Print showing four scenes in a packing house in Cincinnati: "Killing, Cutting, Rendering, [and] Salting." (1872)

Topics on the Page

Key Primary Sources

Bans against child labor

Initiative, Referendum and Recall

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

Meat Packing Act (1906)

Federal Reserve Act (1913)

• CROSS-LINK: The Federal Reserve System
  

Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)

Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920)

  Link: U.S. AP History Key Concept 6.3:  The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era

Cross-Link: Progressivism and Progressive Leaders

 Primary Sources

Click here for Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Who is a Progressive?”

Click here for Woodrow Wilson’s speech “What is Progress?”

Click here for Theodore Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech

Link to the Library of Congress’s collection of audio recordings of Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive speeches, including “The Progressive Covenant with the People”, as well as “Social and Industrial Justice” among others. 

 Cross- Link to Historical Biography page: Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President

Progressive Era Policies

A. Bans against child labor

• John Altgeld, governor of Illinois, pushed reform of child labor
• Limited women and children to a maximum eight-hour day
• The National Child Labour Committee (1904); persuaded Congress to control child labor
• 1912: Taft created Children’s Bureau to review child’s well-being
• Keating-Owen Act: to control child labor laws, put a limit on age of works and amount of time able to work

Click here for a lesson plan on child labor

B. Initiative, Referendum, and Recall

• its goal was to break up monopolies
• Created “electoral device by which voters may express their wishes with regard to government policy or proposed legislation.” (5)

Click here for a lesson plan on initiative, referendum, and recall from iCivics

Initiative, Referendum and Recall from the National Conference of State Legislatures

C. Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

• banned the formation of trusts and monopolies
• Go here for an overview of Anti-Trust Laws from the Federal Trade Commission
• designed to keep trusts from limiting free trade
• trusts used the courts to block enforcement
• was first used to stick labor unions

Click here to read the Sherman Anti-Trust Act

Northern Securities Case (1904)

See Economics 3.5 for more on competition in the American economic system

D. Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

• required food and drug makers to list ingredients on packages
• attempted to end false advertising and use of impure ingredients
• protection covered medicines soon after

Click here to read the act

E. Meat Packing Act (1906)

• designed to protect American’s diet; sought out to find food unfit for consumption and to keep it from the public’s plates
• response to The Jungle
• meat process plants must be examined as well for sanitary purposes
• inspected animals before and after slaughtering
• Message from President Theodore Roosevelt to the House of Representatives, June 4, 1906
• Report on Conditions in the Chicago Stock Yards, 1905

Click here to read the act

F. Federal Reserve Act (1913)

• set up a system of federal banks across the country
• gave the government the power to increase of decrease interest rates and control the money supply

Click here to read the act

Link here to a page on The Federal Reserve System

G. Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)

• Signed by President Wilson
• Banned some businesses from practices that limited free enterprise
• Prevented antitrust laws from being used against union, which was a major victory for labor
• Clayton Antitrust Act explained by the Federal Trade Commission

Click here to read the act

H. the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920

• Gave women the right to vote; by 1920, ¾ of the states had ratified it
• Doubled the number of eligible voters in the U.S.

 Text of the Nineteenth Amendment

Link to the National Women's History Museum's collection on female progressive era reformers, which includes primary sources, pictures, educator resources, and recommended readings.