Progressive Movement Lecture Notes Flashcards

Flashcards covering the vocabulary, key figures, and legislation of the Progressive Era as described in the lecture notes.

Progressive movement

A movement that sought to reform social, political, and economic abuses resulting from late 19th century industrialization through significant government intervention.

Gilded age

A period characterized by the elite attitude that government intervention was the root of all social and economic problems.

Populist movement

The 1890s agrarian movement whose unsuccessful reforms served as the foundation for much of the progressive agenda.

Booker T. Washington

A black reformer who discouraged active fighting against segregation, encouraging education and American virtues like thrift and abstinence instead.

Tuskegee Institute

An all-black school in Alabama founded by Booker T. Washington to teach students virtuous habits and practical skills for industrial jobs.

Ida B. Wells

A journalist who rejected practicalism and used her talents to speak out viferously against the lynching of blacks in the south.

web deo

A reformer who claimed that the only true path to equality required equal voting rights and the complete removal of segregated public facilities.

do the boys

The founder of the all black Niagara movement who fought for black voting rights and equal access to public facilities.

Niagara movement

An all-black organization that formerly fought for voting rights and equal access to public facilities for black Americans.

Florence Kelly

A white reformer who joined with the Niagara movement to create the National Association for the Advancement of Color People.

Jane Adams

A progressive who worked to establish settlement houses in urban areas and joined other reformers to create the NAACP.

National Association for the Advancement of Color People

An organization focused on challenging segregation and black lynching in the courts.

Secret ballot

Also known as the Australian ballot, it was used to fix political corruption by making voting a private rather than public nature.

Australian ballot

The name for the secret ballot reform, which was first adopted by the state of Massachusetts in 1888.

Direct primary

A reform introduced by the Wisconsin governor that enabled ordinary citizens to choose their party's candidate.

17th amendment

A constitutional amendment ratified in 1913 that officially put the election of senators into the hands of the people.

Initiative

A mechanism voters use to require legislators to vote on a bill that they may have otherwise ignored.

Referendum

A process that allowed Americans to directly vote on proposed bills instead of leaving that entirely to elected representatives.

Recall

A power that gave voters the ability to remove an elected politician from office before they had completed their term.

Taylorism

Also known as scientific management, it used principles to make factory work more efficient, productive, and profitable.

Frederick Taylor

The individual who introduced the idea of scientific management to improve efficiency in both industrial and government settings.

Commission form of government

A system where a group of elected commissioners ran various city departments as if they were businesses.

City manager

An urban government position that acted as a CEO for a city to ensure local programs ran with peak efficiency.

Margaret Sanger

A progressive who worked among poor urban immigrants and became a leading advocate of birth control.

Eugenics theories

Popular theories that informed some progressive efforts, suggesting that society improved if certain groups had fewer children.

Settlement houses

Urban establishments that offered immigrants various services like healthcare, education, and child care for working parents.

Immigration Act of 1917

Legislation that cut off virtually all Asian immigrants and significantly restricted European immigration.

Immigration Act of 1921

A law that significantly restricted European immigration to the United States.

Conservationist

A group, including Gford Pinshow, that believed natural resources should be extracted and used while balancing the beauty of the landscape.

Gford Pinshow

A conservationist who believed natural resources like forests and coal should be used balanced with maintaining nature's beauty.

Preservationist

A group, including John Mure, that aimed to protect the natural beauty of the landscape by preventing all resource extraction.

John Mure

A preservationist who aimed to protect the natural beauty of America by preventing resource extraction.

Theodore Roosevelt

The president who issued executive orders to protect landscape and wildlife and oversaw the creation of three national parks.

Muckreers

A group of investigative journalists who wrote scathing essays exposing corruption in government and business.

Ida Tarbell

A muckreer who targeted John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company by exposing its illegal activities.

John D. Rockefeller

The head of Standard Oil whose illegal business practices were exposed by investigative journalists.

Standard Oil

The company targeted by Ida Tarbell for eliminating competition through a myriad of illegal activities.

Ingp Punchu

A Chinese American muckreaker who wrote to expose the gross injustices of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Identified by Ingp Punchu as a source of gross injustice for Chinese Americans suffering under its terms.

Upton Sinclair

The author of The Jungle, which exposed the unsanitary practices of industrial meat packing plants.

The Jungle

A book that showed industrial meat packing plant practices in horrifying detail, leading to major legislative victories.

Pure Food and Drug Act

A law passed after the publication of The Jungle to ensure that food was safe and free of contamination.

Meat Inspection Act

A progressive legislative victory that provided government oversight in the food industry to protect citizen welfare.

Square deal

President Theodore Roosevelt's goal to provide fair treatment for both big businesses and the working class.

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

A law wielded by Theodore Roosevelt to break up more than 40 trusts that had illegally eliminated market competition.

Trustbuster

The nickname earned by Theodore Roosevelt for his rigorous enforcement of antitrust laws.

Woodro Wilson

A progressive president who attacked the triple wall of privilege and enacted sweeping economic reform.

16th amendment

An amendment passed under Woodro Wilson's leadership that created a national income tax.

18th amendment

Ratified in 1919, this amendment made prohibition the law of the land, banning alcohol.

19th amendment

Ratified in 1920, this amendment officially recognized the right of American women to vote.