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Prohibition
Prohibitionist feared that alcohol was undermining american morals. The woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in Cleveland in 1874 started crusades to advance their cause by entering saloons, singing, praying and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. -
National Organization
As momentum grew, the WCTU was transformed from a small religious group to a national ogranization. -
National Child Labor Committee
The National Child Labor Committee sent investigators to gather evidence of children working in harsh conditions. -
"The Jungle"
"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair was a novel intended to reveal the sickening truth of the meatpacking industry. After President Roosevlet read the novel, he immediately responded. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act were passed to ensure safer products and called for truth in labeling. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
This act halted the sale of contaminated foods and medicines ans called for truth in labeling. Althogh this act did not ban harmful products, truth labeling would give accurate information and help people make better choices. -
Meat Inspection Act
This act dictated strict cleanliness requirements for meatpackers and created the program of federal meat inspection that was in use until it was replaced with more sophistcated techniques in the 1990's. -
William H. Taff
Taff is elected president. -
NAACP
The NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People. This was made of African Americans and with prominent white reformers from New York. -
Making History
By 1911, the WCTU had 240,000 memebers. The largest women's group in the nation's history. -
New York City Fire
Dangerous condions, low wages, and long hours led many females to push for reform. In 1911, a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaste Factory in New York City left 146 workers, most of which were women, dead. -
Woodrow Wilson
In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected President after the Rebublican Party split. -
The Underwood Act
Wilson lobbied hard for the Underwood Act. Its purpose was to sustantially reduce tariff rates for the first time since the civil war. -
Federal Income Tax
Ratified in 1913, the sixteenth amendment legalized federal income tax, which provieded revenue by taxing individual earnings and corporate profits. -
"Five Dollar Day"
In 1914, to keep automobile workers happy and to prevent strikes, Henry Ford reduced the workday to eight hours and paid workers five dollars a day, a good wage in 1914. This incentive attracted thousands of workers. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
Sought to strengthen the Sherman Antitrust act; the Clayton Antitrust Act prohibited coroporations from aquiring the stock of another if doing so would create a monopoly. It also made strikes, peaceful picketing, boycotts and the collection of strike benefits legal. -
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
This agency was given the power to investigate possible violations of regulatory statues, to require periodic reports from corporations, and to put an end to a number of unfair business practices. -
African American Deligation
William Monroe Trotter led the delegation. Trotter complained that African Americans from 38 states had asked the president to reverse the segregation of government of employees. -
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson is reelected as president. -
Nineteenth Amendment
In 1919, women were finally granted the right to vote. The Amendment won final ratification in August 1920; 72 years after women had fisrt convened and demanded the vote at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848.
