Chapter 20: The Progressive Era Key Terms

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, reformers, movements, and legislation of the Progressive Era from Chapter 20.

Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire

A catastrophic 1911 industrial fire at a New York City garment factory that killed 146 workers due to locked exits; historically significant for prompting sweeping municipal and state workplace safety regulations, fire codes, and labor laws.

Muckrakers

Progressive Era journalists, writers, and photographers who investigated and exposed corporate monopolies, government corruption, and social injustice to spark public outrage and legislative reform.

Upton Sinclair 'The Jungle'

A 1906 muckraking novel that exposed unsanitary and dangerous working conditions in Chicago's meatpacking plants; historically significant for leading directly to federal consumer protection laws, including the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Jacob Riis 'How the other half lives'

An 1890 work of photojournalism documenting the squalid, dangerous living conditions in New York City tenement slums; historically significant for catalyzing urban housing reform and sanitation improvements.

Ida B Wells

An African American investigative journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate who led an intensive nationwide anti-lynching crusade and actively campaigned for women's suffrage.

Booker T. Washington

An African American leader and founder of the Tuskegee Institute who championed vocational training and economic self-sufficiency, arguing that practical skills and patience would gradually lead to civil rights and acceptance.

WEB Dubois

A prominent civil rights leader, sociologist, and co-founder of the NAACP who demanded immediate social, political, and civil equality for African Americans and promoted higher liberal arts education for the 'Talented Tenth'.

Carrie A. Nation

A radical temperance activist famous for using a hatchet to smash up saloons and liquor-serving establishments to enforce prohibition and fight the societal effects of alcohol.

Social Gospel

A late 19th- and early 20th-century Protestant reform movement that applied Christian ethical principles to social problems like poverty, slum housing, economic inequality, and child labor.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

A major reform organization established in 1874 that spearheaded the crusade against alcohol consumption and linked temperance to broader social causes, including women's suffrage and labor rights.

Hull House

A pioneering settlement house founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr that offered educational, medical, and social services to immigrants and working-class urban residents.

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

A major suffrage organization created in 1890 that led the mainstream campaign to secure women the right to vote through state-by-state campaigns and constitutional lobbying.

National Woman's Party (NWP)

A militant suffrage organization formed in 1916 by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns that used direct protest tactics, such as picketing the White House and staging hunger strikes, to pressure the federal government for women's suffrage.

Munn v. Illinois

An 1877 U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled state governments could regulate private property and businesses (such as grain warehouses) when dedicated to public use, establishing a vital precedent for government economic regulation.

Sherman Antitrust Act

An 1890 federal statute outlawing monopolistic trusts and contracts in restraint of interstate trade; historically significant as the first federal effort to restrict trusts and promote market competition.

Clayton Antitrust Act

A 1914 law that strengthened federal antitrust regulations by specifically prohibiting anti-competitive practices like price discrimination and interlocking directorates, while explicitly exempting labor unions from antitrust prosecution.

John Muir

A naturalist, author, and preservationist who co-founded the Sierra Club and fought for the preservation of pristine wilderness areas, inspiring the creation of national parks such as Yosemite.

Margaret Sanger

A nurse, reformer, and birth control pioneer who championed women's access to contraception and reproductive health information, later founding the American Birth Control League (which evolved into Planned Parenthood).

Antiquities Act

A 1906 federal law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt granting the president executive authority to designate federal lands containing historic or scientific landmarks as protected national monuments.