apush unit 6

Progressivism

a political philosophy and reform movement focused on improving society through social, economic, and political changes, often using government intervention. Emerging in the late 19th century, it promotes worker rights, environmental protection, and corporate regulation, while modern facets emphasize social justice and equality

Clayton Anti-

Trust Act

aims to prohibit specific business practices that threaten competition before they fully create a monopoly, amending the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.

Florence Kelley

a pivotal Progressive Era reformer who fought for labor rights, specifically child labor laws, maximum work hours, and minimum wage. Based at Hull-House, she led the National Consumers League (NCL) to empower consumers to demand fair labor practices, often using the "white label" to certify products made under ethical conditions.

Federal Reserve

Act of 1913, passed under President Woodrow Wilson, established the U.S. central bank to stabilize the economy after the 1907 financial panic. It created 12 regional banks to regulate money supply and credit, serving as a landmark Progressive Era economic reform.

New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s massive federal program to fight the Great Depression through Relief (for the unemployed), Recovery (of the economy), and Reform (of financial systems).

National

Recovery Admin

a major 1933 New Deal agency (part of the NIRA) aimed at combating the Great Depression by fostering industry cooperation, setting fair competition codes, raising wages, and limiting work hours. was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court for overstepping legislative authority.

TVA

a major 1933 New Deal agency designed to modernize the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley through federal planning. It built dams for flood control, generated cheap electricity, and created jobs, representing a shift toward direct government intervention, though critics saw it as "creeping socialism". declared unconstitutional.

Federal Writers

Project

a New Deal program that employed thousands of unemployed writers, artists, and intellectuals to document American life during the Great Depression

Huey Long

Huey Long ("The Kingfish") was a Louisiana Senator and populist critic of FDR, best known for his "Share Our Wealth" program during the Great Depression. He advocated for massive wealth redistribution—taxing the rich to guarantee every family $5,000—arguing the New Deal was too timid. His radical populist movement posed a significant threat to FDR before his 1935 assassination

SSA

Second New Deal, established a federal safety net during the Great Depression.

It provided old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid to the disabled and dependent children. This legislation marked a fundamental shift toward government responsibility for individual economic security.

FDIC

a New Deal "reform" agency created in 1933 by the Glass-Steagall Act to restore confidence in the US banking system.

scientific modernism

a cultural movement emphasizing rationalism, science, and the critical analysis of traditional beliefs, directly challenging fundamentalism. Christianity needed to be adjusted

Harlem

Renaissance

a 1920s-30s flourishing of African American art, literature, music, and intellectual thought in Harlem, NYC, driven by the Great Migration

Yiddish Theater

a vibrant cultural phenomenon in American cities, particularly New York’s Lower East Side (1880s–1920s), serving millions of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. provided entertainment and eased assimilation by addressing themes of identity, modernity, and the immigrant experience

Edward Hopper

a premier 20th-century American realist painter known for capturing urban loneliness, isolation, and the quiet, melancholic side of the gtreat depression

Red Scare

Triggered by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and post-WWI labor strikes, which many associated with radicalism. Impact: Rise of nativism, strict immigration quotas (National Origins Act of 1924), and a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

Quota System

drastically restricted immigration to the U.S., particularly favoring Northern/Western Europeans over Southern/Eastern Europeans and Asians. Driven by 1920s nativism and racism, it used national origins quotas based on older census data to force cultural homogeneity.

Great Migration

the mass movement of approximately 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North, Midwest, and West. Driven by the search for better economic opportunities, education, and escape from Jim Crow violence

Bracero

Program

a U.S. government initiative, in partnership with Mexico, that brought over 4.6 million Mexican citizens to the U.S. for seasonal agricultural and railroad labor to solve World War II shortages. Despite promises of fair wages, housing, and food, many laborers faced extreme exploitation, racism, and poor condition

Luis Moreno

a pivotal Guatemalan-American labor organizer and civil rights activist during the 1930s and 40s. As a pioneering Latina in the U.S. labor movement, she organized cannery, garment, and tobacco workers, founded the 1939 Spanish-Speaking People's Congress, and led fights against racial discrimination. ]

Turner Thesis

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the frontier was the key factor in the development of American democracy and institutions; he maintained that the frontier served as a "safety valve" during periods of economic crisis.

