Progressive Era

1900-1920
 Individuals
Conservation Theodore Roosevelt
Problem John Muir
Some areas of the Gifford Pinchot
country were Policies
plagued with Preservation vs.
drought, while Conservation
others faced National Parks
Yellowstone National Park
terrible flooding. (1871)
Logging Yosemite National Park
(1890)
companies used Glacier National Park (1910)
land Forest Reserve Act (1891)
Newlands Reclamation Act
indiscriminately, (1902)
destroying old United States Forest
forests that had Service (1905)
National Park Service
taken centuries to (1916)
grow.
 Racial segregation (Jim Crow
Laws)
Civil Rights Increased lynching
Problem: In 1896, the U.S. Northern migration
Supreme Court ruled that Jim Crow Ida B. Wells
laws that promoted segregation Booker T. Washington
were legal, as long as facilities wanted total equality
were separate, but equal. In W.E.B. Du Bois
practice, separate facilities were focused on education and
rarely equal. The federal getting jobs
government also practiced Atlanta Compromise (1895)
institutionalized racism by Plessy v. Ferguson
discriminating against blacks in National Association for the
hiring for jobs. Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
National Urban League
Black Pride
Back to Africa Movement
 Compulsory School
Education Attendance
Keating Owen Act
Problem: Schooling was not Temporarily outlawed
mandatory, and was often child labor
reserved for the upper classes. State Regulation of Education
With the influx of a large High School Education
immigrant population, there John Dewey
were also concerns about Pushed for standardized
assimilating new Americans education goals
into the population. Abraham Flexner
Imposed standards for
medical education
 Business prosperity
Inequality Uneven income
distribution
Increasing Standard of Living
Problem: In cities like New York, Welfare capitalism
urban slums and tenements were 16th Amendment (income
only three miles from the large tax)
mansions of Fifth Avenues Debts and high tariffs
Millionaires Row. J.P. Morgans Overproduction
firm controlled as much as 40% of Bank runs/Bank failures
all capital in the country Unemployment
Poverty/Homelessness
Upton Sinclair
Ida Tarbell
Photography
Jacob Riis

Monopolies and Trusts
Problem: Several men, including
J.P. Morgan and the Rockefellers,
built bad trusts that attempted
to build control the market and
gouge profits from the public.
Rockefellers Standard Oil
controlled 90% of the nations
refining capacity.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
(1890)
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
Federal Trade Commision
Federal Reserve Act (1914)
Trust-busting
Elkins Act (1903)
Hepburn Act (1906)
John D. Rockefeller
Standard Oil
Andrew Carnegie
U.S. Steel Corporation
 20th Amendment
Political Corruption 17th Amendment, direct
election of senators
Problem: A number of city and Upton Sinclair
neighborhood bosses The Jungle
pressured voters into supporting Initiative, referendum, recall
their candidates and causes,
Mann-Elkins Act (1910)
thus controlling the political
system. Voting was not done 16th Amendment, federal
secretly and people had little income tax
influence over the political Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
agenda. Senators were chosen Firing of Pinchot
by state legislature, often Muckrackers
appointing seats to the highest Lincoln Steffens
bidder.
 Urban Middle-class
Urban Slums Prohibition
18th Amendment
Problem: Many new Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
immigrants and members of Municipal Reform
the working class lived in Samuel M. Jones
crowded, run-down City Manager Plan
tenements in the cities. Lillian Wald
Often a few families were Political machines
crowded into a small room Jane Addams
without running water. Social worker
Founder of a Chicago
settlement home
Muckrackers
Jacob Riis
 State prohibition laws
Working Conditions National Child Labor
Committee
Florence Kelley
Problem: Members of the
National Consumers League
working class faced long
hours, low pay, and poor Lochner v. New York (1905)
working conditions. All those Muller v. Oregon (1908)
injured at work were also in Congress of Industrial
danger of losing their job. Organizations
Even young children often John L. Lewis
were employed in dangerous
Sit-down strike
conditions. Additionally,
sanitation in the food and drug Fair Labor Standards Act
industry was nonexistent. Minimum wage
Wagner Act
Womens Rights
Problem: Even though some
women had been agitating for
suffrage for over fifty years,
the vote was still limited to
men. Women also received
lower wages than men and
carried the burden of urban
poverty, including alcoholism.
Carrie Chapman Catt
National American Woman
Suffrage Association
Alice Paul
National Womans Party
19th Amendment
League of Women Voters
Margaret Sanger
Planned Parenthood (i.e.
birth control)