The Progressive Era
Journalists, reformers, and new laws tried to clean up the mess industrialization had made of cities, food, and government.
4 topics · 13 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
Muckrakers and Public Outrage
- Going furtherWhat happens to a company's business once a muckraking exposé about it reaches millions of readers.
- How it worksWalk me through how Upton Sinclair's The Jungle turned stomach-churning detail into the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
- How it worksHow did muckraking journalists expose city corruption and unsafe factories to readers who had never seen either.
Your turn1 of 2
Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle described unsanitary conditions inside a meatpacking plant in stomach-churning detail. Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act within months of its publication. Why did one novel lead to a federal law that fast?Trust-Busting and Regulation
- How it worksHow did the Interstate Commerce Commission gain the power to actually set railroad shipping rates.
- Worked exampleShow me the Sherman Antitrust Act breaking Standard Oil into 34 separate companies in 1911.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't trust-busting the same thing as being against big business itself.
Your turn1 of 2
Standard Oil controlled about 92 percent of US oil refining before the Sherman Antitrust Act broke it into 34 separate companies in 1911. If each new company had ended up with an equal share of that business, about what percentage would each one control on average?Democratic Reforms and Constitutional Amendments
- Going furtherWhat happens to state alcohol laws once the 18th Amendment bans alcohol nationwide in 1920.
- How it worksShow me how the initiative, referendum, and recall let citizens bypass a state legislature they distrusted.
- How it worksHow did the 17th Amendment change senators from being chosen by state legislatures to being elected directly by voters.
Your turn1 of 2
Progressive reformers pushed for new tools like the initiative, referendum, and recall, letting voters propose laws, vote on them directly, and remove officials from office. Why did reformers think voters needed these new tools to control their own governments?The Women's Suffrage Movement
- How it worksShow me the map of states granting women the vote spreading from the West before the 19th Amendment in 1920.
- How it worksWalk me through how suffragists shifted from state-by-state campaigns to marching on Washington for a federal amendment.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't the 19th Amendment's passage in 1920 mean every American woman could vote right away.
- Ties togetherHow does the suffrage movement's state-by-state strategy foreshadow the same strategy civil rights activists use decades later?
Your turn1 of 2
The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 first called for women's voting rights, but the 19th Amendment guaranteeing that right nationally wasn't ratified until 1920. Why did it take over 70 years?