AP Unit 6: Progressivism

Interstate Commerce Act

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.

Pendleton Act

landmark U.S. legislation establishing the tradition and mechanism of permanent federal employment based on merit rather than on political party affiliation (the spoils system).

Sherman Antitrust Act

first legislation enacted by the United States Congress (1890) to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition.

Volstead Act

law enacted in 1919 (and taking effect in 1920) to provide enforcement for the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

Coxey's Army

a protest march by unemployed workers, led by Ohio businessman. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington.

Dorothea Dix

an activist on behalf of the insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created better living conditions and treatment in asylums.

Ida B. Wells

was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement.

Jacob Riis

was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. Wrote the book How the Other Half Lives.

Jane Addams

the founder of Hull House, a place that provided aid to poor working-class families in Chicago.

Eugene Debs

was a union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies and leadership during the Pullman Car Strike, Debs became one of the best-known socialists in the U.S.

Populists

people who believe in a political doctrine that proposes that the common people are exploited by a privileged elite, and they seek to stop this exploitation..

Samuel Gompers

labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. He founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1924.

Thomas Nast

American cartoonist, best known for his attack on the political machine of William M. Tweed in New York City in the 1870s.

Upton Sinclair

Socialist and muckraker author who wrote The Jungle which initiated long-reaching changes in the American food system.

W.E.B. Dubois

was an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

American Federation of Labor

was a national federation of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association.

Anti-Saloon League

the leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.

National Labor Union

was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AFL (American Federation of Labor).

Settlement House

a community center in the city which fed the poor, helped immigrants learn English and acted as a boys and girls club. Hull House is a famous example of one located in Chicago.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

organization that was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program to end the drinking of alcohol.

Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA)

put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy "body, mind, and spirit."

Bread and Butter Unionism

Unions fought over basic "working man's" issues like wages, benefits, hours, and working conditions, all of which could be negotiated through collective bargaining.

Pullman Car Strike

a nationwide railroad strike in 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against a railroad car company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic and was centered in Chicago. Nearly 4,000 factory employees of the railroad car company began a strike in response to reduced wages.

Munn v. Illinois (1877)

Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the power of government to regulate private industries.

Square Deal

a fair bargain of treatment for everyone (worker, business owner and consumer). Theodore Roosevelt's presidential guiding philosophy.