APUSH 28 Simple IDs

Progressivism

A largely middle-class movement that aimed to use the power of government to correct the economic and social problems of industrialism

Muckrakers

Popular journalists who used publicity to expose corruption and attack abuses of power in business and government

Initiative

Progressive proposal to allow voters to bypass state legislatures and propose legislation themselves

Recall

Progressive device that would enable voters to remove corrupt or ineffective officials from office

Square Deal

Roosevelt’s policy of having the federal government promote the public interest by dealing evenhandedly with both labor and business

Hepburn Act

Effective railroad-regulation law of 1906 that greatly strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

Disastrous industrial fire of 1911 that spurred workmen’s compensation laws and some state regulation of wages and hours in New York

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair’s novel that inspired pro-consumer federal laws regulating meat, food, and drugs

Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Powerful women’s reform organization led by Frances Willard

Panic of 1907

Brief but sharp economic downturn of 1907, blamed by conservatives on the supposedly dangerous president

Dollar Diplomacy

Generally unsuccessful Taft foreign policy in which government attempted to encourage overseas business ventures

Standard Oil Company

Powerful corporation broken up by a Taft-initiated antitrust suit in 1911

Thorstein Veblen

Eccentric economist who criticized the wealthy for conspicuous consumption and failure to serve real human needs

Lincoln Steffens

Early muckraker who exposed the political corruption in many American cities

Ida Tarbell

Leading muckraking journalist whose articles documented the Standard Oil Company’s abuse of power

Seventeenth Amendment

Progressive measure that required U.S. senators to be elected directly by the people rather than by state legislatures

Robert M. La Follette

The most influential of the state-level progressive governors and a presidential aspirant in 1912

Hiram Johnson

Progressive governor of California who broke the stranglehold of the Southern Pacific Railroad on the state’s politics

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

New York City disaster that underscored urban workers’ need for government protection

Women’s Christian Temperance Union

Powerful progressive women’s organization that sought to “make the world homelike” by outlawing the saloon and the product it sold

Anthracite coal strike

Dangerous labor conflict resolved by Rooseveltian negotiation and threats against business people

Jane Addams

Leading female progressive reformer whose advocacy of pacifism as well as social welfare set her at odds with more muscular and militant progressives

Upton Sinclair

Progressive novelist who sought to aid industrial workers, but found his book, The Jungle, instead inspiring middle-class consumer protection.

Muller v. Oregon

Case that upheld protective legislation on the grounds of women’s supposed physical weakness

William Howard Taft

Politically inept inheritor of the Roosevelt legacy who ended up allied with the reactionary Republican Old Guard

Lochner v. New York

Supreme court ruling that overturned a progressive law mandating a ten-hour workday

Gifford Pinchot

Pro-conservation federal official whose dismissal by Taft angered Roosevelt progressives