Progressive Era Muckrakers

Prohibition (18th amendment)

(18th Amendment) illegal to manufacture, distribute, or possess any type of alcoholic beverage (distilled spirits). The Noble Experiment. Opened the door for organized crime (Al Capone), bootleggers and smuggling.

Progressive Era

1890 - 1920, Progressives tended to be women, middle class, and live in urban areas. Progressives sought to use government influence to solve societal problems.

Clayton Antitrust Act

1914 act designed to strengthen the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890; certain activities previously committed by big businesses, such as not allowing unions in factories and not allowing strikes, were declared illegal.

Theodore Roosevelt

26th President of the United States, 26th president, known for: conservationism, trust-busting, Hepburn Act, Meat Inspection Act, "Square Deal,"

primary

A ballot vote in which citizens select a party's nominee for the general election.

Monopoly

A company that controls all production and sales of a particular product or service

Thomas Nast

A famous caricaturist and editorial cartoonist in the 19th century and is considered to be the father of American political cartooning. His artwork was primarily based on political corruption. He helped people realize the corruption of some politicians

Muckraker

A group of investigative reporters who pointed out the abuses of big business and the corruption of urban politics; included Frank Norris (The Octopus) Ida Tarbell (A history of the standard oil company) Lincoln Steffens (the shame of the cities) and Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)

Ida Tarbell

A leading muckraker and magazine editor, she exposed the corruption of the oil industry with her 1904 work "A History of Standard Oil."

income tax

A tax on people's earnings

secret ballot

Anonymous voting method that helps to make elections fair and honest

Jacob Riis

Early 1900's muckraker who exposed social and political evils in the U.S. with his novel "How The Other Half Lives"; exposed the poor conditions of the poor tenements in NYC and Hell's Kitchen

John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children

Journalist and novelist, he wrote of the unfair treatment of children used as child labor. Spargo was a British granite cutter who immigrated to the United States in 1901 where he became a leader of the conservative wing of the American Socialist Party. Stressed better education, better schools and teachers. Probably the most influential and certainly the most widely read of the Progressive-era exposés of child labor was Spargo's The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906).

Upton Sinclair

Muckraker who shocked the nation when he published The Jungle, a novel that revealed gruesome details about the meat packing industry in Chicago.

Trustbuster

Person who worked to destroy monopolies and trusts.

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities

United States journalist who exposes in 1906 started an era of muckraking journalism (1866-1936), Writing for McClure's Magazine, he criticized the trend of urbanization with a series of articles under the title Shame of the Cities.

Jane Addams

the founder of Hull House, which provided English lessons for immigrants, daycares, and child care classes

Suffrage

the right to vote

regulation

the use of governmental authority to control or change some practice in the private sector

reform

to change for the better