-
Women's Christian Temperance Union
Founded in 1874, this organization advocated for the prohibition of alcohol, using women's supposedly greater purity and morality as a rallying point. Advocates of prohibition in the United States found common cause with activists elsewhere, especially in Britain, and in the 1880s they founded the World Women's Christian Temperance Union, which sent missionaries around the world to spread the gospel of temperance. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a 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
The first law to limit monopolies in the United States. This wanted to create a fairer competition in the workforce and to limit any take-over's of departments of merchandise -
National American Woman Suffrage Association
American women's rights organization was established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in May of 1890. This and other groups led to the nineteenth amendment: women's suffrage. -
"How the Other Half Lives"
Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890) is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. -
Anti-Saloon League
The most successful political action group that forced the prohibition issue into the forefront of state and local elections and pioneered the strategy of the single-issue pressure group. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Eugene V. Debs
Head of the American Railway Union and director of the Pullman strike; he was imprisoned along with his associates for ignoring a federal court injunction to stop striking. While in prison, he read Socialist literature and emerged as a Socialist leader in America. -
John Dewey
Father of progressive education, was a philosopher who believed in "learning by doing" which formed the foundation of progressive education. -
Margaret Sanger
American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early 1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of New York City, she had seen the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy. Founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. -
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. -
Anthrasite Coal Strike
The Coal strike of 1902 was a 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. -
Ida Tarbell
wrote a book about Rockefeller's monopoly over the oil business; "The History of the Standard Oil Company" grew to be a nineteen-part series, published between November 1902 and October 1904; Tarbell wrote a detailed exposé of Rockefeller's unethical tactics, sympathetically portraying the plight of Pennsylvania's independent oil workers -
Lincoln Steffens
New York reporter who launched a series of articles in McClure's titled "The Shame of the Cities" in 1902; unmasked the corrupt alliance between big business and municipal government -
Northern Securities Antitrust
A railroad monopoly formed by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill which went against the Sherman Antitrust Act. -
Elkins Act
The Elkins Act is a 1903 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
Department established by Roosevelt to deal with domestic economic affairs. Later split into two departments for better management. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) 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
The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA) is 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"
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. -
Robert La Follette
Progressive Wisconsin governor who attacked machine politics and pressured the state legislature to require each party to hold a direct primary. Nicknamed Mr. Progressive! -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
NYC, March 25, 1911; industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York, causing the death of 146 garment workers who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths.The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for safer and better working conditions for sweatshop workers in that industry; located in the Asch Building -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
The Republicans were badly split in the 1912 election, so Roosevelt broke away forming his own Progressive Party (or Bull Moose Party because he was "fit as a bull moose..."). His loss led to the election of Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, but he gained more third party votes than ever before. -
17th Amendment
Established that senators were to be elected directly. This law was intended to create a more democratic, fair society. -
Underwood Tariff
Congressional measure to provide the a substantial reduction of rates, and the first ever implementation of a graduated income tax on incomes $3000+ -
Federal Reserve Act
Created the new Federal Reserve Board, which oversaw a nationwide system of twelve regional reserve districts, each with its own central bank, and had the power to issue paper money ("Federal Reserve Notes"). -
Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, 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 in their incipiency. -
Federal Trade Commission
a federal agency, established in 1914, that administers antitrust and consumer protection legislation in pursuit of free and fair competition in the marketplace. -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
Ended child labor, and ended selling products made from child labor. It was signed by Woodrow Wilson and also gave congress the responsibility of regulating interstate commerce. -
18th Amendment
Prohibited the non-medical sale of alcohol This amendment is the midpoint of a growing drive towards women's rights as well as showing the moral attitude of the era. -
19th Amendment
Established that no citizen can be denied the right to vote on account of sex. Granted women the ability to vote.
