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Period: to
1910-1919
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Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States
In this case, the Standard Oil company is dissolved using the Sherman Anti-trust Act. This case is an example of one of the trusts broken up by Howard Taft. In Taft's presidency, he broke up twice the amount of trusts that Roosevelt broke up in his presidency. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
This fire was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York, killing 146 garment workers, many of whom jumped to their deaths. The fire put light onto safety precautions of buisnesses, creating another sector of reform of the progressives. -
RMS Titanic Sinks
The Titanic sunk after hitting an iceburg on the Atlantic Sea. Out of the 2,228 people on the ship, over 1,500 people died in the wreck. The nation was shocked by the sinking of an 'unsinkable' ship, and the tradegy resulted in better lifeboats and safety precautions. -
Presidential Election of 1912
This election was a four-way competition between William Howard Taft (Republican), Eugene Victor Debs (Socialist), Woodrow Wilson (Democrat), and Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive/Bull Moose Party). This election was marked by extreme tension between Taft and Roosevelt, resulting in the splitting of the Republican party. The split of the republican party allowed Wilson to win the presidency. -
Sixteenth Amendment Ratified
The income taxes are exempted from constitutional restrictions on direct tax. Because of this amendment, the federal government could impose a income tax without "apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration"
Link:
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxvi -
Seventeenth Amendment Ratified
This amendment allowed for senators to be directly elected by popular vote and changed the process for filling in vacancies in the senate. The 17th amendment helped curtial the effect of corrupt political machines that would use their influence in order to win supporters or friends seats in the senate.
Link:
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxvii -
Underwood Tariff Act
The Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 (also called the Revenue Act) lowered the tariff rates from 40% to 25%, reducing the percentage to much lower than the controversial Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. This is one example of the many economic legislation passed by Woodrow Wilson in his presidency. -
Federal Reserve Act Ratified
The Federal Reserve Act strove to reform the banking system by creating 12 Federal Banks owned by member banks that was overseen by the Federal Reserve Board. The purpose of this act was to balance both banking and political intrests. -
Panama Canal Completed
The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 ended an almost decade-long effort. The Panama Canal was an expensive, dangerous and at times ineffective process, but it marked an advancement of engineering and resulted in increased shipping across the Atlantic Ocean. -
Clayton Antitrust Act Passed
The Clayton Antitrust Act was passed as a reform of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Clayton Antitrust Act corrected the Sherman Antitrust Act by exempting labor unions if workers striked and shut-down a partiular economic sector. The Clayton Antitrust Act represented a shift from protecting monopolies to protecting the consumer and workers. -
Period: to
WWI
WWI (also called the Great War) was one of the largest and deadliest wars in history. The war was fought between the Allies or Triple Entente and the Central Powers. WWI completely changed the European powers, refulting in four empires being dissolved. The United States left from WWI with a little more than 100,000 casualties, relatively smaller than the millions suffered by other European countries.
Link:
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/timeline/index.html -
Keating-Owen Act of 1916
This act signifieda success by the progressives in regards to reforming labor, specifically child labor. This act banned the sale of products from any buisness that employed children under the age of 14, any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and any facility that employed children longer than 8 hours a day. This was the first major step in reforming child labor. -
National Park Service Created
The National Park Service is created after President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation from Congress. His mission was to protect and preserve the natural lands, historic sites, and wildlife of the system for future generations. -
Presidential Election of 1916
This election was a two-way contest between Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) running for his second term and Charles Evans Hughes (Republican). The election was extremely close, with Woodrow Wilson winning by only 23 electoral votes. Wilson won on the slogan of "He kept us out of war". -
Zimmerman Telegram
The United States intercepted and de-coded a telegram sent to Mexico by Germany. The telegram stated that Germany would begin to engage in submarine warfare but still wanted to keep the US neutral. However, if the US was to come out of neutrality, the Germans asked that Mexico join in alliance in exchange for US terriroty (Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona). Pertly because of this telegram, President Wilson and the majority of congress felt there was no other option other than to join the war. -
America Enters WWI
On April 6th, the US entered WWI. Before then, the US had been trying extremely hard to keep themselves neutral and out of the fighting. There are many theories on the reason the US joined the WWI. One is that the US entered the war because of the threat of submarine warefare--Woodrow Wilson and congress felt they had no choice but to enter. By entering the war, the US secured the victory of the Allies.
Link:
http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/107/110495/ch22_a2_d1.pdf -
Hammer v. Dagenhart
This case declared the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 unconstitutional, marking a set-back in the progressive reform of child labor. The act was declared unconsitutional on the grounds that the US government was over-stepping their bounds in regulating trade. This case was extremely close, demonstrating how controversial the ruling was. Link:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17101646802366258583&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr -
Eighteenth Amendment Ratified
This amendment prohibited the sale, use, and transportation of 'intoxicating liquors'. At first, this amendment helped lessen alcohol consumption. However, the amendment had the unexpected result of causing alcohol use to increase. The amendment also caused the government to lose money on the loss of valuable tax revenue recieved from the sale of alcohol.
Link:
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxviii
