78 ChaPter 2
which was still denied to women in all but a few states], birth control, peace,
and anti-poverty measures. Some ministers, like Washington Gladden and
Walter Rauschenberg, who would inspire Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
decades later, created the “social gospel,” the idea that religion should be used
to make life better for the poor. They and other theological figures became
involved in politics, speaking in favor of unions, calling for government regu-
lation of work and health conditions, and trying to establish a society built on
cooperation rather than competition.
Women’s rights were an important part of Progressivism too. Though the
term “feminism” is usually associated with the 1960s, it has a much longer
history, including the Progressive Era. Jane Addams and other women estab-
lished the National Consumer’s League in 1899 to lobby for laws to protect
buyers [whom were mostly women]; in 1911, these women successfully got
the state of Illinois to pass an Aid to Dependent Children [ADC] law so that
kids from poor or broken families could be cared for; and in 1912 they pressed
Massachusetts to pass a minimum wage law for women and children. Various
women’s groups took on the issue of child labor with particular energy. Kids
as young as 8 or 10 were doing industrial work, paid perhaps 50 or 75 cents
a day, and with no workplace safety protections. As noted, millions of kids
were working in industrial factories and mines. In 1916, Congress passed a
law banning any product made by child labor from being sold from one state
to another, but not until the 1930s did the Supreme Court ban child labor.
Women were also deeply involved in movements for suffrage, the right to vote,
and for birth control and abortion rights. Alice Paul and Lucy Burn estab-
lished a group called the Congressional Union to fight for women to have the
right to vote, but they did so militantly compared to most women, advocating
not just for suffrage but declaring that women should be equal and have
access to careers and good jobs. Consequently, in 1915 a more moderate
group led by Carrie Chapman Catt, the National American’s Women’s
Suffrage Association, came into being and Paul was removed. Catt was a sup-
porter of World War I and believed women could be a conservative and
patriotic force to keep American families from being vulnerable to political
subversion like Socialism or anarchy. In 1920, based on conservative princi-
ples, Congress and the states passed the 19th Amendment, giving women the
right to vote nationally.
The birth control issue also attracted women considered more radical,
especially Margaret Sanger, a nurse who believed that large families were more