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Robert La Follette
American Republican and politician who is best known as a proponent of progressivism and a fierce opponent to corporate power. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Governor of Wisconsin and a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin during his career. -
Ida Tarbell
The muckraker who cracked the oil trust- exposed unfair practices of the Standard Oil Company, leading to a U.S. Supreme Court decision to break its monopoly -
John Dewey
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 -
Ida B Wells
An African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. -
Lincoln Steffens
An American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in McClure's, called Tweed Days in St. Louis, that would later be published together in a book titled The Shame of the Cities -
Women's Christian Temperance Union
a group of women whose goal was to promote temperance. Temperance, meaning for people not to drink alcohol -
Interstate Commerce Act
A 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. -
National American Woman Suffrage Association
To advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association -
How The Other Half Lives
work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts -
Anti-Saloon League
The leading organization promoting National Prohibition in the U.S. It was a non-partisan political pressure group that began in 1893. A single-issue lobbying group, it had branches across the country. It worked with churches in marshaling resources for the prohibition fight. -
Eugene V Debs
became president of the American Railway Union. His union conducted a successful strike for higher wages against the Great Northern Railway in 1894. He gained greater renown when he went to jail for his role in leading the Chicago Pullman Palace Car Company strike. -
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. -
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. -
Elkins Acts
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
Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with controlling the excesses of big business. The United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor was the head of the department. -
Northern Securities Antitrust
A case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1903. 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. -
The Jungle
Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States -
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. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
An Act 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. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history -
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
Third party in the United States formed in 1912 by former President Theodore Roosevelt after he lost the presidential nomination of the Republican Party to his former President William Howard Taft. -
17th Amendment
popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. -
Underwood Tariff
Re-imposed the federal income tax after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and lowered basic tariff rates from 40% -
Federal Reserve Act
An Act of Congress that created the Federal Reserve System, and which created the authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
An amendment passed by U.S. Congress in 1914 that provides further clarification and substance to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Act focuses on topics such as price discrimination, price fixing, and unfair business practices -
Federal Trade Commission
n independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its principal mission is the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of anticompetitive business practices, such as coercive monopoly. -
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
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 -
Margaret Sanger
She opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. Sanger fought for women's rights her entire life. -
18th Amendment
Only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
