The Progressive Era

Question 1

Define/Explain what a Muckraker is.

Answer 1

A muckraker is a journalist or writer who investigated social conditions and exposed government and business corruption. Muckrakers in the Progressive Era brought attention to all sort of problems and corruption.

Question 2

What famous book did Upton Sinclair publish in 1906, which outraged Americans over the horrible conditions in the meatpacking industry?

Answer 2

The Jungle

Question 3

After the public outrage over the conditions exposed in Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, Theodore Roosevelt and Congress created these two laws to address the poor conditions and improve the safety of food products for consumers.

Answer 3

The Meat Inspection Act (1906) and The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

These laws increased consumer protections and led to a safer food supply, especially in the meat we consume.

Question 4

What muckraker book was written by Ida Tarbell and exposed how John D. Rockefeller amassed his wealth?

Answer 4

History of the Standard Oil Company

Question 5

What muckraker book was compiled by Jacob Riis and included famous photographs revealing the horrible living conditions for the urban poor, including children?

Answer 5

How the Other Half Lives

Question 6

This Constitutional Amendment established the income tax as constitutional.

Answer 6

The 16th Amendment (1913)

Question 7

What is the type of income tax we have in the US, for which the more money you make (earn), the more money you pay in taxes?

Answer 7

The Graduated (or Progressive) Income Tax.

People who make a lot of money each year pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than people who make little money each year. The tax “progresses” or “graduates” as your income increases.

Question 8

This law was designed to increase government control over banking and allowed the agency created under this law to regulate the money supply and the interest rates banks charge when money is loaned.

Answer 8

The Federal Reserve Act (1913) which created the Federal Reserve (or “Fed” for short).

The Federal Reserve regulates the amount of money in circulation as well as the interests rates that banks charge when loaning money for a house, a new car, etc…

This act established 12 federal reserve banks across the country.

Question 9

What was the Clayton Anti-Trust Act?

Answer 9

This was another anti-trust law that attempted to give the Federal Government more power to regulate monopolies and trusts in an effort to INCREASE or RESTORE COMPETITION. It was passed in 1913.

Question 10

What happened to child labor during the Progressive Era and afterwards?

Answer 10

It was first reduced, and then eliminated. New laws were passed, like the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, which banned children under 14 from working in factories, mines, etc. engaged in interstate commerce.

In addition, states will continue to create mandatory PUBLIC SCHOOLING laws which require children to be in school. We took the kids out of factories and mines and put them in schools.

Question 11

What was a common complaint of the Progressives about American politics and democracy?

Answer 11

The people, like you and I, did not have enough say (or voice) in our government.

Question 12

Explain Initiative and Referendum as Progressive Era measures.

Answer 12

Initiative allows citizens, like you and I, to “initiate” new laws at the grass roots (person-to-person) level. People can go around and get other people to sign petitions for their proposed laws. If enough people sign the petitions, the proposed law is placed on the ballot for voters to vote on. The actual vote is called the referendum.

Question 13

State voters can remove elected officials from office if there is a shared, collective feeling of “no confidence” in that elected official. This removal from office is called a _______.

Answer 13

Recall

Question 14

This Progressive Era reform (change) allows the members of a political party to vote for who they want their candidate to be on the ballot in the general election. This gives the members of each political party a voice in choosing their own candidate (or “captain”) to go against the other political parties in the November election.

Answer 14

Direct Primary

Question 15

This amendment established the DIRECT ELECTION of US SENATORS. Each state was required to let the PEOPLE living in their state directly vote for their state’s two US Senators in Washington, D.C.

Answer 15

17th Amendment (1913)

Question 16

What is meant by the “secret ballot?”

Answer 16

People now vote in private, for example in a booth or behind a curtain. People never have to disclose who they vote for and the voting is done in a less public way than it used to be done.

Question 17

What were settlement houses?

Answer 17

Located in working class areas, these were community centers that offered child care, education, job skills training, job search help, language classes and social activities for the urban poor, especially new immigrants.

The Hull House in Chicago is perhaps the most famous and was established by Jane Addams.

Question 18

What major achievement was won by women during the Progressive Era?

Answer 18

Women earned the right to vote (suffrage) with the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920.

Question 19

How were the views of African American leaders Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois different?

Answer 19

Booker T Washington said blacks should focus on improving themselves first and was more “accommodating” to whites in power. WEB Du Bois demanded equality NOW!

Both leaders supported African-Americans getting education. However, Booker T. Washington supported vocational training (similar to BOCES) and helped establish the Tuskegee Institute. WEB Du Bois believed that African Americans should help the “talented tenth” get a liberal arts education and rise to positions of power.

Question 20

What does NAACP stand for?

Answer 20

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This organization was founded in 1909 by, among others, WEB Du Bois to “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.”

Question 21

Explain the background, constitutional issue, ruling, and aftermath of the Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson.

Answer 21

A Louisiana law required segregation on railroad cars. Homer Plessy, a men who was 1/8 black (had some black ancestors) challenged the law. He was ordered to get out of the White Only railroad car. He refuses and is arrested.

The Constitutional Issue is whether this Louisiana law violates the 13th and 14th Amendments, including the Equal Protection clause.

The court ruled the segregation WAS ALLOWED (Constitutional) as long as African-Americans had access to “separate, but equal” facilities.

In the aftermath, Segregation laws spread throughout the South, as Jim Crow Segregation continued to be the norm.

This ruling will later be overturned by Brown v. Board of Education.

Question 22

Which Progressive Era President was known as a trustbuster?

Answer 22

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.

He used the Sherman Anti-trust Act to go after monopolies and trusts that he thought were harmful (bad) trusts.

Other trusts, he viewed as acceptable, but in need of government regulation (restraint).

Question 23

“President Theodore Roosevelt supported Conservation of America’s natural resources.” How?

Answer 23

He set aside millions of acres of public (government-owned) lands for national parks, wildlife refuges, national monuments, etc.

He signed the Newlands Reclamation Act which used money from the sale of public lands to pay for irrigation, dams, and beneficial land projects.

He also pushed for the US Forest Service to manage millions of acres of public lands.

Question 24

A social worker who founded Hull House in Chicago, which was one of the first Settlement Houses to serve as a community center to help the poor and work for social reform.

Answer 24

Jane Addams