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Bessemer Steel Production
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. -
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel Movement was a religious movement that arose during the second half of the nineteenth century. Ministers, especially ones belonging to the Protestant branch of Christianity, began to tie salvation and good works together. They argued that people must emulate the life of Jesus Christ. -
Susan B. Anthony
Born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Mass., Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president (1892-1900) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. -
Industrialization
History of the United States. Industrialization and reform (1870-1916) The industrial growth that began in the United States in the early 1800's continued steadily up to and through the American Civil War. Still, by the end of the war, the typical American industry was small. -
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. -
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. -
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers (January 27, 1850 – December 13, 1924) was an English-born American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1894, and from 1895 until his death in 1924. -
Settlement House
The most famous settlement house in the United States is Chicago's Hull House, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 after Addams visited Toynbee Hall within the previous two years. Hull House, though, was not a religious-based organization. -
Interstate Commerce Act 1887
Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. ... The Act was the first federal law to regulate private industry in the United States. -
Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis, in full Jacob August Riis, (born May 3, 1849, Ribe, Denmark—died May 26, 1914, Barre, Massachusetts, U.S.), American newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer who, with his book How the Other Half Lives (1890), shocked the conscience of his readers with factual descriptions of slum conditions in ... -
Initiative, Referendum, Recall
Initiative, referendum, and recall are three powers reserved to enable the voters, by petition, to propose or repeal legislation or to remove an elected official from office. Proponents of an initiative, referendum, or recall effort must apply for an official petition serial number from the Town Clerk. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. ... In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. ... Several states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. The Sherman Antitrust Act was based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. -
Eugene V. Debs
The Father of American Socialism. Eugene V. Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1855 to a family of French Alsatian immigrants. Making his way in the railroad industry, Debs formed the American Railway Union in 1892. ... President Cleveland ordered federal troops to quell the strikers and Debs was arrested. -
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American orator and politician from Nebraska. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, standing three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States. -
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush began with the discovery by George Carmack on August 16, 1896 in Rabbit Creek part of the Klondike River, a tributary of the Yukon River which flowed through Alaska and the Yukon Territory in in north-western Canada. -
Dollar Diplomacy
Dollar diplomacy of the United States—particularly during President William Howard Taft's term— was a form of American foreign policy to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign countries. -
The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age in United States history is the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. ... The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. -
Tenement
Also called tenement house . a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city. any species of permanent property, as lands, houses, rents, an office, or a franchise, that may be held of another. -
Andrew Carnegie
Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was an American industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry then became a major philanthropist. ... In 1901, he sold the Carnegie Steel Company to banker John Pierpont Morgan for $480 million. -
muckraker
The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act. Word Origin. noun U.S. History. a law passed in 1906 to remove harmful and misrepresented foods and drugs from the market and regulate the manufacture and sale of drugs and food involved in interstate trade. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, and short-story writer, whose works reflect socialistic views. He gained public notoriety in 1906 with his novel The Jungle, which exposed the deplorable conditions of the U.S. meat-packing industry. -
16th Amendments
Passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified February 3, 1913, the 16th amendment established Congress's right to impose a Federal income tax. -
Theodore Roosevelt
The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt began on September 14, 1901, when he became the 26th President of the United States upon the assassination and death of President William McKinley, and ended on March 4, 1909. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act is an Act of Congress that created the Federal Reserve System, and which created the authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes as legal. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. -
Populism and Progressivism
Transcript of Populism and Progressivism. Populism was a movement for the common man. Populism began in the 19th century and was started by farmers and other people who dealt with agriculture. They were people mostly from the south or poor white people, who usually voted republican. -
18th Amendment
The 18th amendment is the only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. -
Nativism
Nativists believed they were the true “Native” Americans, despite their being descended from immigrants themselves. In response to the waves of immigration in the mid-nineteenth century, Nativists created political parties and tried to limit the rights of immigrants. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women's suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest. ... Following the convention, the demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women's rights movement. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
a government scandal involving a former United States Navy oil reserve in Wyoming that was secretly leased to a private oil company in 1921; became symbolic of the scandals of the Harding administration. -
Clarence Darrow
The trial, which was deliberately staged to bring publicity to the issue at hand, pitted Darrow against William Jennings Bryan in a court case that tested Tennessee's Butler Act, which had been passed on March 21, 1925. -
Jane Addams
Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935), known as the "mother" of social work, was a pioneer American settlement activist/reformer, social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, public administrator, protestor, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. -
Political Machines
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines "political machine" as, "in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state". -
Labor Unions
For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired. -
Robber Barons
a ruthlessly powerful U.S. capitalist or industrialist of the late 19th century considered to have become wealthy by exploiting natural resources, corrupting legislators, or other unethical means. -
Labor Strikes
The U.S. Postal Strike of 1970. The U.S. Postal Strike, which took place in March 1970, included 210,000 strikers. It was brought on by what the workers perceived as low wages, poor working conditions and meager benefits. The strike began in New York City and spread nationwide.
