United States History

  • Industrialization

    The development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale.
  • Susan B Anthony

    Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights 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.
  • Andrew Carnegie

    Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and is often identified as one of the richest people.
  • Jacob Riis

    Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer.
  • Nativisim

    Nativism is the political policy of promoting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants. However, this is currently more commonly described as an immigration restriction position. In scholarly studies nativism is a standard technical term.
  • Eugene V Debbs

    Eugene Victor Debs was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, 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.
  • Bessemer Steel Production

    The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron.
  • Clarence Darrow

    Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer, a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform.
  • Theodore Roosevelt

    Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman and writer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909.
  • William Jennings Bryan

    William Jennings Bryan was an American orator and politician from Nebraska. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, standing three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States.
  • Jane Addams

    a middle-class woman dedicated to uplifting the urban masses
  • social gospel

    Christian faith practiced as a call not just to personal conversion but to social reform.
  • Ida B Wells

    Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was 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.
  • Tenement

    A tenement is a multi-occupancy building of any sort. However, in the United States, it has come to refer most specifically to a run-down apartment building or to a slum.
  • Labor Strikes

    Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage, caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines.
  • Upton Sinclair

    Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American writer 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 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
  • Settlement house

    The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in England and the US. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and social interconnectedness.
  • Alexander Graham Bell

    Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885.
  • Labor union

    an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
  • Samuel Gompers

    Samuel Gompers was an English-born American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor, and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1894, and from 1895 until his death in 1924.
  • Haymarket Riot

    The Haymarket affair was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday, May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police.
  • interstate commerce act

    The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is 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.
  • Robber Barons

    "Robber baron" is a derogatory metaphor of social criticism originally applied to certain late 19th-century American businessmen who were accused of using unscrupulous methods to get rich, or expand ...
  • Populism and Progressivism

    Populism aimed to reform the economic system, while Progressivism was focused on bringing the political reforms.
  • Political Machines

    A political machine is a political group 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.
  • Sherman Antitrust Act

    Approved July 2, 1890, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was 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. ... Several states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses.
  • Klondike Gold Rush

    The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899
  • Initiative, Referendum, Recall

    Initiative, referendum, and recall are three powers reserved to enable the voters, by petition, to propose or repeal legislation or to remove an elected official from office. Proponents of an initiative, referendum, or recall effort must apply for an official petition serial number from the Town Clerk.
  • 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.
  • pure food and drug act

    Excerpt from the Pure Food and Drug Act. An 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.
  • Muckraker

    The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines.
  • Dollar Diplomacy

    Dollar diplomacy of the United States—particularly during President William Howard Taft's term— was a form of American foreign policy to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign countries.
  • 17th amendment

    The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures.
  • Federal Reserve Act

    The Federal Reserve Act is an Act of Congress that created and established 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.
  • 16th Amendments

    The Sixteenth Amendment 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
  • 18th amendment

    The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution effectively established the prohibition of intoxicating liquors in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors illegal.
  • 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.
  • Tea Pot Dome Scandal

    The "Teapot Dome Scandal" was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 1921–1923.