Graterford+Prison--Progressivism+and+Impact+of+Pinchot,+Gifford

= **The Graterford Prison and Gifford Pinchot: Examples of Progressivism** =

Abstract
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the Governor for Pennsylvania during 1923-1927 and 1931-1935. He was also a Republican and more importantly Progressive. Gifford and his brother were the top leaders of the Progressive Party between 1912 and 1916. Progressivism started in the late 19th century as response to the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution. The main ideals followed by members of the Progressive movement were democracy, efficiency within the government, regulation of large corporations and monopolies, social justice, and conservationism. While Gifford Pinchot used these principles for reforming the use of forests in the United States, these ideals were also used in managing the Graterford Prison.

The Graterford Prison, currently known as the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute at Graterford (SCIG) is located in Graterford, Pennsylvania. The SCIG was built in 1929 as a prison farm holding about 3,500 prisoners. The inmates were utilized for growing their own food, manufacturing certain items and as free labor for the state. The prison currently employs 315 inmates who work at a garment factory, undergarment factory, shoe factory, weave plant, hosiery factory, carton factory and a mail distribution center. The inmates are still involved with farming and the prison recently introduced some educational programs for inmates. My research explores how progressivism influenced the management system at Graterford prison and how leaders of the Progressive Party influenced and were influenced by societal needs.

Progressivism
Before talking about the Graterford Prison and Gifford Pinchot, it is important to have an in-depth knowledge of progressivism. How it started, why it started and how its principles were used. Progressivism as a movement started initially as a response to the many changes brought on by the industrial revolution in the early 19th century. The United States at this time had a new national rail system, mechanized agricultural industries, factories being built all over the country, and rapidly growing cities. With such vast growth in a short period of time, there arose problems and a need to address those problems. Thus the progressive movement was started, to battle problems such as indecent living conditions due to insufficient incomes, violent strikes due low wages and unsafe working conditions, farmers going bankrupt and becoming tenant farmers, crime and disease in big cities, and corruption in the government.

Unlike the populist movement which was supported by disgruntled farmers, the progressive movement was fueled by small businessmen, professionals, and middle-class urban reformers. The progressive movement had many objectives some of which were contradictory, but there were a few basic types of progressive ideals that are synonymous with the movement. Some of these are:

Democracy
One of the greatest and most enduring successes for the progressives was achieved in their effort to make the government more democratic. They hoped to make the government more responsive by instituting the following reforms: • Initiative: ordinary citizens could propose laws for consideration by their state legislatures or by the voters directly. • Referendum: citizens could vote directly on whether to approve proposed laws. • Recall: public officials could be removed from office by a direct vote of the citizens. • Secret Ballot: citizens could keep their votes secret. • Direct Primary: political party nominations for public office were made directly by a vote of rank-and-file members of the party rather than by party bosses. • Direct election of US Senators: allows citizens in each state to directly elect their senators. This was achieved with the addition of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913. • Women’s Suffrage: granting women the right to vote. This was achieved with the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920.

Efficiency
Many progressives worked towards making government operations more efficiently serve the people’s needs by using scientific examples to show how operations can be improved. Some of the reforms implicated for this cause were: • Professional Administrators: The progressives argued that governments would be more efficient if they were run by trained and professional administrators. This led to the rise of the city manager system, in which professional administrators ran the day to day affairs of the city governments under guidelines established by elected city councils. • Centralization of decision making process: The number of officials was reduced to remove overlapping areas of authority. The number of local wards was reduced to increase the power of the city council. Budgets were developed to plan expenditure. • Movements to eliminate government corruption: Progressives cleaned up local governments by eliminating the power of machine politicians and political bosses. Power was then transferred from urban bosses to professional administrators.

Regulation of Large Corporations and Monopolies
The progressives agreed that by regulating large corporations they could liberate human energies from the restrictions imposed by industrial capitalism but they disagreed on which of the following solutions to use: • Laissez-Faire: Some progressives believed that marketplace forces would eventually regulate large corporations. • Trust-busting: Some progressive believed that monopolies suppressed competition and should be broken down, by the government, into smaller companies to restore competition. • Regulation: Some progressives believed that large corporations and monopolies were inevitable and desirable but should be regulated by the federal government. • Socialism: Some progressives believed that the government should acquire large corporations and operate them for public interest.

