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Public Service Reform: Pendleton Civil Service Act
This act passed in 1883 emphasized the idea that government jobs should be given on a basis of merit. This got rid of the idea of someone being elected and bringing in all of their friends to work government jobs. It was one of the first reformist acts passed in the progressive era. -
Period: to
The Progressive Era
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Eugene Debs: Pullman Strike
During this time Eugene Debs was dissatisfied with the corrupt buisness man George Pullman whom basically monopolized the railroad buisness. He cut wages for employees and was very unfair. And so Eugene Debs organized a strike against Pullman and his railcars seeking reform. -
William Jennings Bryan: The Commoner
William Jennings Bryan was a political activist who ran for election as president but failed. However he was an adamant supporter of the progressive movement and he published a timeline known as The Commoner which called for the regulation of trusts and the surveying of the railroads. -
Ida Tarbell
Ida was a muckraker in the progressive era. She wrote for a magazine called McClure's and researched the standard oil buisness. She published a series of eighteen articles questioning the buisness practices and ethics. -
Robert La Follette: The Wisconsin Idea
La Follettte devised a plan called the Wisconsin Plan that increased taxes on railroads and public utilities. He then created commissions to regulate these buisnesses in the public interest. This reform became widespread across the country before long. -
American Federation of Labor
Made in 1900 by Samuel Gompers as a way for workers to achieve the rights they they were entitled too. Membership skyrocketed around 1910 to over 2 million people. -
H.G Welles
In 1901 Welles wrote a book that questioned the integrity of human economic views and emphasized his socialist point of view. It was a work that attempted to make obvious the flaws in America at that time. -
Lawrence Veiller
Lawrence campaigned for better housing in the US in 1901. He succeeded in getting a law passed that banned the construction of airless tenements in New York City. -
Buisness Reform: Roosevelt
Roosevelt started to dismantle companies that had established monopolies and trusts. Most of these companies were going against the Sherman-Antitrust Act and so they were broken down by the government in a process known as "trustbusting". -
Anti-Saloon League (ASL)
This group led the crusade against alcohol in the early 20th century. They set up organizations in 39 states and had a large amount of followers. Eventually the temperance movement took place. -
Newlands Reclamation Act
This act allowed money from the public sales of land to be used for irrigation and reclamation( the process of making damaged land productive again). -
Teddy Roosevelt: The Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt used the square deal as his campaign slogan. The basic gist of it was that buisness workers and the public would be treated fairly no matter what. It also limited the power of trusts, also promoting public health. -
Labor Reform
Florence Kelley organized the National Child Labor Committee to end the unjust employment of young children, originally in the state of Illinois. By 1912 the committee helped 39 states pass child labor laws. -
Industrial Workers of the World
This group, led by "Big Bill" Haywood vowed to find migrant farm workers and those of the working class and get them rights. Similar to those of the AFL. 20,000 workers striked under their name. -
Corrupt Practices Reform
Political Machines wihin cities at this time were bribing people to vote for them and help them. They basically ran the cities at this time and so The corrupt practices reform put an end to any type of this action. -
Upton Sinclair: The Jungle
Upton Sinclair was the author of the Jungle in 1906 which outed the corrupt and repulsive practices of the meat packing industry in the US. He sought reform for the safety of people all across the US. -
Meat Inspection/ Food and Drug Acts
These acts were passed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 because of the disgusting practices that were going on, involving meat packing and storing along with other foods. They actively reached for public safety. -
Social Justice Reform
In 1909 The promise of American Life was written by Herbert Crowley, it supplied solutions to the poor conditions of the working and buisness classes in america. It also emphasized welfare of ALL US citizens. -
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham proposed the first ever re-designing of a city plan. He proposed it for the city of Chicago and it was a ground breaking start to the restructuring of unorganized and dirty cities. -
W.E.B. DuBois
Dubois organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and fought for black rights in the early 1900s. He worked with courts to end restrictions on voting and other things. -
Charles Evans Hughes
Hughes was elected to the Supreme Courts commitee of commerce in 1910. He fought for the Interstate Commerce Act and the fact that involuntary servitude is slavery in every way. He ran for presidential election and was backed by the progressive party for his reformist ideas. -
Hiram Johnson
In 1910 Johnson won the race to be a governor and immediately went to work on reformation. He fought for womens suffrage mostly and tried to gain even more equality between the sexes in this time period. -
Mann-Elkins Act
This extended the regulatory powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission to telephone and telegraph companies. -
Society of American Indians
This group of 50 Native Americans fought for their own rights in 1911. IT provided a solid basis for later attempts at Indian Rights in the future though it was slightly unsuccessful. -
Jane Addams: Reforms for Women
Jane Addams was a worker towards womens rights during the progressive era. In 1912 she completed the Hull House, a safe place for woment to go to escape abuse. She also fought for womens rights and formed leagues supporting women. -
The Sixteenth Amendment
This was a Constitutional Amendment that authorized an individual income tax in the US. This meant that an individual person, rather than a buisness, has money taken out of their paycheck and given to the government. -
The Seventeenth Amendment
This was a Constitutional Amndment that provided for the direct election of US senators. This means that votes did not go through a majority of state vote and instead went directly into the number of votes that a Senator recieved from his state. -
Woodrow Wilson: Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
This act outlawed the interstate sale of products produced by children. Woodrow Wilson backed this act that was shut down in 1918. However, it was one of the first major movements against child labor in the US. It was eventually outlawed in 1930. -
The Eighteenth Amendment
A Constitutional Amendment that barred the importation, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages within the United States. This started the period known has prohibition, and was later ended by the Twenty-First Amendment, -
The Nineteenth Amendment
A Constitutional Amendment that granted women full voting rights. Previously only men were allowed to vote. This begun a widespread reforms within womens rights in the United States.
