Key People
This oil company made John D. Rockefeller one of the richest people in the United States.
What is Standard Oil?
These journalists exposed corruption, unsafe conditions, and social problems during the Progressive Era.
What are muckrakers?
This group included many urban middle-class professionals, managers, and reform-minded citizens.
Who were the Progressives?
After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, factory owners often turned to this workforce for cheap labor.
What is child labor?
This term describes the period after the Civil War when the United States experienced rapid economic growth, industrialization, and major social problems.
What is the Gilded Age?
This railroad tycoon helped create much of the transcontinental railroad system in the United States.
Who is Cornelius Vanderbilt?
This word means covering something of poor quality with a thin layer of gold. It also describes the appearance of wealth hiding serious problems during an era in American history.
What is Gilded?
This is one of the four major goals of Progressive reformers: improving people’s health, safety, and quality of life.
What is protecting social welfare?
This major economic change involved the growth of factories, machines, and mass production.
What is industrialization?
This happened when the difference between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest workers became very large.
What is the wealth gap?
This wealthy businessman gave away much of his fortune to build libraries and support education.
Who is Andrew Carnegie?
This term describes the movement of people from rural areas to cities.
What is urbanization?
Which choice was not a goal of Progressive reformers: protecting social welfare, promoting moral development, securing economic reform, or establishing monopolies?
Name two problems workers often faced in factories during the Industrial Revolution.
Possible answers include long hours, low wages, unsafe conditions, injuries, child labor, and a lack of job security.
This problem involved dishonest government officials, bribery, political machines, and favoritism.
What is political corruption?
This banker and financier helped organize large corporations and was known for his influence over railroads and industry.
Who is J.P. Morgan?
This term describes spending money on expensive goods mainly to show wealth and social status.
What is conspicuous consumption?
Name two reforms Progressives supported to address problems caused by industrialization and urban growth.
Possible answers include food- and drug-safety laws, workplace safety regulations, child-labor restrictions, housing reforms, conservation, direct election of senators, and antitrust laws.
How did new technologies and factories change the way goods were produced?
Machines and mass production allowed businesses to make goods more quickly and cheaply, increasing production and creating large factories.
Sort these characteristics as mostly positive or negative: industrialization, economic growth, unsafe working conditions, urban poverty, growth of the middle class, and an increasing gap between rich and poor.
Mostly positive: Industrialization, economic growth, growth of the middle class.
Mostly negative: Unsafe working conditions, urban poverty, increasing gap between rich and poor.
This writer worked undercover in a meatpacking plant and exposed unsafe conditions in his novel The Jungle. Explain how his work contributed to Progressive reform.
Who is Upton Sinclair? His writing exposed unsafe food-processing conditions and helped build support for government food-safety regulations.
This term describes a business or group that controls an entire industry, reducing or eliminating competition.
What is a monopoly?
Explain how muckrakers helped the Progressive movement.
Muckrakers investigated and publicized problems such as corruption, unsafe working conditions, poverty, and unsafe food. Their reporting helped persuade the public and government leaders to support reforms.
Explain one connection between industrialization, monopolies, and the growth of wealthy business leaders.
Industrialization created large industries such as oil, steel, and railroads. Some business leaders gained control of these industries, formed or expanded monopolies, and accumulated great wealth.
Explain why the Gilded Age can be viewed as both a time of progress and a time of serious problems.
The period brought industrial growth, new technology, economic expansion, and a growing middle class. However, it also included unsafe working conditions, poverty in cities, political corruption, discrimination, struggling farmers, and a large gap between rich and poor.