Progressive Era Reform Movements and Events

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing key movements, organizations, legislation, and events from the Progressive Era based on lecture notes.

Progressivism

A loose array of reform movements that worked to clean up politics, fight poverty, increase racial and economic justice, and protect environmental resources, giving their name to the early 20th century Progressive Era.

“City Beautiful” movement

A turn of the 20th century movement that advocated landscape beautification, playgrounds, and more and better urban parks.

Social settlement

A Progressive Era community welfare center that investigated the plight of the urban poor, advocated for change, and helped residents advocate on their own behalf.

Hull House

One of the first and most famous social settlements, founded in 1889 by Jane Addams in an impoverished, largely Italian immigrant neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.

Pure Food and Drug Act

A 1960 law that created the Food and Drug Administration to regulate food and drug industries to ensure safety.

National Consumers’ leagues (NCL)

A national progressive organization that encouraged women, through their shopping decisions, to support fair wages and working conditions for industrial laborers.

Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL)

A labor organization for women founded in New York in 1903 that brought elite, middle-class, and working-class women together as allies, supporting union organizing efforts among garment workers.

Triangle Fire

A devastating fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in NYC in 1911 that killed 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, prompting the passage of state laws to increase workplace safety and regulate working hours for women and children.