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Women's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is an active temperance organization that was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity. -
Interstate Commerce Act
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
After failing to curb trusts on the state level, reformers finally moved Congress to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibited any "contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce." -
National American Woman Suffrage Association
It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote. -
How the Other Half Lives
Studies among the Tenements of New York is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. -
Ida B. Wells
African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Anti-Saloon League
the leading organization promoting National Prohibition in the U.S. It was a non-partisan political pressure group and a single-issue lobbying group, it had branches across the country. It worked with churches in marshaling resources for the prohibition fight. -
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He believed that human beings learn through a 'hands-on' approach. This places Dewey in the educational philosophy of pragmatism. Pragmatists believe that reality must be experienced. From Dewey's educational point of view, this means that students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn. -
Eugene V Debs
Debs was five times the presidential candidate of the Socialist party. He was imprisoned in the 1890s for illegally encouraging a railway strike; Clarence Darrow was his defense attorney. -
Ida Tarbell
American teacher, author and journalist. She was one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is thought to have pioneered investigative journalism. -
Square Deal Policy
Theodore Roosevelt's domestic policy based on three basic ideas: protection of the consumer, control of large corporations, and conservation of natural resources. -
Robert La Follette
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr. was an American Republican and Progressive politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the Governor of Wisconsin. -
Anthracite Coal Strike
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. -
Lincoln Steffens
The progressive era was an era of social and political reform. Lincoln Steffens was a reformer during the Progressive Era. Lincoln Steffens wanted to expose the bribery and corruption in the government. Lincoln Steffens Exposed William "Boss" Tweed by writing "Tweed Days in St.Louis." that would later be published together in a book titled The Shame of the Cities -
Elkins Act
United States federal law that amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to impose heavy fines on railroads that offered rebates, and upon the shippers that accepted these rebates. -
Department of Commerce and Labor
The United States Department of Commerce and Labor was a short-lived Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with controlling the excesses of big business. -
Northern Securities Antitrust
The Court ruled 5 to 4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies, who had essentially formed a monopoly, and to dissolve the Northern Securities Company. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
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. -
The Jungle
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
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. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in US history. -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
True to Roosevelt's progressive beliefs, the platform of the party called for major reforms including women's suffrage, social welfare assistance for women and children, farm relief, revisions in banking, health insurance in industries, and worker's compensation. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act intended to establish a form of economic stability in the United States through the introduction of the Central Bank, which would be in charge of monetary policy. -
Underwood Tariff
Re-imposed the federal income tax after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25%, well below the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. -
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 Commision
administers antitrust and consumer protection legislation in pursuit of free and fair competition in the marketplace. -
Keating-Owen CHild Labor Act
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 fourteen worked after 7:00 p.m. or before 6:00 a.m. or more than eight hours daily. After its original failure to be enacted, the bill was revised and re-introduced to Congress, where is was finally accepted -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal. -
19th Amendment
the United States provides men and women with equal voting rights. The amendment states that the right of citizens to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." -
Margaret Sanger
an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She was afraid of what would happen, so she fled to Britain until she knew it was safe to return to the US.
