-
Robert La Follette
A progressive Wisconsin governor who attacked machine politics and pressured the state legislature to require each party to hold a direct primary. -
Eugene V. Debs
He became president of the American Railway Union. His union conducted a successful strike for higher wages against the Great Northern Railway in 1894. He gained greater renown when he went to jail for his role in leading the Chicago Pullman Palace Car Company strike. -
Ida Tarbell
An American writer, investigative journalist, biographer and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and pioneered investigative journalism. -
John Dewey
An American philosopher, psychologist, democratic socialist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism. -
Ida B. Wells
An African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. -
Lincoln Steffens
An American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in McClure's, called Tweed Days in St. Louis, that would later be published together in a book titled The Shame of the Cities -
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
The goal of the WCTU was to protect the home from evil influences and strengthen family life, but its primary objective was to promote total abstinence from alcohol. -
Margaret Sanger
An American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. -
Interstate Commerce Act
Congress responded to the outcry of farmers and shippers by passing the first federal effort to regulate the railroads. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1886 required railroad rates to be "reasonable and just." It also set up the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which
had the power to investigate and prosecute pools, rebates, and other discriminatory practices. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices and prohibited trusts. -
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The major goal was to “secure state and national protection for women citizens in the exercise of their right to vote.” The strategy of the newly formed organization was to push for the ratification of enough state suffrage amendments to force Congress to approve a federal amendment. -
How the Other Half Lives
A pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class. -
Anti-Saloon League
The leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. It drew most of its support from Protestant evangelical churches, and it lobbied at all levels of government for legislation to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages. -
Anthracite Coal Strike
A strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays and the recognition of their union. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to major American cities. -
Square Deal Policy
The Square Deal was Theodore Roosevelt's domestic policy based on three basic ideas: protection of the consumer, control of large corporations, and conservation of natural resources. Roosevelt first used the term following the settlement of a mining strike in 1902 to describe the ideal of peaceful coexistence between big business and labour unions. -
Elkins Act
It amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to impose heavy fines on railroads that offered rebates, and upon the shippers that accepted these rebates. -
Department of Commerce and Labor
A Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with controlling the excesses of big business. -
Northern Securities Antitrust
President Theodore Roosevelt instructed his Justice Department to break up this holding company on the grounds that it was an illegal combination acting in restraint of trade. Using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the federal government did so and the Northern Securities Company sued to appeal the ruling. -
The Jungle
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. It was for preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes. -
Meat Inspection Act
An American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
It was a tragedy that opened the nation's eyes to poor working conditions in garment factories and other workplaces, and set in motion a historic era of labor reforms. -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
A political party formed by Theodore Roosevelt that called for tariff reform, stricter regulation of industrial combinations, women's suffrage, prohibition of child labor, and other reforms. -
17th Amendment
It established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states, in other words it gave voters the power to directly elect their senators. -
Underwood Tariff
It reduce levies on manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and to eliminate duties on most raw materials. It sought to control tariffs by reducing them and replacing lost revenue via the income tax. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
It was enacted to clarify and strengthen the Sherman Antitrust Act. The vague language of the latter had provided large corporations with numerous loopholes, enabling them to engage in certain restrictive business arrangements. -
Federal Reserve Act
It was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. -
Federal Trade Commission
Established to preserve competition by preventing unfair business practices and investigating complaints against companies. -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
It sought to address child labor by prohibiting the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under fourteen, mines that employed children younger than sixteen, and any facility where children under fourteen worked after 7:00 p.m. or before 6:00 a.m. or more than eight hours daily. -
18th Amendment
The only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. -
19th Amendment
It granted women the right to vote, prohibiting any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex.
