American Pageant Chapter 28

Progressives

Reformers who fought monopoly, corruption, inefficiency, social injustice, and sought to improve human welfare with government in the 1900s. Main reformers in this period.

“Strengthen the State“

“Battle Cry“ of the Progressives

Greenback Labor Party (1870s) and Populist Party (1890)

The “groundwell” parties that inspired the Progessives movement from the late nineteenth century

Laissez-Faire Policy

Economic philosophy that influenced the government in the Gilded Age. Means “Let-alone“ and calls for no government interference in the free market.

Henry Demarest Lloyd

Charged into the Standard Oil Company with his book Wealth Against the Commonwealth

Jacob A. Riis

Assailed the rich with his book How the Other Half Lives. Viewed the leisure class as engaging in “wasteful business“ to become richer instead of “produce industry.“

Theodore Dreiser

Battered promoters and profiteers in his books The Titan and The Financier

The name of the brand of progressivism based on Christian teachings, used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the poor.

Lillian Wald

Feminist in New York who fought to improve the quality of life for working-class families

Muckrakers

Bright young reporters working for mudslinging magazines that “dug dirt“ in society. They advocated for reforms and exposed scandals.

Pilgrim’s Progress

The name of the book that President Roosevelt compared the mudslingers to a figure in this story that raked manure. Written by John Bunyan.

Lincoln Steffens

New York reporter who launched a series of attacks in McClure’s named “The Shame of the Cities.“ Exposed the corrupt alliance between big business and municipal government.

Ida M. Tarbell

Pioneering journalist whose father had been ruined by oil interests. She exposed the Standard Oil Company in McClure’s.

Thomas W. Lawson

An erratic and rich speculator in the Stock Market who laid bare the practices of his accomplices in “Frenzied Finance,“ a series of articles that appeared in Everybody’s. Died as a poor man due to his work.