The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is the largest and oldest education information system in the world. The ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education (ERIC/ChESS) is one of sixteen subject-oriented clearinghouses that compose the ERIC system. The heart of this system, the ERIC database of education-related literature, contains nearly one million citations with abstracts, drawn from a variety of disciplines. Citations to journal articles, teaching and curriculum guides, bibliographies, research reports, and conference papers are included. The ERIC database is available free in many large public and university libraries and on the Internet.

The listings below are drawn from the ERIC database and include both teaching materials and general background information on the Progressive Era. The key to obtaining the full text of the materials cited below is the unique ERIC number assigned to each item in the database. Journal articles, denoted by “EJ” numbers (for example, EJ549890), can be copied at most academic libraries, borrowed through interlibrary loan, or purchased from article reprint services such as UnCover, UMI, and ISI. Research reports, conference papers, and other materials besides journal articles are denoted by “ED” numbers (for example, ED398110); paper or microfiche copies of most of these documents can be purchased from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS), 7420 Fullerton Road, Suite 110, Springfield, VA 22153-2852; (800) 443-3742; (703) 440-1400; <edrs@inet.ed.gov>; <http://edrs.com>; or copied from an ERIC microfiche collection, available at many libraries.

ERIC/ChESS welcomes requests for general information or sample database searches on topics within the social studies, social sciences, and music and art education. Contact ERIC/ChESS by telephone at (800) 266-3815 or (812) 855-3838, or by e-mail at <ericso@indiana.edu>.

Lesson Plans and Teaching Guides

Adams, Peter A. “Win, Lose, and Drawing Conclusions: Bellows, Boxing, and Progressivism.” OAH Magazine of History 7 (Summer 1992): 34-38. EJ463207. The author presents a lesson plan in which George Bellows’s painting Both Members of This Club is analyzed as a historical document illustrating the Progressive Era. Emphasizing the connection between sports and culture, the article includes background information and procedures for approaching the lesson.

Barker, Sherman. “General Federation of Women’s Clubs: A Role Playing Exercise for Studying the Progressive Era.” OAH Magazine of History 1 (Winter-Spring 1986): 43-44. EJ335125. This article details a roleplaying exercise based on an imaginary caucus of women’s groups meeting in the fall of 1912. The goal of the caucus is to determine which of four presidential candidates—Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Eugene Debs—the women’s groups will endorse.

Chilcoat, George. “Muckraking Project: Teaching the Progressive Era Through Popular Culture.” OAH Magazine of History 1 (Winter-Spring 1986): 39-42. EJ335124. This article presents a rationale, historical background, sample topics, instructional procedures, and evaluation criteria for facilitating a student-produced muckraking magazine project.

Chilcoat, George W. The Schoolmarm and the Big City Immigrant: The Study of the American Urban Experience through Popular Culture. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council for the Social Studies, San Francisco, CA, 26 November 1983. ED243782. These activities focus on three popular culture genres of the late nineteenth century: the muckraker magazine, the dime novel, and the melodrama. The paper provides the history and literary characteristics of each genre, as well as directions, layout design, and evaluation questions for each activity.

Chilcoat, George W. and Jerry Ligon. “Studying the Progressive Era through Melodrama as the Method.” Georgia Social Science Journal 23 (Spring 1992): 10-17. EJ458365. The authors present a plan for using melodrama to teach about the Progressive Era. They explain procedures, guidelines, and evaluation methods, and include a sample melodrama, outline handout, observation form, and review sheet.

Fisher, Darlene Emmert. “Evanston Women in the Progressive Era: Women Performed Social Work Representative of National Concerns.” OAH Magazine of History 1 (Winter-Spring 1986): 19-21. EJ335119. Intended as an example of the kind of material that a student doing research on the Progressive Era might find at a local historical society or in the files of a hometown or city newspaper, this article details the philanthropic efforts of women living in the Chicago area in the early l900s.

Giese, James R. The Progressive Era: The Limits of Reform. Public Issues Series. Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, Inc., 1989. ED377090. This booklet is part of a series designed to help students take and defend a position on public issues. This unit discusses the Progressive Era, a major reform period in U.S. history. A ten-item bibliography and three student handouts are included in the teacher’s guide.

Sanders, Beverly. Women in American History: A Series. Book Four, Women in the Progressive Era 1890-1920. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers, 1979. ED186343. Designed to supplement high school history textbooks, this book discusses the role of women in the Progressive Era (1890-1920). Featured women include Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, Emma Goldman, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Ida Tarbell, and Willa Cather.

Background Information

Beasley, Maurine H. The Muckrakers and Lynching: A Case Study in Racial Thinking. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Corvallis, OR, 6-9 August 1983. ED229769. This examination of five muckraking magazines—Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, McClure’s, Everybody’s, and The Arena—reveals that while addressing many other social ills, muckraking journalists failed to take a strong stand against one of the most glaring evils of their day: the lynching of blacks.

Decker, Joe F. “The Progressive Era and the World War I Draft,” OAH Magazine of History 1 (Winter-Spring 1986): 15-18. EJ335118. Decker argues that by looking at progressives’ different attitudes toward the draft during World War I, we can see more clearly some of the features of this era.

Dye, Nancy Schrom. “Where Have All the Progressives Gone?” OAH Magazine of History 1 (Winter-Spring 1986): 11-14. EJ335117. This article explores the different historical views of the Progressive Era and maintains that historians will probably always disagree about the nature and meaning of progressivism, but that in the last analysis, the best way to learn about the era is to read and analyze the progressives’ own views.

Mitchell, Tom and Karen K. List. Ray Stannard Baker and the Spirit of Democracy, 1900-1910. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Washington, DC, 10-13 August 1989. ED311432. This paper explores muckraking journalist Ray Stannard Baker, whose vision of an American democratic structure, or “New Democracy,” led to muckraking investigations on labor-capital relations, racism, and religion, during the years 1900-1910.

Munro, Petra. “Educators as Activists: Five Women from Chicago,” Social Education 59 (September 1995): 274-78. EJ514140. Munro maintains that during the early twentieth century the work of women teacher activists brought issues of social reform to the forefront. Munro describes the work of five Chicago women who helped advance women’s rights, women’s suffrage, and other social reform efforts, and contends that their work has not been adequately recognized.

Olien, Diana Davids and Roger M. Olien. “Why Big Bad Oil?” OAH Magazine of History 11 (Fall 1996): 22-27. EJ538419. The authors investigate the negative and hostile public opinion toward the oil industry in general and Standard Oil in particular and discover that those most responsible for criticizing Standard Oil had an economic interest in doing so. The article defends the company’s record and refutes its critics’ charges.

Smith, John Kares. Counting the Cats of Zanzibar: Upton Sinclair and the Decline of the Muckraking Movement. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Communication Association, Philadelphia, PA, 19-22 April 1990. ED322544. This paper examines Upton Sinclair’s continued pursuit of muckraking into the 1920s, long after other Progressive-era reformers had given up such efforts. Known collectively as “The Dead Hand” series, Sinclair’s muckraking tracts (1918—1927) are considered the first thematic analysis of culture from a socialist perspective.

Laura A. Pinhey is the coordinator of user services and products for the ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education (ERIC/ChESS) at Indiana University in Bloomington.