Social Justice
One of the main tenets of progressivism was the move for social justice. This meant supporting both private and government actions to help people in need. Some of these reforms included: • Development of professional social workers: Professionals should be trained to undertake charity and welfare work. • Building of settlement houses: This involved building residential, community centers in the city’s slums to provide schools, day care centers, and cultural enrichment programs for urban workers. • Enactment of child labor laws: to prevent overworking of children in newly emerging industries. • Support for organized labor: support goals such as the eight-hour workday, improved health and safety conditions, workers compensation laws, minimum wage laws, and unionization. • Prohibition Laws: The progressives claimed that alcohol consumption limited mankind’s potential for advancement. The achieved success with the enactment of the eighteenth amendment which was later repealed by the twenty-first amendment.

Conservationism
The progressives were highly successful in this area especially under the progressive President Theodore Roosevelt (1901 – 1909). His administration created 42 million acres of national forests, 53 natural refuges, and 18 areas of special interest such as the Grand Canyon. The Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 was approved to give subsidies for irrigation in sixteen western states. The Antiquities Act of 1906 was passed to protect large areas of land. The Inland Waterways Commission was established to control the United States’ streams and waterways.

The Graterford Prison
The Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Graterford is located by the village of Graterford in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, PA. The prison was built in 1929 as a maximum security prison and currently holds about 3500 prisoners. The prison grounds include 1730 acres of farmland and 62 acres for the prison compound surrounded by 30 foot walls with nine manned towers. The original plan for the prison contained eight major cell blocks of 400 cells each but only fie cell blocks were built for a total of 2000 cells. An example of a progressive idea that was implemented in the design of the prison was the 40 cells added to a security unit called the Restrictive Housing Unit. In these units the prisoners are allowed one hour a day for exercise and only one visitor per month. A great example of progressive reform that was implemented in Graterford Prison was the notion of social justice. Their idea was that prisoners cannot be locked up and left to rot or beaten, but can be useful to society in the long term. This is seen in the prison farm system at Graterford and the several industries that are operated within the prison. These include a garment factory, undergarment factory, shoe factory, weave plant, hosiery factory, carton factory, and mail distribution center. Recently educational programs have been implemented for prisoners that allow them to receive Bachelor’s degrees from Villanova University while still incarcerated. The prison is able to supply itself with the common needs of the prisoners without relying on tax dollars, hence achieving a goal of progressivism.

Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot known as the Father of American Forestry was one of the chief proponents of the progressive movement towards conservationism. Coming from a rich family that was tightly linked to the timber industry, Gifford first studied at Yale and then went on to study forestry in Nancy, France. While in France he studied under the world’s foremost forester of the time, Sir Dietrich Brandes, making him the first American to have scientific forestry training. His education and his father’s commitment to conservation motivated Gifford to become a forester. At the time short term profit was the sole governor of tree cutting in the United States and Gifford made it his mission to change this. He started working his way up from independent forestry jobs to national advisory committees. In 1896 he served on the National Forest Commission and in 1898 he became the head of the Division of Forestry, later renamed the United Forest Service. He founded the Yale University School of Forestry and the Society of American Foresters in 1900. With his position he became well known for advocating policies that favored long-term efficiency and prosperity over short-term profit. As a progressive he strongly supported the efficiency movement and believed that the federal government should take ownership and manage public lands. Both being progressives, President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot had the same values and beliefs, and as such Pinchot became a national figure during the President’s rule. Gifford was opposed to preservation for the sake of wilderness or scenery, he believed in conserving the nation’s reserve by planned use and renewal. During Roosevelt’s presidency, Gifford managed to transfer millions of acres of forest lands to the reserves, devise a system for controlled use of waterpower sites and found the world’s largest forest products laboratory. Gifford’s progressivism can best be seen in the work he has done for Pennsylvania. He overhauled the state’s forestry system, initiating massive land-buybacks by the government and forest replanting, a good example of progressive conservation. He efficiently reorganized the budget and power structure of the whole state government, turning a $30 million deficit into a $6 million surplus. Gifford Pinchot was one the greatest examples of progressivism with his support for conservation, regulation of public utilities, relief for the unemployed, and constructing roads to get ‘farmers out of the mud’.