Dollar Diplomacy

Foreign policy created under President Taft that had the U.S. exchanging financial support ($) for the right to "help" countries make decisions about trade and other commercial ventures. Basically it was exchanging money for political influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Andrew Mellon

Secretary of Treasury under President Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, who instituted a Republican policy of reduced government spending, lower taxes to the wealthy and higher tariffs

League of Nations

A world organization established in 1920 to promote international cooperation and peace. It was first proposed in 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson, although the United States never joined the League. Essentially powerless, it was officially dissolved in 1946.

Isolationism

A policy of avoiding political or military involvement with other countries

Washington Naval Conf.

1921 - president harding invited delegates from Europe and Japan, and they agreed to limit production of war ships, to not attack each other's possessions, and to uphold open door policy

Stimson

Doctrine

declared that the United States would not recognize territorial changes or regimes created by force. This policy was a direct response to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, emphasizing moral condemnation without military action, while highlighting 1930s U.S. isolationism.

Neutrality Acts

US laws passed to keep the nation out of foreign conflicts by banning arms sales, loans, and travel on belligerent ships to nations at war, reflecting strong isolationist sentiment in response to rising fascism. They aimed to avoid repeating WWI involvement.

Internment

During World War II, Executive Order 9066 (1942) authorized the forced relocation and incarceration of ~120,000 Japanese Americans (66% citizens) into remote inland camps, driven by racial prejudice and fear of espionage post-Pearl Harbor.

Atlantic Charter

The 1941 Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement issued by FDR and Winston Churchill, establishing joint Allied goals for a post-WWII world based on self-determination, disarmament, free trade, and collective security. It solidified US-UK solidarity

Manhattan

Project

a top-secret U.S.-led WWII research effort, supported by the UK and Canada, to develop the first nuclear weapons, driven by fears of Nazi Germany developing them first

William Seward

a prominent Republican politician who served as Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson (1861–1869). He is best known for negotiating the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, derided as "Seward's Folly" but later validated as a valuable, resource-rich acquisition, marking early American expansionism.

Pan-American Conference

a series of meetings aimed at fostering economic, political, and cultural cooperation between the U.S. and Latin American nations

Alfred Thayer Mahan

a 19th-century U.S. Navy officer and strategist whose 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, argued that national greatness was inextricably linked to maritime power. His ideas fueled American imperialism, advocating for a strong navy

Jingoism

extreme, aggressive patriotism and nationalism that advocates for a belligerent foreign policy and military action,

Yellow journalism

sensationalized, exaggerated, or fabricated news reporting used by publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in the 1890s to boost sales

Teller amendment

pledged that the United States would not annex Cuba following the Spanish-American War

Emilio Aguinaldo

Filipino revolutionary leader who led the fight for independence against Spain and, subsequently, against the United States during the Philippine-American War (1899–1901). As the first president of the Philippines, he championed self-governance but was captured by U.S. forces in 1901, leading to American control.

Insular Cases

a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions deciding that constitutional rights and citizenship do not automatically apply to territories acquired during the Spanish-American War.

Platt

Amendment

added to the Cuban Constitution, allowing the US to intervene in Cuban affairs to protect its interests and maintain order. It restricted Cuba’s foreign treaty-making power, forced the lease of naval bases

John Hay

proposed open door policy, famously described the Spanish-American War in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt as a "splendid little war," reflecting the era's optimistic jingoism, Negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901) with Britain, allowing the U.S. to build and manage a canal without British involvement

“Big Stick” diplomacy

a foreign policy emphasizing U.S. power to police the Western Hemisphere and advance interests

Roosevelt Corollary

expanded the Monroe Doctrine by asserting the U.S. had the right to intervene in Latin American nations to maintain stability, acting as an "international police power"

Treaty of

Portsmouth

ended the Russo-Japanese War. It established Japan as a major East Asian power, granting it control over Korea and South Manchuria, while forcing Russia out of the region, significantly elevating U.S. diplomatic influence.

