The Montana Council for History and Civics Education

Era 7: The progressive era (1890-1930)

MCHCE's mission to provide teachers with free, relevant, and accurate resources is realized through this website, which is also a gateway to colloquium materials provided at past TAH and MCHCE professional development programs. Additionally, through participation in MCHCE Professional Development, teachers are encouraged to create classroom curriculum from the content presented. These materials are then shared to teachers through our website. 

 

We have tried to follow a strict copyright policy. If you see an item posted that you feel infringes upon copyright, please Contact MCHCE immediately and the item will be removed.

Presentation Links

• Imagining Indians in the Early 20th Century Professor Mick Gidley, University of Leeds 

• American Indians in Photography by Professor Mick Gidley, University of Leeds

• The Photography of American Indians Bibliography Handout

• Looking at Photographs: A Selective Reading List Professor Mick Gidley, University of Leeds

• Biography: America Becomes a World Power Howard Hunter and Dennis Lubeck, February 2005 Colloquium Presenters

• A New Deal for Whom? Professor Walter Fleming, Montana State University Department of Native American studies

• Picture/Story "Representing Gender in Montana Farm Security Administration Photographs" from Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 22:3, 2001.

• Bibliography, Professor Mary Murphy, Montana State University Department of History and Philosophy

• Conservation and Wilderness, Dr. Jim Bruggeman, Irving Elementary School and Telling Lives Co-Director

• Lynching, Racism, and Gender Politics in the 20th Century, Professor Mary Murphy Montana State University Department of History and Philosophy

• Presentation Handout: Number of White and Colored Persons Lynched in the United States: 1889-1918

• Bibliography Handout: Western and Cowboy Literature in American History

• Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"

• The Copper Revolution by Danice Toyias

• All Must Work Under My Direction, 1882 contract between African-American tenant farmers and plots of land on the Grimes' plantation in Pitt County, North Carolina presented by Professor Mary Murphy.

• Henry Ford and “The Prosperity Decade” by Professor Bob Rydell (Rough Presentation Notes) (Video)

• The House of Labor by Dr. Jim Bruggeman (Video)

• The Fall of the House of Labor by Dr. Jim Bruggeman

• The Dawes Act by Dr. Walter Fleming

• The Social Photography of Lewis Hine and The Child Labor Reform Movement (1880-1918) presented by Jim Bruggeman

Curriculum

• Art in the Progressive Era, Howard Hunter, Metairie Park Country Day School in Louisiana

• The Great Northern Railway and the "See America First" Campaign Danice Rolleri, Montana State University Department of History and Philosophy and Telling Lives Program Manager

• Teaching the Progressive Era by Danice Toyias

• Creating a Progressive Era Primary Source Museum by Christine Sink

• Reading Like a Historian: Defending the Importance of History Education by Danice Toyias

• Instructional Plan Support: Era 7--The Emergence of Modern America by Danice Toyias

• Adapting and Using Primary Sources by Danice Toyias (Handout)

• Immigrants, Nativism, and the Red Scare by Derek Strahn (Handout) (Rough Presentation Notes) (Video)

• Feminists and Flappers by Derek Strahn (Rough Presentation Notes) (Video)

• The New Negro and the Harlem Renaissance by Derek Strahn (Handout)

Links and Resources
 

Butte, Montana

• Butte, Montana: An Architectual and Historical Inventory of the National Landmark District, by Dale Martin, Montana State University Department of History and Brian Shovers, Reference Historian at the Montana Historical Society. (December 1986)

• Butte neighborhoods

• (Article) The Clark’s: An American story of wealth, scandal, and mystery

 

Gilded Age and Progressive Era Resources

• H-SHGAPE: Excellent Site! Gilded Age and Progressive Era Resources are separated into topic areas with fantastic links to primary sources, art, syllabi, politics, the transformation of the West--anything and everything for this time period!

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Library of Congress

• National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921

• "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920

• Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

• The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War

• The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures

 

Women and Suffrage

• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

• The University of Rochester Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership

 

Spanish-American War

• From PBS, The Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War

• Harper's Weekly Features electronic access to Harper's Weekly: 1857-1912 with several free features!​

Links and Resources

 

The Progressive Era

• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

• Florence Kelley on Sweatshops Document-Based Question: Florence Kelley and the Illinois Sweatshop Law

• Testimony on Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Exhibit: The Triangle Factory Fire

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial

• Description of Progressive Party from "The Rise of  Political Women in the Election of 1912" by Joe Freeman

 

America Becomes a World Power

• Alfred T. Mahan on Sea Power

• William McKinley, "War Message" (1898)

• Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League October 18, 1899

• Mark Twain, "Anti-Imperialist League: Voice of Protest"

• The Open Door Notes (1899-1900)

• The Roosevelt Corollary (1904)

• Excerpt: "Illusions and Realities in World War I," by Thomas Fleming

• Woodrow Wilson, "The Fourteen Points" (1918)

• Article X of the League of Nations

• Lesson from History Matters, "Debate: Should the U.S. Annex the Philippines?"

