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Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was an American social reformer and feminist activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. -
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Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie started to work as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe. -
Manifest Destiny
In the 19th century, manifest destiny, a term that widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America.Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept, pre-civil war Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans rejected it. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. -
Nativism
In the United States, nativism has a long history. For a while Benjamin Franklin was hostile to Germans in colonial Pennsylvania. The Federalist Party in 1798 passed the Alien and Sedition Acts which lengthened the citizenship process to 14 years to weaken the political role of radical immigrants from France and Ireland. This became a major political issue in the 1800 election. They welcomed immigrants and repealed most of the restrictions. -
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Eugene V. Debbs
Eugene Victor Debbs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. -
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Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer, leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert Franks . -
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Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. -
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William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American orator and politician from Nebraska, and a dominant force in the populist wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as the Party's nominee for President of the United States. He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. -
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Jane Addams
Addams was a pioneer American settlement reformer, social worker, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. She created the first settlement house in the United States, Chicago's Hull House. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers of the Progressive Era. -
Homestead Acts
The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a homestead, at little or no cost. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, opened up millions of acres. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. The 1866 Act explicitly included and "encouraged" blacks to participate. -
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Ida B. Welis
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896 and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of would-be prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. The Klondike Gold Rush ended in 1899 after gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska prompting an exodus from the Klondike. -
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Social Gospel
The Social Gospel Movement was a religious movement that arose during the second half of the nineteenth century. Ministers, especially ones belonging to the Protestant branch of Christianity, began to tie salvation and good works together. They argued that people must emulate the life of Jesus Christ. -
Political Machines
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses, who receive rewards for their efforts. The machine's power is based on the ability of the workers to get out the vote for their candidates on election day. -
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Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American author who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket Riot was a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 was adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. -
Populism & Progressivism
Farmers or those associated with agriculture believed industrialists and bankers controlled the government and making the policy against the farmers. Farmers become united to protect their interests. They even created a major political party. -
Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion -
Muckraker
The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines. In the USA, the modern term is investigative journalism and investigative journalists in the USA today are often informally called 'muckrakers'. -
Dollar Diplomacy
The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census. -
Urbanization
The urbanization of the United States occurred over a period of many years, with the nation only attaining urban-majority status between 1910 and 1920. Currently, over four-fifths of the U.S. population resides in urban areas, a percentage which is still increasing today.The United States Census Bureau changed its classification and definition of urban areas in 1950. -
16th Amendment
The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census. This amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes and after income taxes on rents. The amendment was adopted on February 3, 1913. -
17th Amendment
This amendment established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act created a system of private and public entities. There were to be at least eight and no more than twelve private regional Federal Reserve banks. Twelve were established, and each had various branches, a board of directors, and district boundaries. The Federal Reserve Board, consisting of seven members, was created as the governing body of the Fed. -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal. The separate Volstead Act set down methods for enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition. -
19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920. Until the 1910s, most states disenfranchised women. The amendment was the culmination of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, which fought at both state and national levels to achieve the vote. -
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The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages were much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 30s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's 1873 novel. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1921 to 1922, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. -
Immigration & the American Dream
Immigrants is associate the American dream with opportunity, a good job and home ownership. The United States offers a less hierarchical society that provides more opportunity than many other countries, while allowing immigrants to assume a fully American identity. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Its main purpose was to ban foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products, and it directed the U.S.