Gentlemen’s

Agreement

a diplomatic pact between the U.S. and Japan, where Japan agreed to curb emigration of workers to the U.S., while President Theodore Roosevelt pressured San Francisco to end discriminatory school segregation against Japanese Americans.

Root-Takahira Agreement

a diplomatic accord between the U.S. and Japan easing tensions over Pacific expansion, affirming the "status quo" of territorial possessions, and upholding the Open Door policy in China

Henry Cabot Lodge

a Republican who disagreed with the Versailles Treaty, and who was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Jones Act

the 1916 Act, which promised eventual independence to the Philippines, and the 1920 Merchant Marine Act, which mandated that goods shipped between U.S. ports be carried on American-built, owned, and operated ships

John J Pershing

He insisted on training independent American troops rather than integrating them into Allied units, playing a crucial role in breaking the stalemate and securing Allied victory.

Scientific Management

Scientific management, or "Taylorism," developed by Frederick W. Taylor in the early 20th century, sought to maximize industrial efficiency through scientific analysis of labor, reducing tasks to simple, repetitive movements. It utilized time-and-motion studies, standardized operations, and incentivized pay to increase productivity, deeply influencing the 1920s assembly line manufacturing

Australian Ballot

A government printed ballot of uniform size and shape to be cast in secret that was adopted by many states around 1890 in order to reduce the voting fraud associated with party printed ballots cast in public.

Lincoln Steffans

prominent American muckraker journalist (1866–1936) who exposed municipal corruption in McClure's Magazine, fueling the Progressive movement

Jacob Riis

exposed the squalid living conditions of New York City's urban poor in the 1890s. His 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives, used flash photography to document slum tenement life, catalyzing Progressive Era housing, sanitation, and school reforms

Initiative

a Progressive Era reform (roughly 1890s–1920s) allowing voters to propose new laws directly on the ballot via petition, bypassing state legislatures

Referendum

a Progressive Era (1890–1920) democratic reform allowing voters to directly approve or veto legislation passed by state legislatures

Recall

a Progressive Era reform allowing voters to remove elected officials from office through a direct vote, empowering citizens against political machines

Direct Primary

allowed voters rather than party bosses to choose candidates for public office, aiming to reduce corruption and increase democratic participation (1901–1905). Championed by reformers like Robert LaFollette, it shifted power to citizens, significantly influencing the 1912 election,

16th Amend.

authorized Congress to levy a federal income tax without apportioning it among states or basing it on the census. It was a landmark progressive reform designed to reduce income inequality, funding government expansion, social programs, and the military

17th Amend.

mandated the direct popular election of U.S. Senators, replacing the previous system where state legislatures appointed them

18th Amend.

launched the Prohibition era, banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the US

19th Amend.

securing woman suffrage nationwide

Wisconsin Idea

Progressive-era reform program aimed at reducing corporate influence, increasing government accountability, and using academic expertise from the University of Wisconsin to create policy

Lochner v NY

the Court struck down a New York law limiting baker working hours to 10 hours a day, citing it violated the 14th Amendment's "due process" clause and the "liberty of contract".

Muller v OR

a landmark Supreme Court case that upheld a 10-hour work limit for women, prioritizing the state’s interest in protecting women's health over freedom of contract. Using the "Brandeis Brief," it introduced sociological evidence to justify special legal protections,

Anthracite Coal

Mines Strike

a major labor dispute in Pennsylvania involving 140,000+ members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) seeking higher wages, shorter hours, and union recognition

Square Deal

President Theodore Roosevelt’s domestic program (1901-1909) designed to provide fairness for capital, labor, and the public

Elkins Act

a Progressive Era federal law passed to end railroad rebate discrimination, prohibiting railroads from offering and shippers from accepting rebates.

