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How the Other Half Lives
Jacob Riis documented the slums of New York, what he deemed the world of the “other half,” teeming with immigrants, disease, and abuse. He photographed the streets, people, and tenement apartments he encountered and published them in "How the Other Half Lives". His book and subsequent work propelled the debate over the living and working conditions of the urban poor. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. It was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. -
William McKinley Elected President
McKinley was a pro-business candidate who supported high tariffs and the gold standard. He led the U.S. through the Spanish-American war. He was assassinated in 1901. -
Theodore Roosevelt elected: began Square Deal Policy
The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection -
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Published
The Jungle is a 1906 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. -
Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act
President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act as well as the Meat Inspection Act after Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, an expose of the meatpacking industry. They required sanitation in food processing. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan, New York City was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in US history. -
17th Amendment Ratified
Passed by Congress May 13, 1912, and ratified April 8, 1913, the 17th amendment modified Article I, section 3, of the Constitution by allowing voters to cast direct votes for U.S. Senators. Prior to its passage, Senators were chosen by state legislatures. -
Underwood Tariff
The Underwood Tariff re-imposed the federal income tax following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25%. It was supported by progressive politicians, and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. It sought to wealth distribution. -
Federal Trade Commission Act
The Federal Reserve Act is an Act of Congress that created and established the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States, and granted it the legal authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes (the U.S. Dollar) and Federal Reserve Bank Notes as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. -
The Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act was a part of United States antitrust law with the goal of adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime; the Clayton Act sought to prevent anticompetitive practices before they were advanced. It built on the foundation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the first Federal law outlawing practices considered harmful to consumers (monopolies, cartels, and trusts). -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act 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, mines that employed children younger than sixteen, and any facility where children under sixteen worked at night or more than 8 hours daily. -
Margaret Sanger Opened Birth Control Clinic
Margaret Higgins Sanger was 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. -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol (though not the consumption or private possession) illegal. -
19th Amendment
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote.
