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Social Gospel
Protestant movement that applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social injustice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. -
settlement houses
Reformist social movement with the goal of getting the rich and poor to live more closely together in an interdependent community. (Jane Addams) -
Chicago's Hull house
"a community of university women" whose main purpose was to provide social and educational opportunities for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants) in the surrounding neighborhood. -
Progressive Era
Movement from the 1890's to 1920's to support widespread social activism and political reform across the United States. The main objectives were to eliminate problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political/economic corruption in government from the Gilded Age. -
muckrakers
Journalists who attacked business and government leaders as corrupt in order to raise awareness of the many issues left over from the Gilded Age. -
How The Other Half Lives
A publication by photojournalist Jacob Riis which documented the filthy living conditions in New York City tenements and slums in the 1800's -
The Jungle
Novel written by Upton Sinclair which portrayed the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in Chicago but most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident, I hit it in the stomach.” -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The first of a series of significant consumer protection laws enacted by Congress with the main purpose to ban foreign and interstate trade in contaminated or mislabeled food and drug products. -
NAACP
- Civil Rights organization formed in 1909 to advance justice for African Americans (W.E.B. Du Bois)
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women's suffrage
The right to vote for women, given by the 19th Amendment in 1920. -
prohibition
The movement to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol, which went into effect with the 18th amendment in 1920.
