Foreign Affairs
A war between the United States and Spain in 1898. Ostensibly triggered by the alleged sinking of the Maine by Spanish forces, it involved the United States aiding independence efforts in Cuba to protect financial investments there, as well as to safeguard the Gulf Coast from a free Cuba potentially leasing its ports to foreign powers. The United States took control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and several other islands. Also led to the Philippine–American War and subsequent Moro Rebellion (1899–1913).
IMPERIALISM!!!!!!!!!!
Spanish-American War
A reform which encouraged a merit-based system for the civil service over the then-predominant party patronage (spoils) system.
Pendleton Civil Service Act (1881)
Ratified in 1920, it granted women the right to vote.
19th Amendment
A nickname for investigative journalists who seek to spur reform and expose corruption. Originated during the Progressive Era.
muckrakers
A term for journalism that produced juicy stories, both real and wildly sensationalized, designed to drive newspaper readership, sometimes at the expense of the truth.
Yellow Journalism
A policy articulated by Secretary of State John Hay; declared that China would be open and free to trade equally with any nation.
The policy was wildly popular in the United States, as it kept Chinese markets open to American business while outwardly avoided the taint of imperialism. Unsurprisingly, it was denounced and resisted in China due to it being a thinly veiled justification for violating their sovereignty.
Contributed to the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion.
Open Door Policy
A 1906 piece of progressive legislation ensuring the safety and accurate labelling of food and drug products. Inspired in part by Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, a story illustrating the poor conditions at a Chicago meatpacking plant.
Pure Food & Drug Act
Founded in 1908, this organization seeks to end all racial discrimination, segregation, and disenfranchisement.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
An African American intellectual who believed that his people should demand nothing less than social and political equality with whites; only then would blacks gain economic success.
W. E. B. Du Bois
A group of World War I veterans, who marched on Washington in 1932 to demand the early release of bonuses Congress had promised to pay in 1945. Soldiers used tear gas and tanks on the unarmed protesters. The U.S. Army also burned the encampment, driving away the veterans.
Bonus Army
A pejorative label for Teddy Roosevelt’s foreign policy, especially in Panama, that referenced his repeated threats to use military force while negotiating peacefully.
A 1901 court decision which ruled that a citizen in a conquered territory did not necessarily have the protection of the Constitution. It was up to Congress to decide the rights of the peoples in the newly conquered territories.
Insular Cases
An influential Protestant social justice movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It stated that Christians had an obligation to improve the lives of those less fortunate, especially the poor. Its leaders encouraged many middle-class Protestants to join reform efforts, such as those calling for laws banning child labor and making school compulsory for children. Essentially, it was the religious wing of the Progressive movement.
Social Gospel
Governor and later U.S. Senator of Wisconsin. A notable Republican from his party’s progressive wing, he forced the introduction of direct primaries in his state, campaigned for child labor laws, a minimum wage, and women’s suffrage. He opposed U.S. entry into World War I. Ran for president as the Progressive Party candidate in 1924, but won only his home state and roughly 17 percent of the national vote.
Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette
A period beginning around 1910 which saw millions of African Americans move from the South to northern cities. This was to take advantage of economic opportunities in the North, often to escape from the exploitation system of sharecropping.
Great Migration
An amendment to the Monroe Doctrine issued by Theodore Roosevelt. It stated that the United States would come to the aid of any Latin American nation experiencing financial trouble. In essence, the United States gained total control of Latin America through the corollary.
Roosevelt Corollary
A 1921 law that set a strict limit on individuals from each nation of origin based on the 1910 census. In practice, this biased immigration in favor of northern and western Europeans. Repealed by the Immigration Act of 1965.
Emergency Quota Act (Immigration Act)
Ratified in 1913, it authorized the federal government to collect an income tax.
16th Amendment
An outspoken Christian fundamentalist and anti-imperialist, he served as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President on three separate occasions. He saved the party from being overtaken by the insurgent Populist Party by co-opting its progressive policies and rhetoric. Later served as the prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Delivered the famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1896. In it, he savaged the gold standard in favor of bimetallism. The speech concluded with the line “you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” It won him, a dark horse, the Democratic nomination for President. Considered one of the greatest works of American rhetoric.
William Jennings Bryan
An infamous sweatshop fire in New York City in 1911. 146 out of 500 women and girls, some as young as 15, either died in the blaze or from jumping from the top floors in a desperate bid to escape. While the factor owners were acquitted of any wrongdoing, despite knowing the exits and fire escapes were locked, it led to massive reforms in factory conditions.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
A foreign policy initiative by FDR. Centered on Latin America, it saw the withdrawal of American forces from Nicaragua and the establishment of normalized relations between the United States and the nations of Latin America. Its non-interference, non-interventionist doctrine lasted until the start of the Cold War.
Good Neighbor Policy
A 1914 law which strengthened provisions for breaking up trusts and protected labor unions from prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Labor leader Samuel Gompers hailed the bill as labor’s “Magna Carta.”
Clayton Antitrust Act
A women’s suffrage organization founded in 1890.
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Became leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1900. An outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage, she believed that women could only guarantee protections for themselves and their children through voting.
Carrie Chapman Catt
A progressive policy platform advocated by President Theodore Roosevelt. It involved breaking up trusts, increasing government regulation of business, pro-labor laws, and promoting environmental conservation. The New Deal took its name from it.
Square Deal