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National American Woman Suffrage Association
The Major organization for suffrage for women, founded in 1890 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Supported the Wilson administration during World War I and split with the more radical National Woman's Party, who in 1917 began to picket the White House because Wilson had not forcefully stated that women should get the vote. -
Anti-Saloon League
Organization founded in 1893 that increased public awareness of the social effects of alcohol on society. Members supported politicians who favored prohibition and promoted statewide referendums in Western and Southern states to ban alcohol. -
Square Deal
The philosophy of President Theodore Roosevelt. It included the desire to treat both sides fairly in any dispute. In the coal miner's strike of 1902 he created the United Mine Workers representatives and company bosses as equals. This approach continued during his efforts to regulate the railroads and other businesses during his second term. -
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Established in 1905, this union attepmted to unionize the unskilled workers who were usually not recruited by the American Federation of Labor. The IWW included blacks, poor sharecroppers, and newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe. Members of the union were called "Wobblies," and leaders of the union were inspired by Marxist principles. -
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
Writer Upton Sinclair highlighted many of the problems of the food industry. His story takes place in Chicago with the main characters, Ona and Jurgis, whom immigrated from Lithuania. Jurgis' father, Antana, was in charge of cleaning the floor at the meat industry which was packed into cans. Ultimately, Antana's job led to his death. The Jungle eventually led to the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. -
Meat Inspection Act
Inspired by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, this 1906 bill established a government commission that would monitor the quality of all meat sold in America. It inspected the meatpacking houses for safety and cleanliness. In the early 1900s, when Sinclair wrote his novel, food poisoning was common. -
Bull Moose party
The name given to the Progressive party in the 1912 presidential campaign. Bull Moose candidate ex-president Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt ran against incumbent president William Howard Taft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. In the end, Wilson was victorious. -
New Freedom policy
An approach favored by Southern and Midwestern Democrats, this policy stated that economic and political preparation for World War I should be done in a decentralized matter. This would prevent too much power falling into the hands of the federal government. President Wilson first favored this approach, but then established federal agencies to organize mobilization. -
Sixteenth Amendment
The Sixteenth Amendment, enacted in 1913, authorized the collection of federal income taxes, which could be collected largely from the wealthy. The income of the federal government had been previously collected from tariffs. Progressives argued that to pay for them the prices of goods sold to the working classes were artificially high. -
D.W. Griffith's film BIrth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation was a 1915 film that shared an antiblack message. It portrayed the Reconstruction as a period when Southern blacks threatened basic American values, which the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) tried to protect. The film was praised by many, including President Woodrow WIlson.
