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Jane Addams
Born in 1860, Jane Addams was a prominent figure in the Progressive era. She was a pioneer settlement social worker, author, and a leader of the women's sufferage movement. She helped to broadcast the issues of working conditions in factories and child labor, and expressed how women did equal work to men and therefore should have equal rights. In 1889, she and a partner co-founded the first settlement house in the U.S., which allowed for poorer people to live a better life. -
Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette
Robert La Follette was a Republican turned Progressivist who served in the House of Representatives. He was also the governor of Wisconsin from 1906 to 1925. He ran for president as the progressive party candidate in 1924. He championed women's sufferage and labor laws in Wisconsin, and he stood against the railroad companies as well. He helped to draft the Tariff Act of 1890, which protected U.S. domestic buisnesses from foreign competition. -
Eugene Debs
Eugene Debs was an American union leader and several time candidate for presidency of the U.S. for the American Socialist Party. Debs was important in the founding of the American Railway Union, on of the first industrial unions in the U.S. He denounced the participation of the U.S. in WWI, and as a result was placed in prison for 10 years. He started the Pullman Strike in 1894, which was a dispute between the ARU and the Pullman railroad company, and resulted in his being jailed. -
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt became the 26th President of the U.S. when the previous president, William Mckinley, was assasinated on September 14, 1901. He was also reelected and served a second term in 1904. In his first five years in office, Roosevelt pushed the Republican Party toward progressivism, fighting against political corruption and social inequality. Also, he founded the short-lived Progressive Party of 1912 in order to push for more reform. -
Elkins Act - (Corrupt Practices Reform)
The Elkins Act is a law that was passed in 1903 as an amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. It let the Interstate Commerce Commission to give heavy fines to railroads that offered rebates, and also to the shippers or passengers that accepted the rebates. It stated that railroads were not allowed to give rebates. This act helped to lower the power that railroads had over average U.S. citizens. -
Samuel Hopkins Adams - (muckraker)
Samuel Hopkins Adams was an american writer of investigative journalism. He wrote fiction as well, and published his works in magazines. He gained a reputation as a muckraker for his articles on public health conditions in the U.S. In 1905, he wrote a series of eleven articles titled "The Great American Fraud" which exposed many of the false claims made on patent medicines and which had a great impact on the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was an author who wrote close to a hundred books in many different genres. For his outstanding books, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He recieved fame most particularly from his muckraker writings, which inspired change in the ways that people lived by exposing the faults in society and buisness. His most famous novel is "The Jungle", which exposed the horrors within the meat-packing industry. -
Meat Inspection Act - (Public Service Reform)
The Meat Inspection Act is an act that prohibits the sale and production of old or mistreated animal meat from factories. It also makes sure that meats that are going to be sold to the people are slaughtered and produced in clean facilities. This also applies to foreign meat products. It was greatly inspired by Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", which exposed the horrors of the meat packing industry. The act was passed in 1906. -
Pure Food and Drug Act - (Buisness Reform)
The Pure Food and Drug Act was signed on the same day as the Meat Inspection Act in 1906 by President Teddy Roosevelt. The enforcement of the Pure Food and Drug Act was given to the Bureau of Chemistry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was renamed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1930. The act was designed to regulate the production of food and drugs in the U.S. It was largely inspired by Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", and Samuel Hopkins Adams's "The Great American Fraud". -
Charles Evens Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes was a lawyer and republican politician who grew up in New York. In this state, he served as governor from 1907 to 1910. He had various positions in the national government during his life, including Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the U.S. In 1907, he pushed for the passing of the Moreland Act, which allowed for him to oversee all officials in New York and to fire the corrupt officials. -
William Jennings Bryan, "The Great Commoner"
William Jennings Bryan was a leading politician in the Democratic Party from the 1890's to his death in 1925. He ran for president of the U.S. three times, and promoted different progressive reforms during his campaigns. These included Free Silver and ani-imperialism, among other reforms. In his last campaign in 1908, he promoted trust-busting, saying that people should stand against trusts, big corporations, and big banks. -
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - (Social Justice Reform)
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an african-american civil rights group that was formed in 1909. Its purpose was to secure the rights and liberties of all people and to eliminate racism and discrimination in the U.S., as well as to assist african-americans in increasing their opportunities in life. The NAACP was a group of diverse nationalities, beliefs, and gender. It succesfully pushed for social reform in the U.S. -
Hiram Johnson
Hiram Johnson was a leading progressive and isolationist politician from California. He served as governor of California from 1911 to 1917 and as a senator from 1917 to 1945. In 1912, he was Theodore Roosevelt's running mate for the presidential election. Also in 1912, he helped to found the Progressive Party alond with Roosevelt, in order to keep pushing for progressive reform. -
16th Amendment
The 16th Amendment gives Congres the ability to impose a countrywide income tax that is equal among all of the states and does not have to be based upon the United States Census. It exempted income taxes from constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes. It effectively takes away taxing abilities from the state or local governments, so corrupt officials cannot tax unfairly. It was adopted in 1913 on February 3. -
17th Amendment
The 17th Amendment of the constitution says that senators will be directly elected from popular vote. This means that the senators are elected by the people, giving the people more power with their votes. This was a change from when the Senators were elected by the state legislation, and was asked for by many progressive reformers. It was adopted in 1913 on May 31st. -
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was the governor of New Jersy from 1911 to 1913, the president of the U.S. from 1913 to 1921. He ran against William Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eugene Debs for the presidency, all of them progressive reformers. He was also reelected in 1916, and had control of the U.S. during WWI. In his early presidency, he had congress pass the Clayton Antitrust Act, in order to further attack big companies and trusts. -
Keating-Owen Act - (Labor Reform)
The Keating-Owen Act was an act passed by Congress whose purpose was to diminish child labor in factories by prohibiting the sale of goods between states that were made by factories that employed children under 14. This also applied to mines that employed children under the age of 16, and any facility where children under 16 worked at night, or more than 8 hours a day. President Woodrow Wilson pushed greatly for its passage, and it became a law in 1916. -
H.G.Welles
H.G.Welles was a writer from England, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also an outspoken socialist, often sympathising with pacifist views. In his book "In the Fourth Year" published in 1918 he suggested how each nation of the world would elect, by proportional representation, an electoral college similar to the U.S., in order to select its delegate to the League of Nations. This showedhow he wanted to push England forward towards establishing new government. -
18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment of the Constitution was the prohibition of alchohol in the U.S., declaring the production, transport, and sale of alchohol to be illegal. This had been called for by the women of the U.S., because the men would spend alot of mony on alchohol, and by progressive reformers, who believed that alchohol was dangerous to the U.S. The amendment was adopted on January 17, 1920, but was repealed in 1933 due to the rise in crimes it had caused. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment gives all citizens the right to vote, regardless of gender or race. Until the 1910s, most states did not allow women to vote, as the Constitution stated that states could decide the qualifications to vote. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the amendment introduced it in 1878, but it was not until 1919 that Congress submitted it for ratification. It was adopted on August 18, 1920.
