried Cleveland, especially working class neighborhoods. Jones' success frightened the established parties and brought progressive ideas into their platforms.
Each paper illustrates the power of groups of focused activists. The women of the Women's City Club believed that they needed to make their cities safer and that the way to do so was to support progressive ideals. Cleveland's workers wanted fair wages and fair treatment, to accomplish this they took direct action which polarised the city and propelled a progressive independent candidate to a position which threatened the established political machine. Both of these groups, and many others, contributed to the coalition calling for progressive change in the 1912 presidential election.
1. 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 95, no. 4 (October 1990): pg. #1050, doi:10.2307/2163477.
2. 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 (1997): pg #194, doi:10.1177/009614429702300203.
3. Ibid.
I enjoyed your post and you excellently summed up the desires of both groups of Progressives in the beginning of the twentieth century. You stated that focused activists groups could make an impact and I could not agree more. One thing I detailed in my blog was I believe both groups, women and workers, strove for the same goals. Women and workers alike wanted cleaner cities, better work environments and more efficient municipal public works. The men of the Chicago City Club were mere after anything that would benefit private enterprise.[1] Women and the worker/immigrant class fought for better ways of life for all society members, not just a white male elite few who funded politicians. It is an interesting study of seemingly opposite groups with common goals, which seems to be the definition of Progressivism.
ReplyDeleteMaureen 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 95, no. 4 (October 1990):1036.
Great post! It really is hard to say just how much influence each group actually had in the outcome of the movement for progressivism. I absolutely agree that the efforts of groups, such as the Chicago City Clubs, made monumental advancements in the department of reform, but I also feel that reform would have happened with or without them. I think, on the other hand, the efforts of the working-class, and the working-class only, could have produced the eye opening it did for groups like the Chicago Clubs, who in turn, acted. Like I said though, it's just really hard to tell.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. You were able to give summaries of both articles in detail and make it obvious that both sides were striving for a more progressive city. You mentioned that the City Club researched the issues at hand and usually chose to go down the “fiscally sound and conservative path”. I absolutely agree with this statement, after all the City Club was mostly composed of businessmen and they were worried about the financial repercussions of their decisions. Whereas the women were looking at the progressive reform of their city through different terms, they were looking at through reforms as “a constructive fight for better things, for higher standards, for a sense of collective responsibility for public safety and public morals. . .” You did an excellent job of emphasizing both Flanagan and Stromquist’s ideals. Stromquist suggested in his article that the Streetcar Strike of 1889 helped to reform the political movement in the city of Cleveland. You summed up his point extremely well and I completely agree that it made both parties look at their platforms and revise them, especially the democrats. They had to find new ways to incorporate progressive ideals into these platforms or face more strikes. Stromquist stated in his article, “Workers realigned the universe of local politics through their collective actions in the streets.” You did an excellent job with this argument and you made it clear that both sides fought for progressiveness and that the labor force and the social welfare force (women and others) helped to pave a path for progressiveness in these two cities. Great post!!
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