John Dewey (PENG)

Philosopher who argued for a new test of truth, arguing that the real worth of any idea lay in its consequences; championed a new philosophy called pragmatism; put his theory to the test at University of Chicago; pioneer in American education, encouraged students to learn by doing (process, not content, mattered); promoted social experimentation which provided yet another impetus for progressive reform

Frederick Taylor (PENG)

Pioneered “systematized shop management”; obsessed with making humans and machines produce more and faster; basically the creation of the assembly line (breaking production into single tasks to be handled by one person); some hated the monotony of his system, but many progressives applauded the efficiency and productivity it inspired

Robert M. La Follette (PENG)

Congressional rep for Wisconsin who was an early supporter of progressivism; lowered railroad rates, raised railroad taxes, improved education, preached conservation, established factory regulation and workers’ compensation, instituted first direct primary in the country as well as the first state income tax

Upton Sinclair/The Jungle (ANDERSON)

Sinclair wrote this book to expose the horrors of the meatpacking industry: it was filthy and completely unsanitary. This book helped lead to an important piece of Progressive legislation, the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Gifford Pinchot (PENG)

Chief forester who managed Roosevelt’s national conservation policy; fought for the principle of managed use, wanted to use federal power to effect long-term planning and management of national resources; permitted grazing, lumbering, and development, but when after private interests when they acted irresponsibly or threatened to monopolize water/electric power

John Muir (PENG)

Preservationist who criticized Roosevelt’s conservationist agenda; founder of the Sierra Club; believed wilderness needed to be protected from all commercial exploitation; clashed with Roosevelt over the destruction of the Hetch Hetchy valley in California’s Yosemite National Park

William Howard Taft (PENG)

Roosevelt’s nominated Republican successor; continued and furthered much of Roosevelt’s progressive agenda, focusing on international law, child labor, destroying trusts, industrial reform (railroads and food), and conservation; not popular with Roosevelt, defeated by Wilson

Woodrow Wilson (PENG)

Democratic candidate who beat both progressive candidate Roosevelt and republican candidate Taft in the election of 1912; progressive president: tariff reform, banking reform (Federal Reserve Act), anti-trust brigade, federal regulation of trade, and child labor; led the nation during WWI

Margaret Sanger (ANDERSON)

She was one of the first extremely vocal advocates of birth control in America. In the mid-1910s, she was forced to leave America for Europe to escape punishment for her controversial actions. In 1916, however, she returned, a public hero, and opened a birth control clinic. The clinic was only open for a few days when it was closed by authorities and Sanger was arrested.

Alice Paul (PENG)

Quaker social worker who had gotten involved with the women’s suffrage movement in Britain and brought it across the pond; planned a march on the eve of Wilson’s inauguration championing the vote for women; alienated many of the NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association) because of her extreme tactics; founded the militant National Woman’s Party (NWP) – more radical of the two groups (advocating direct action like mass marches and civil disobedience)

Carrie Chapman Catt (PENG)

President of NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association) who crafted the “winning plan” aimed at achieving women’s suffrage in 6 years (1915); led a six-month vigil outside of the White House; only took four years to earn women the vote

Booker T. Washington (ANDERSON)

He was a black leader who advocated black self-help - education, vocational training, etc. - to improve the economic situation of blacks in America. He did not drive as strongly for legal / political equality.

W.E.B. Du Bois (ANDERSON)

He, unlike Booker T. Washington, championed protest against racism to improve the situation of blacks. He founded the Niagara Movement, which attacked Washington's policy of accommodation and advocated universal male suffrage instead.

Social gospel (PENG)

Religious movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries founded on the idea that Christians have a responsibility to reform society as well as individuals; social gospel adherents encouraged people to put Christ’s teachings to work in their daily lives by actively promoting social justice

Social purity movement (ANDERSON)

This was a widespread Progressive movement, connected to the social gospel, which combated vice in the public. The main objects of the movement were to fight prostitution and alcohol abuse.

Women’s Trade Union League (PENG)

Cross-class alliance bringing women workers and the middle class established in 1903; goal to organize women workers under the auspices of the AFL (American Federation of Labor); biggest contribution to the workingwoman’s plight was in supporting the strike at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in NYC

Triangle fire (ANDERSON)

This incident, which occurred at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, displayed the disastrous effects of corruption in business management. Inspectors had been bribed to look the other way as dangerous lint built up in the air. The firetrap caught on flame in March of 1911, causing the death and injury of numerous workers. However, the dangerous conditions resumed and corruption continued even after the disaster.

Muller v. Oregon (PENG)

Product of WTUL lobbying for legislation to shorten the workday for women; U.S. Supreme Court reversed its previous ruling and upheld an Oregon law that limited the workday for women to 10 hours a day (1908) thanks to WTUL and NCL advocates who showed the ill effects (health- and safety-wise) on women in conjunction with long workdays

Pragmatism (PENG)

Philosophy conjured up by William James and John Dewey who argued for a new test for truth; believed there were no eternal truths and that the real worth of any idea lay in its consequences; called their philosophy of pragmatism pluralistic, relativistic

Scientific management (PENG)

Developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was obsessed with making humans and machines produce more and faster; basically the creation of the assembly line (breaking production into single tasks to be handled by one person); some hated the monotony of this system, but many progressives applauded the efficiency and productivity it inspired

Square Deal (PENG)

How Roosevelt phrased his work with labor and capital – became his campaign slogan for the 1904 election; in cracking down on the trusts and intervening personally in labor strikes, he marked a dramatic departure from the presidential passivity of the Gilded Age and demonstrated that the presidency could be used against the big corporations in the interests of the people

Interstate Commerce Commission (PENG)

Vehicle with which Roosevelt was able to establish railroad regulation; gave the ICC real power to set rates and prevent discrimination (preventing big shippers like Standard Oil from monopolizing the entire industry); difficult to establish who had the rights to establish the price of goods/services; led to the Hepburn Act

Hepburn Act (PENG)

Increased the power of the ICC, giving them the authority to set rates subject to court review; passed thanks to Roosevelt’s behind the scenes efforts; proved a landmark victory in federal control of private industry (first time a government commission had the power to investigate private business records and set rates)

Pure Food and Drug Act (ANDERSON)

This was an example of Progressive federal reform to benefit the public. When Upton Sinclair revealed the dangerous practices of the meatpacking industry, American consumers were shocked and demanded a higher standard from food and drug companies, resulting in the act.

