Chapter 20 APUSH Terms

W.E.B. DuBois (Cultural)

A Harvard-educated black sociologist celebrated in his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk. Unlike Washington, he fought openly over black rights and did not readily concede to whites as Washington did.

Louis Brandeis (Cultural)

A Jewish emigrant who became known as "the people's lawyer" because of his regularly taking on and beating the mightiest vested interested in town. He believed in enlisting in a good cause, and in fact embodied progressivism's capacity for uniting brainpower and high-mindedness.

John Burgess (Cultural)

A Southern-born professor at Columbia University who pronounced the 15th Amendment a "monstrous thing" for allowing blacks to vote. His white supremist notions were met with accord in 1908 presidential-elect William H. Taft, who believed blacks to be inferior.

Lochner v. New York (Political)

A Supreme Court case that struck down a state law limiting the hours of bakers. The Court contended it was protecting the contractual liberties of the bakers, a decision opposed by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Muller v. Oregon (Political)

A Supreme Court decision that upheld an Oregon law limiting he workday for women to ten hours. The Consumers' League had recruited Brandeis for the case; it led to mighty lobbying by women's organizations.

Robert La Follette (Wisconsin Idea) (Political)

A conservative Wisconsin governor who feuded with states. He adopted a direct-primary system, set up a railroad regulatory commission, raised taxes, and limited campaign spending, together known as the Wisconsin Idea.

Triangle Fire (Cultural)

A fire that took place at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, killing 146 immigrant women averaging 19 years old as they were trapped by the flames or jumped to their deaths. As a result, the New York State Factory Commission developed an extensive program of labor reform.

Social Gospel (Cultural)

A major theological doctrine created by the Protestant clergy in order to fight the plight of the poor. Led by Walter Rauschenbusch, it was a campaign for the church to better the lives of the poor; Heaven could only be achieved by striving for social justice.

Urban Liberalism (Cultural)

A new strain of progressive reform that advocated active intervention by the state in uplifting the laboring masses of America's cities. It emerged as a result of the Triangle Fire, which instilled altruism in politicians such as Al Smith and Robert Wagner.

Pragmatism (Cultural)

A philosophical doctrine developed primarily by William James that denied the existence of absolute truths and argued that ideas should be judged by their practical consequences.

Josephine Shaw Lowell (Cultural)

A progressivist who concluded that giving assistance to the poor was not enough. Rather, she founded the New York Consumers' League to improve the wages and working conditions of female clerks in the city's stores by issuing a "White List" of cooperating shops.

Carrie Chapman (Cultural)

A skilled organizer from the New York movement who took over as national leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Under her guidance, it brought a broad-based organization to the campaign for a federal amendment.

Alice Paul (Cultural)

A young Quaker who applied confrontational tactics to the American struggle. She advocated a constitutional amendment that in one stroke would grant women everywhere the right to vote and, in 1916, organized the militant National Woman's Party.

Pure Food and Drug Act (Political)

An act passed by Roosevelt after publication of The Jungle that authorized a federal investigation of the stockyards. Its passing led to another administrative agency joining the expanding federal bureaucracy, the FDA.

Interstate Commerce Commission (Political)

An assertion of federal authority that made railroads subject to federal regulation. Under Roosevelt, it was empowered to set maximum shipping rates and prescribe uniform methods of bookkeeping.

Jane Addams/Hull House (Cultural)

Jane Addams was middle class woman. The Hull House is a settlement house that she installed in a ghetto of Chicago. The house inspired many other like settlements across the country, while Addams spent her lifetime battling for garbage removal, playgrounds, better street lighting, and police protection.

Square Deal (Political)

Progressive concept by Roosevelt that would help capital, labor, and the public. It called for control of corporations, consumer protection, and conservation of natural resources. It denounced special treatment for the large capitalists and is the essential element to his trust-busting attitude. This deal embodied the belief that all corporations must serve the general public good.

Booker T. Washington (Cultural)

Prominent black American, born into slavery, who believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society, was head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. His book "Up from Slavery."

Meat Inspection Act (Political)

Required strict cleanliness requirements for meat packers and created a program of federal meat inspection. It came about in 1906 as a result of president Roosevelt reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Roosevelt appointed a commission of experts. To investigate the meat packing industry. Then the commission issued a report backing up Sinclair's account of the disgusting conditions in the industry.

Trust Busting (Political)

Roosevelt's order of business against trusts abusing their power, like Standart Oil, American Tobacco, and DuPoint, that he saw as "predatory wealth". Using the Sherman Act, Roosevelt and the Supreme Court evaluated whether or not an act of restraint on trade was reasonable.

NAACP (Cultural)

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, formed in 1909 by a meeting of sympathetic white progressives. Its members came from the Niagara Movement and, although led mostly by whites, was largely led by DuBois in its attempts to demand equal rights.

Florence Kelley (Cultural)

The head of the growing National Consumers' League who made it a powerful advocate for protective legislation for women and children.

Wilson and Progressivism (Political)

The president of Princeton University who helped bring it into the foreground and later the Democratic nominee in 1912. Openly announcing his differences with Roosevelt, he hammered out, in reaction to New Nationalism, a coherent reform program called New Freedom, which, unlike the former which represented future collectivism, would preserve political and economic liberty.

Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism (Political)

The reluctant successor of McKinley after the latter's assassination. After gaining control of the Republican Party, he became uncertain as to how to proceed in his presidency, called a progressive without a cause.

Women's Suffrage Movement (Cultural)

The struggle by women like Jane Addams and Florence Kelley for the rights of women to vote. The movement spread beyond the originally middle-class base, allowing for funding and widespread support.

Muckrakers (Cultural)

This term applies to newspaper reporters and other writers who pointed out the social problems of the era of big business. The term was first given to them by Theodore Roosevelt.

Taft versus Roosevelt (Political)

What resulted from Taft's targeting major industry. When he went after the U.S. Steel Organization, which Roosevelt had approved himself, it amounted to a personal attack on Roosevelt.

Feminists (Cultural)

Women activists that created a doctrine that women should be equal to men in all areas of life. They sought to overcome all barriers to equality and full personal development.