Video Notes: Progressive Era, Reforms, and Suffrage (Vocabulary)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key people, acts, movements, and concepts from the video notes.

Carrie Chapman Catt

Suffragette leader who helped pass the 19th Amendment; promoted women’s voting rights and later the League of Women Voters.

Eugene V. Debs

Socialist political activist; ran for U.S. president five times; associated with the labor movement and the IWW in spirit of worker solidarity.

IWW (International Workers of the World)

Labor union (the Wobblies) promoting worker solidarity and radical reform; motto: 'an injury to one is an injury to all.'

Samuel Gompers

Leader of the American Federation of Labor (AFL); influential labor organizer; AFL focused on skilled, white male workers.

AFL (American Federation of Labor)

Federation of craft unions formed to bargain for skilled workers; contrasted with broader reform groups of the era.

Robert La Follette, Sr.

Progressive leader from Wisconsin; governor and U.S. Senator; led the Progressive Movement; ran for president on the Progressive ticket in 1924.

The Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt’s domestic program: control of corporations, conservation of resources, and consumer protection.

Theodore Roosevelt

26th U.S. president known for trust-busting and Progressive reforms; proponent of the Square Deal.

Upton Sinclair

Muckraking author of The Jungle; exposed meatpacking conditions; spurred consumer protection laws.

The Jungle

Sinclair’s muckraking novel about unsanitary meatpacking; led to federal food-safety legislation.

Lincoln Steffens

Muckraker who exposed municipal corruption in The Shame of the Cities.

Ida Tarbell

Muckraker who exposed unfair practices of Standard Oil; contributed to its breakup.

Woodrow Wilson

Progressive president who promoted New Freedom; reformed tariffs, banking, antitrust; established Federal Reserve, National Park Service, and welfare measures.

New Freedom

Wilson’s program to advance competition by breaking up trusts and modernizing reforms.

Federal Reserve Act

Law creating the Federal Reserve System to oversee the U.S. money supply and banks.

National Park Service

Agency established to manage and preserve national parks and monuments.

19th Amendment

Constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote.

18th Amendment

Constitutional amendment establishing Prohibition of alcohol.

16th Amendment

Constitutional amendment authorizing a federal income tax.

17th Amendment

Constitutional amendment providing for direct election of U.S. Senators.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

1911 disaster in New York City that killed 146 workers; spurred widespread labor reform and safety laws.

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

First federal act to prohibit trusts and monopolies; enforcement was weak in practice.

Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)

Strengthened antitrust laws and protected labor rights by addressing unfair practices.

Coal Creek Labor Saga

1891 Tennessee conflict where miners struck; convicts used as strikebreakers; led to Coal Creek War.

Granger Movement

Farmers’ movements (Grangers, Alliances, Populists) pushing for economic and railroad reforms.

Initiative

Citizen-proposed legislation framework allowing laws to be placed on the ballot.

Referendum

Voter approval or rejection of laws; a direct democracy mechanism with multiple forms.

Recall

Process to remove public officials from office before the end of their term.

Primary System

Process by which voters choose their party’s candidate in advance of elections.

New Nationalism

Roosevelt’s 1912 program advocating stronger federal regulation and social justice.

Booker T. Washington

Educator and leader who founded the Tuskegee Institute; promoted Black progress through education; delivered the Atlanta Compromise.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Civil rights leader who helped found NAACP; advocated the Talented Tenth and higher education for Black professionals.

The Souls of Black Folk

Du Bois’s critique of racial oppression and defense of higher education and civil rights for Black Americans.

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; civil rights organization founded to fight racial inequality.

Social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer’s extension of Darwinian ideas to society; ‘survival of the fittest’ used to justify inequality and imperialism.

Social Gospel

Protestant movement applying Christian ethics to social problems like poverty, inequality, and crime.

Hull House

Jane Addams’s settlement house in Chicago; promoted social reform and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Jane Addams

Co-founder of Hull House; leading social reformer and Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Jacob Riis

Journalist and photographer; exposed urban slums in How the Other Half Lives.

Carrie Nation

Temperance advocate who used militant tactics, including axe-swinging, to oppose saloons.

Alice Paul

Militant suffragist who organized protests and hunger strikes; helped secure the 19th Amendment and authored early proposals for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Anne Dallas Dudley

Tennessee suffrage advocate; state and national leader who helped secure ratification of the 19th Amendment.