Hetch Hetchy controversy (PENG)

Arose when Roosevelt’s conservationist policy led to the destruction of the Hetch Hetchy valley in California’s Yosemite National Park; preservationist John Muir didn’t take the news well; drew criticism from many progressive and non-progressive groups

Newlands Reclamation Act (PENG)

Law establishing the Reclamation Bureau within the Department of the Interior and providing federal funding for irrigation projects; growing federal involvement in the management of water resources (crucial in the West) redefined federal power, characterized progressivism, and marked the end of laissez-faire liberalism; attacked by some progressives who saw the act as encouraging the growth of large-scale farms at the expense of small farmers

Panama Canal (PENG)

A canal linking the Caribbean to the Pacific, that would effectively double the US navy’s power; Roosevelt got the license to begin building by recognizing the revolutionary Panamanian government and paying them $10 million (1903); took 11 years and $375 million to complete; opened in 1914

Roosevelt Corollary (PENG)

Declared that the US would not intervene in Latin America as long as nations there conducted their affairs with “decency,” but America would step in if any of the nations proved guilty of “brutal wrongdoing;” in effect made the US the policeman of the Western Hemisphere and served notice to the European powers to keep out

Dollar diplomacy(PENG)

Taft’s foreign policy championing commercial goals rather than the strategic aims Roosevelt had pursued; assumed he could substitute dollars for bullets (didn’t work, for example, when a revolution broke out in Mexico, among other instances)

Progressive (Bull Moose) Party (PENG)

Party to challenge Republican candidate Taft (running for reelection against Democratic Wilson), centered around Roosevelt (the candidate); focused on ambitious reform (women’s suffrage, presidential primaries, conservation of natural resources, end to child labor, minimum wage – including women workers, workers’ comp, social security, and a federal income tax); doomed, like all third parties

New Nationalism (PENG)

Roosevelt’s progressive party platform (election of 1912), focused on federal planning and regulation (specifically of major corporations and “big businesses”), called for an increase of federal and executive power and a decrease of power for the courts; promotion of social justice and democracy (not laissez-faire economics)

New Freedom(PENG)

Wilson’s democratic agenda (election of 1912) strayed from the traditional course of limited government and states’ rights, focusing instead on antitrust legislation and providing better opportunities for smaller businesses and farmers in the marketplace

Federal Reserve Act (PENG)

Established a national banking system composed of twelve regional banks, privately controlled but regulated and supervised by the Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president; US’s first efficient banking and currency system, provided for a greater degree of governmental authority over banks; Wilsons’ most significant piece of democratic legislation (1913)

Clayton Antitrust Act (PENG)

Outlawed “unfair” competition – practices such as price discrimination and interlocking directorates (directions from one corporation sitting on the board of another, like Andrew Carnegie); Wilson’s attempt to crack down on trusts by spelling out what was legal and what wasn’t didn’t stand and was twisted so as to hurt labor unions, not help them, like previous legislation

Federal Trade Commission (PENG)

Federal regulatory agency with wide investigatory powers and the authority to prosecute corporations for “unfair trade practices” and to enforce its judgments by issuing “cease and desist” orders; continuing Roosevelt’s and Taft’s anti-trust agenda; established by Woodrow Wilson in 1914

Socialist Party (PENG)

Middle-class and native born Americans; proved eager to appeal to a broad mass of disaffected Americans; led by Eugene V. Debs (Pullman Strike) – ran in 5 elections, greatest victory was 6% of the vote in 1912; preached cooperation over competition and urged men and women to liberate themselves from “the barbarism of private ownership and wage slavery”; argued that socialism was the only path to a true democracy

IWW (PENG)

Industrial Workers of the World; one big union created by Debs and the WFM (Western Federation of Miners) dedicated to organizing the most destitute segment of the workforce (those excluded from Gompers’ AFL: western miners, migrant farm workers, lumbermen, and immigrant textile workers); unhesitatingly advocated direct action, sabotage, and the general strike; smaller numbers, but had impact; represented the limitations of progressivism

Atlanta Compromise (PENG)

Booker T. Washington’s speech preaching his accommodationist policy, which appealed to whites and made Washington the national spokesman for African Americans

Plessy v. Ferguson (ANDERSON)

This Supreme Court case set the precedent for "separate but equal facilities," legalizing the South's Jim Crow system and racial segregation and discrimination.

Atlanta race (PENG)

1906: 3 days in September left the streets of Atlanta red with blood and 250 African Americans dead; angry white mobs chased, cornered, killed, and looted any blacks and their homes they could; in the aftermath, black and white community leaders worked together, squelching any black unity; called into question Booker T. Washington’s strategy of gradualism and accommodation

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (PENG)

Coalition of blacks and whites that sought legal and political rights for African Americans through the courts; founded with help from the Niagara movement (which was established by W. E. B. Du Bois) in 1909