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Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. Early in her life she developed a sense of justice and moral zeal. After teaching for fifteen years, she became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies. This experience, and her acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. -
Indian Removal
Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress. Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to acquire Indian territory. -
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was among the most famous and wealthy industrialists of his day. Through the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the innovative philanthropic foundation he established in 1911, his fortune has since supported everything from the discovery of insulin and the dismantling of nuclear weapons, to the creation of Sesame Street and the Common Core Standards. Millions of people have benefited from his foresighted generosity—a legacy of real and permanent good. -
Manifest Destiny
In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was the widely held belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent. -
Nativisim
the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants. -
Third Parties Politics
Third parties face many obstacles in the United States. In all states, the Democratic and Republican candidates automatically get on the ballot, whereas third-party candidates usually have to get thousands of signatures on petitions just to be listed on the ballot. The state and federal governments, which make rules governing elections, are composed of elected Democratic and Republican officials, who have a strong incentive to protect the existing duopoly. -
Eugene V. Debbs
Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1855, the son of poor Alsatian immigrants. Though his parents encouraged an intellectual spirit, Debs left high school after one year to become a locomotive paint-scraper. There, among the rough-and-tumble of railway men, Debs found his calling. From his membership in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen to his role co-founding the Industrial Workers of the World (the "wobblies"), Debs raised his voice in defense of the common man. -
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow was a lawyer who worked as defense counsel in many dramatic criminal trials. He was also a public speaker, debater, and miscellaneous writer. Lawyer Clarence Darrow moved to Chicago in 1887 and attempted to free the anarchists charged in the Haymarket Riot. In 1894 he defended Eugene V. Debs, arrested on a federal charge arising from the Pullman Strike. -
Theodore Roosevelt
With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history. He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy. He took the view that the President as a "steward of the people" should take whatever action necessary for the public good unless expressly forbidden by law or the Constitution." I did not usurp powe -
William Jennings Bryan
Bryan was born in Salem, Illinois on March 19, 1860. He graduated from Illinois College in 1881 (A.M. 1884), and from the Union College of Law in 1883. He was admitted to the Illinois State Bar in 1883 and practiced law in Jacksonville, Illinois prior to moving to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1887. Bryan won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890 and served until 1895, championing Populist causes such as the free coinage of silver, national income tax, and direct election of Senators. -
Jane Addams
Born in Cedarville, Illinois, on September 6, 1860, and graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, Jane Addams founded, with Ellen Gates Starr, the world famous social settlement Hull-House on Chicago's Near West Side in 1889. From Hull-House, where she lived and worked until her death in 1935, Jane Addams built her reputation as the country's most prominent woman through her writing, settlement work, and international efforts for peace. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants were required to “improve” the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land. After 5 years on the land, the original filer was entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. Born a slave in 1862, Ida Bell Wells was the oldest daughter of James and Lizzie Wells. The Wells family, as well as the rest of the slaves of the Confederate states, were decreed free by the Union, about six months after Ida's birth, thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was a famous novelist and social crusader from California, who pioneered the kind of journalism known as "muckraking." His best-known novel was "The Jungle" which was an expose of the appalling and unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry. "The Jungle" was influential in obtaining passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair's interests ranged over a wide variety of topics, in his many books and articles. He would receive a Pulitzer Prize for a later novel about Hitl -
Civil Service Reform
The substitution of business principles and methods for political methods in the conduct of the civil service. esp. the merit system instead of the spoils system in making appointments to office. -
Haymarket Riot
On May 4, 1886, a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. -
Dawes Act
Federal Indian policy during the period from 1870 to 1900 marked a departure from earlier policies that were dominated by removal, treaties, reservations, and even war. The new policy focused specifically on breaking up reservations by granting land allotments to individual Native Americans. Very sincere individuals reasoned that if a person adopted white clothing and ways, and was responsible for his own farm, he would gradually drop his Indian-ness and be assimilated into the population. -
Populism & Progressivism
progressivism is academic in nature and seems to be more upper-class. As such, it was an idea supported by the rich and powerful individuals. Those who belong to the middle and upper classes were mostly dedicated to progressivism. This also includes the highly urbanized regions. -
Urbanization & Industrialization
Business and industrialization centered on the cities. The ever increasing number of factories created an intense need for labor, convincing people in rural areas to move to the city, and drawing immigrants from Europe to the United States. As a result, the United States transformed from an agrarian to an urban nation, and the demographics of the country shifted dramatically. -
The Klondike Gold Rush
On August 16, 1896 Yukon-area Indians Skookum Jim Mason and Tagish Charlie, along with Seattleite George Carmack found gold in Rabbit Creek, near Dawson, in the Yukon region of Canada. The creek was promptly renamed Bonanza Creek, and many of the locals started staking claims. Gold was literally found all over the place, and most of these early stakeholders (who became known as the "Klondike Kings") became wealthy. -
Initiative, Referendum, Recall
In political terminology, the initiative is a process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature by placing proposed statutes and, in some states, constitutional amendments on the ballot. The first state to adopt the initiative was South Dakota in 1898. Since then, 23 other states have included the initiative process in their constitutions, the most recent being Mississippi in 1992. That makes a total of 24 states with an initiative process. -
The Gilded Age
Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 is a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines.[1] The Act arose due to public education and exposés from Muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, social activist Florence Kelley, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and President Theodore Roosevelt. -
Federal Reserve Act
The 1913 U.S. legislation that created the current Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Act intended to establish a form of economic stability through the introduction of the Central Bank, which would be in charge of monetary policy, into the United States. The Federal Reserve Act is perhaps one of the most influential laws concerning the U.S. financial system. -
Dollar Diplomacy
From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as “dollar diplomacy.” Taft shared the view held by Knox, a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S. Steel, that the goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital -
Suffrage
the right to vote gained through the democratic process. The right to run for office is sometimes called candidate eligibility, and the combination of both rights is sometimes called full suffrage. In many languages, the right to vote is called the active right to vote and the right to run for office is called the passive right to vote. In English, these are sometimes called active suffrage and passive suffrage -
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
apot Dome Scandal, also called Oil Reserves Scandal or Elk Hills Scandal, in American history, scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After President Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserve -
Political Machines
As cities and their problems grew rapidly the political environment changed. No longer did politicians run small manageable cities. These were big cities with big city problems and the government structures designed to cope with these problems grew. As the government grew it became the livelihood for many professional politicians. Some would argue that these politicians were corrupt, they would argue that they provided a needed service. Political Machines were orgainizations that provided socia