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Samuel GompersSamuel Gompers, first president of the American Federation of Labor.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Samuel Gompers helps to establish the American Federation of Labor (AFL), one of many labor unions formed during the Progressive Era. Labor unions fight for safer working conditions and higher wages.
1889
Jane AddamsJane Addams sits with some children, about 1930.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3a38128)Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr open Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, that provides social services to poor immigrants.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Jacob Riis, a photojournalist, publishes How the Other Half Lives, a book of photographs showing the shocking living conditions and suffering of poor residents of New York City’s largely immigrant neighborhoods.
July 2, 1890
Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first legislation enacted by Congress to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. (“Trusts” are a kind of business monopoly.)
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file number cph 3a53299)Upon the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley, his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, becomes president. Roosevelt takes office with progressive ideas and hopes to reform several arenas of American society.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Ida Tarbell publishes “The History of the Standard Oil Company”, a series of investigative reports about the unethical business practices of one of the country’s biggest trusts.
Geo. R. Lawrence Co./Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-52728-9)Food safety practices in the meat processing industry are brought to the public’s attention by muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair, whose book The Jungle (1906) outraged and disgusted people. This led Congress to pass legislation on June 30 to help regulate food safety, including the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, which passed on the same day.
March 25, 1911
The Triangle shirtwaist factory fire leads to the deaths of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, in an overcrowded and unsafe New York City clothing factory. The tragedy brings attention to the sweatshop conditions that many labor in.
1912
1912 presidential election This Progressive Party membership ticket shows Theodore Roosevelt and his 1912 vice presidential running mate, Hiram W. Johnson.
Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University LibraryFor the 1912 presidential election the Republican party decides to support the reelection of President William Howard Taft, causing progressive Republicans to form the Progressive Party as competition. With former president Theodore Roosevelt as its nominee, the party is also called the Bull Moose Party, a nod to Roosevelt’s perceived strength. The Progressive Party splits the Republican vote, so the Democrats’ nominee, Woodrow Wilson, is elected president.
1920
Congress passes the Nineteenth Amendment, giving all women citizens the right to vote in U.S. elections.