Hepburn Act

his 1906 law used the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the maximum charge that railroads to place on shipping goods

Meat Inspection

Act

mandated federal inspection of meatpacking plants and set strict sanitary standards

Newlands

Reclamation Act(or National Reclamation Act)

authorized federal funding for irrigation projects in the arid American West, using funds from public land sales. . Introduced by Rep. Francis G. Newlands, it created the U.S. Reclamation Service to build dams and canals

Eugene Debs

a pivotal American labor leader and socialist politician who founded the American Railway Union (ARU) and led the 1894 Pullman Strike. A prominent figure in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, he became a socialist while imprisoned, running for president five times as the Socialist Party candidate. He was a strong advocate for worker rights, public ownership of industries, and anti-war activism.

Bull Moose

Party

1912 U.S. third party formed by Theodore Roosevelt after losing the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft. Advocating for "New Nationalism," it pushed for progressive reforms, splitting the Republican vote and ensuring Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s election.

New

Nationalism

a 1910–1912 Progressive political platform favoring active federal intervention to promote social justice, economic welfare, and regulation of big business

Mann-Elkins Act

, championed by President Taft. It authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to suspend rate hikes and set maximum rates. The Act, which put the burden of proof on railroads for rate reasonableness, also extended ICC jurisdiction to telephone, telegraph, and cable companie

Payne-Aldrich

Tariff 1909

a heavily compromised federal law signed by President Taft that moderately reduced some protective tariff rates but increased others, ultimately acting as a high protectionist measure

Underwood

Tariff

substantially reduced tariff rates from roughly 40% to 27%. To make up for lost revenue, it introduced a graduated federal income tax, following the ratification of the 16th Amendment. This bill represented the first significant lowering of protective tariffs since before the Civil War.

NAACP

Created in response to racial violence (e.g., 1908 Springfield riot) and the need for legal action. Key founders included W.E.B. Du Bois (representing the Niagara Movement), Ida B. Wells, and white progressives like Mary White Ovington.

Margaret

Sanger

a pioneering American birth control activist, nurse, and educator who coined the term "birth control" and founded the organization that became Planned Parenthood.

Xenophobia

the intense, fear-driven prejudice against immigrants and foreigners, consistently fueling nativism

Palmer Raids

a series of violent federal raids managed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer during the first Red Scare, targeting suspected anarchists, communists, and labor leaders. Fueled by post-WWI fear of radicalism and domestic bombings, they resulted in thousands of unjust arrests and over 500 deportations

Self-

Determination

the principle that a nation or ethnic group has the right to choose its own political status, government, and sovereignty without external interference. It is most prominently associated with Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points after World War I and as a driving force in post-WWII decolonization and domestic civil rights movementts

George Creel

an American journalist and Progressive politician who headed the Committee on Public Information (CPI) during World War I. Appointed by President Wilson, Creel led a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American public through pamphlets, films, and the "Four Minute Men" volunteers. His efforts to influence public opinion aimed to increase support for the war but also fostered anti-German sentiment

Fordney-

McCumber

Tariff Act

a protectionist U.S. law that significantly raised duties on imported goods to roughly 40%, aiming to protect American farms and factories following WWI.

Harry

Daugherty

key political manager for Warren G. Harding and U.S. Attorney General (1921–1924). As a central figure in the "Ohio Gang," he was heavily involved in scandals, including illegal alien property transfers, leading to his resignation under pressure from President Coolidge. He was tried twice for corruption but never convicted.

Miller Center +1

Charles Evans

Hughs

As Governor of New York (1907–1910), he earned fame for investigating corruption in insurance companies and championing labor reforms and conservation.

Teapot Dome

Scandal

a major bribery incident during Warren G. Harding’s administration, where Interior Secretary Albert Fall secretly leased naval oil reserves in Wyoming and California to private oil companies

Welfare

Capitalism

a paternalistic labor approach where employers, such as Henry Ford, provided benefits like pensions, cafeterias, and shortened workweeks to avoid unionization and boost productivity.

F. Scott

Fitzgerald

a novelist and chronicler of the jazz age. his wife, zelda and he were the "couple" of the decade but hit bottom during the depression. his noval THE GREAT GATSBY is considered a masterpiece about a gangster's pursuit of an unattainable rich girl.

TS eliot

His landmark poem, The Waste Land (1922), redefined literature and defined the intellectual crisis of the 1920s, heavily influencing 20th-century culture