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Woman's Christian Temperance Union
This was one of the largest and most influential women's groups by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform and suffrage. Their goal was to protect the home from evil influences and strengthen family life, wanted to promote total abstinence from alcohol -
Interstate Commerce Act
This act created the Interstate Commerce Commission which oversaw the railroad industry which made the railroads the first industry subject to federal regulation -
Sherman Antitrust Act
First act to prohibit trusts and outlawed monopolistic business practices -
Ida B. Wells
She was an African American journalist and feminist who ran an anti lynching crusade in the 1890's. She was also an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement and a founding member of the NAACP. -
National American Woman Suffrage Association
This association worked for women's suffrage in the U.S. and succeeded with the passing of the 19th amendment which granted women the right to vote in 1920 -
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives was written by photojournalist Jacob Riis which documented living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880's. This served as a basis for future muckracking journalism by exposing slums in New York's upper and middle class -
Anti-Saloon League
This was an organization promoting National Prohibition, it was a political group that worked with churches in getting resources for the prohibition fight -
Eugene V. Debs
Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and a candidate of the Socialist Party for presidency five times(1900-1920). He advocated for abolition of child labor, women's suffrage, unemployment compensation, and a graduated income tax. He was also involved in the Pullman Strike in 1894 -
Anthracite Coal Strike
A strike where miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays, and recognition of their union. This was the first time that the President took direct nonmilitant action. Roosevelt acted as a moderator meeting with the strikers at the White House to dispute the strike. -
Northern Securities Antitrust
Northern Securities Co. vs. United States was a Supreme Court case that ruled 5 to 4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies who had formed a monopoly and had to dissolve the Northern Securities Company -
Elkins Act
This law amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to impose heavy fines on railroads that offered rebates and the shippers that accepted the rebates. -
Department of Commerce and Labor
This was a cabinet department of the United States government which controlled the excess of big business. The organizations main purpose is to create jobs, promote economic growth, encourage sustainable development and improve standards of living for Americans. -
Ida Tarbell
She was a well known journalist who wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company. Tarbell exposed the unfair practices of this company which lead to the U.S. Supreme Court breaking up the monopoly -
Lincoln Steffens
He was a muckracker journalist and reformer during the Progressive era. He exposed bribery and corruption in government which helped build support for reform -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Its main purpose was to ban foreign and interstate traffic in tainted or mislabeled food and drug products. It required that active ingredients be placed on the label of a drug’s packaging and that drugs could not fall below purity levels. This was a key part in the Progressive Era's legislation -
Meat Inspection Act
This made it a crime to adulterate and misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. This act was influenced by the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair -
The Jungle
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair influenced public sentiment. This led to acts such as the Pure Food and Dug act and the Meat Inspection act, and improvements in working conditions for meat packers and other factory workers. Essentially his book about contaminated meat lead to food safety laws -
Square Deal Policy
Through Roosevelt's domestic policy he had three goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. This policy was made because he did not want to favor any group of Americans but to be fair to all. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
This tragic fire killed 145 workers. The tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories and led to the development of laws that better protected workers -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
This political faction nominated former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. The nickname Bull Moose derived from strength that Roosevelt carried himself as. The Bull Moose ticket split the Republicans between Taft and Roosevelt leaving the election to Democrats under Woodrow Wilson. -
17th Amendment
This amendment gave Americans the right to vote directly for their Senators which strengthened the bond between citizens and the federal government. -
Underwood Tariff
This tariff lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25% and imposed the federal income tax after the 16th amendment. Its purpose was to reduce levies on manufactured goods and to eliminate duties on most raw materials -
Federal Reserve Act
This act intended to establish a form of economic stability in the United States through the Central Bank which would control monetary policy. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
Provides more information than the Sherman Antitrust Act on topics such as price discrimination, price fixing and unfair business practices. -
Federal Trade Commission
Its principal mission is the promotion of consumer protection and elimination and prevention of anticompetitive business practices such as trusts -
John Dewey
He was an American philosopher who founded the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the U.S. He believed students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn. -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
This sought to address child labor by prohibiting the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under 14, mines that employed children under 16, and any facility where children under 14 worked more than 8 hours a day. -
18th amendment
This amendment was created by activists who desired a better society without alcohol. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States and this was the only amendment repealed from the Constitution. -
19th Amendment
This amendment granted women suffrage after the women's suffrage movement. This eliminated any citizen denied the right to vote based on sex. -
Margaret Sanger
She was a birth control advocate, sex educator, nurse, writer. In 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League to advocate for birth control rights -
Robert La Follette
He was an American Republican and Progressive politician. In 1924 he ran for president as a nominee for the Progressive party. He was also an opponent to corporate power, governor of Wisconsin, and a U.S. senator who supported reform legislation. He had the Wisconsin Idea which included recall, referendum, direct primary, and initiative.
