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Women's Christian Temperance Union
An active temperance organization that was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform -
Interstate Commerce Act
United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
First legislation enacted by the United States Congress (1890) to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. -
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. -
National American Women Suffrage Association
Organization created in 1890 by the merger of the two major rival women's rights organizations—the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association -
How the Other Half Lives
An early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. -
Anti-Saloon League
Leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century -
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. -
Robert La Follete
U.S. leader of the Progressive Movement, who as governor of Wisconsin -
Anthracite Coal Strike
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. -
Elkins Act
United States federal law that amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to impose heavy fines on railroads that offered rebates, and upon the shippers that accepted these rebates. -
Department of Commerce and Labor
A short-lived Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with controlling the excesses of big business. -
Ida Tarbell
An American teacher, author and journalist. She was one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is thought to have pioneered investigative journalism. -
Lincoln Steffens
A New York reporter who 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. -
Northern Securities Antitrust
A case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1903. The Court ruled 5 to 4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies, who had essentially formed a monopoly, and to dissolve the Northern Securities Company. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Made 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. -
The Jungle
Novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in US history. -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
The new party was known for taking advanced positions on progressive reforms and attracting some leading reformers. After the party's defeat in the 1912 presidential election, it went into rapid decline, disappearing by 1918. -
Eugene V. Debs
An American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. -
17th Amendment
Established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. -
Underwood Tariff
The Underwood Tariff, aka Revenue Act of 1913 or the Underwood-Simmons Act, was a federal law passed during the era of the Progressive Movement that substantially reduced the average tariff on imported goods. -
Federal Reserve Act
Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
This passed by the U.S. Congress as an amendment to clarify and supplement the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. -
Federal Trade Comission
a federal agency, established in 1914, that administers antitrust and consumer protection legislation in pursuit of free and fair competition in the marketplace. -
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. -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
Known as Wick's Bill, was a short-lived statute enacted by the U.S. Congress which sought to address child labor by prohibiting the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under fourteen -
John Dewey
American philosopher, psychologist, Georgist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. -
18th Amendment
Effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