• Mark Twain, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (Updated)

 

Websites

• Montana Historical Society: Progressive Montana, 1900-1924

• University of Illinois: Early American Trade with China

• University of Illinois: The Chinese Experience in 19th Century America

• The Wessels Living History Farm 

• Edward S. Curtis: The North American Indian from Northwestern University Digital Library Collections

 

Bibliography
 

Books

• Mary Murphy, Hope in Hard Times

• Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945

• Frederick Drake, Engagement in Teaching History: Theory and Practices for Middle and Secondary Teachers

 

Articles

• James A. Williams and Charles F. Pennachio, The Philippine-American War: A Unit of Study for Grades 7-12

• James M. Banner, "Teachers of Ambition"

• Joel Schrock, selections from The Gilded Age

• Paul A. Gagnon, "Worms in the Apple: History Teacher Stress"

• Richard Rothstein, "Going Beyond Mere Facts in the Study of History," article on Sam Wineburg featured in the New York Times

• Walter Fleming, "Federal Indian Policy: A Summary" from Enduring Vision

• Warren Zimmerman, "Beyond American Boundaries," from The 1900's, edited by Myra Immell

 

The Photography of American Indians/Edward S. Curtis (A Selected Book List by Mick Gidley)

• Jane Alison, ed., Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography (London: Barbican Art Gallery/ Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998). Hard to find in US, but an excellent book, for both the past and the present. Numerous illustrations.

• Alfred L. Bush & Lee Clark Mitchell, The Photograph and the American Indian (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994).

• Wlliam Farr, The Reservation Blackfeet, 1882-1945: A Photographic History of Cultural Survival (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1984).

 

This is a good example of the various books that document a specific people; others include Masayesva and Younger below.

• Paula R. Fleming & Judith L. Luskey, The North American Indians in Early Photographs (NY: Barnes & Noble, 1986).

• Paula R. Fleming & Judith L. Luskey, Grand Endeavors of American Indian Photography (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution P, 1993).

• Mick Gidley, With One Sky Above Us: Life on an Indian Reservation at the Turn of the Century (NY: George Putnam’s Sons, 1979). Includes amateur photos by Dr. Edward Latham.

• Tim Johnson, ed., Spirit Capture: Photographs from the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution P, 1998). Includes images by Native photographers.

• Lucy R. Lippard, ed., Partial Recall (NY: New P, 1992). Includes images and commentary by Native people.

• Lucy Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in Multicultural America (1990; NY: New P, 2000).

• Victor Masayesva & Erin Younger, Hopi Photographers, Hopi Images (Tucson: Sun Tracks and University of Arizona P, 1983).

• Martha A. Sandweiss, Print the Legend: Photography and the American West ( New Haven & London : Yale UP, 2002). A major work that sets the photography of Indians in the context of western imagery in general.

• Joanna C. Scherer, Indians: The Great Photographs that Reveal North American Indian Life, 1847-1929, from the Unique Collection of the Smithsonian Institution (NY: Bonanza, 1973).

• Alan Trachtenberg, Shades of Hiawatha (NY: Hill & Wang, 2004). Sets photography of Indians within a larger cultural context.

• William H. Truettner, ed., The West as America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution P, 1992). A large-scale treatment of the representation of the West in art and photography.

• Gerald Vizenor, Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence (Lincoln & London: U of Nebraska P, 1998). This book by an Indian author sets photography of Indians within a larger cultural context.

 

Edward S. Curtis

• Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian: The Complete Portfolios (Cologne, NY, London: Taschen, 1997).
  A handy collection of all the larger images. Several libraries also hold the Johnson complete reprint edition of the text and pictures.

• Edward S. Curtis, The Plains Indian Photographs of Edward S. Curtis ( Lincoln , NE & London : U of Nebraska P, 2000). Includes essays by Martha Sandweiss, Mick Gidley and Duane Niatum.

• Mick Gidley, Edward S. Curtis and The North American Indian, Incorporated (NY: Cambridge UP, 1998; pb 2000).

• Mick Gidley, ed., Edward S. Curtis and The North American Indian Project in the Field ( Lincoln , NE and London : U of Nebraska P, 2003).

• T. C. McLuhan, ed., Touch the Earth (NY: Scribner’s, 1973). Puts photographs by Curtis alongside extracts from Indian speeches, etc.

 

There are also some older works that treat Curtis in a more heroic fashion, for example:

• Ralph Andrews, Edward S. Curtis (Seattle: Superior, 1964).

• Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen, Edward S. Curtis: Visions of a Vanishing Race (NY: Crowell, 1976).