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In his muckracking book The Octopus, Frank Norris exposes the ways in which railroad companies misused their powers.
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Theodore Roosevelt was sworn into office when President McKinley died a week after being shot by anarchist Leon Czolgsz. As the first progressive president of the United States, Roosevelt promoted the regulation of big business and worked to reform government.
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President Roosevelt passes the Newlands Reclamation Act, allowing money from the sales of public land to be used for irrigation and reclamation.
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The reform minded magazine Mclure's publishes the first installment of Ida Tarbell's "History of the Standard Oil Company", which exposed John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company's unfair business practices.
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Linoln Steffens' novel The Shame of the Cities is published, documenting political corruption in urban America.
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In his first effort to regulate large corporations, President Roosevelt directs the attorney general to sue the Northern Securities Company for monopolizing railroad shipping in the Northeast.
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With the "Square Deal", President Roosevelt campaigns fo limitng the power of trusts, promoting public health and safety, and improving working conditions.
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In response to abuses from the drug industry, President Roosevelt enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act, forbidding the manufacture, sale, or manufacture of food and patent medicine containing harmful ingredients.
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In response to abuses by the food industry, President Roosevelt enacted the Meat Inspection Act, requiring government inspection of meat shipped between states.
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In an effort to alert the public about the cosequences of capitalist greed, Upton Sinclair publishes his novel The Jungle, in which he vividly describes the unsanitary handling of meat in the Chicago meat-paking industry, resulting in Americans demanding federal laws prohibiting unhealthy conditions in food-processing industries.
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Robert La Follette was elected by the Wisconsin legislature to the U.S. Senate, a spot he would occupy up untli his death in 1925. As senator, La Follette strongly opposed American involvement in World War I and campaigned for child labor laws, social security, women's suffrage, and other progressive reforms.
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In his novel Following the Color Line, Ray Stannerd Baker exposes racial injustice in the U.S. by describing a lynching of a black man in Springfield, Ohio, and the indifference of the people in the town about it.
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William Jennings Bryan, who had previously ran for president in 1896, was the Democratic nomination for the 1908 presidential election. However Bryan, even with the support from the American Federation of Labor for his progressive prolabor platform, was again unable to claim the presidency as he lost to RepublicanWilliam Howard Taft.
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Jane Addams, who was already known for her helping the urban poor and working for women's rights, was one of the leading white progressives who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is formed by W.E.B. Du Bois and leading white progressives with the purpose of calling for social reforms that would ensure equal rights for African Americans.
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During his campaign for progressive Republicans, Theodore Roosevelt offers is New Nationalism, calling for tough laws to protect workers, ensure public safety, and regulate business.
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The Society of American Indians is formed for the purpose of working to address the problems facing Native Americans.
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Woodrow Wilson's progressive program New Freedom called for a revival of small business and free from the control of big business and government.
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In 1912, Eugene Debs unsuccessfully ran for president. Representing the Socialist party, Debs supported worker conrol of the government and public ownership of all major industries.
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The Sixteenth Amendment is passed, authorizing a national tax based on individual income. This tax was supported by progressives because it helped fund needed government programs.
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The Seventeenth Amendment is ratified, authorizing voters to elect their senators directly.
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Woodrow Wilson is sworn in as president. Over the course of his presidency, Wilson would move to lower tariffs reform banking, regulate corporations, and aid farmers.
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The Eighteenth Amendment is ratified, barring the manufacture, sale, or importation of alcoholic beverages.
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The Nineteenth Amendmentis ratified, granting women full voting rights.
