Progressive Era Vocabulary
This is a list of vocab for the Progressive Era for 8th Grade students
Terms
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- Recall
- The right that enables voters to remove unsatisfactory elected officials from office
- Suffragist
- A person who campaigned for women's right to vote such as: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul
- Homestead Act
- A law passed in 1862 to encourage people to settle in the West by giving people 160 acres of free land if they promised to farm it for 5 years
- Prohibition
- The nationwide ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor in the United States that went into effect when the 18th Amendment was ratified in 1920
- Discrimination
- Unfair treatment of a group; unequal treatment because of a person's race, religion, ethnic background, or place of birth
- Populist
- A political party formed in 1891 mostly by farmers & members of labor unions who demanded government help with falling farm prices, regulation of railroad rates, and free silver (more money to be put in circulation)
- Spoils system
- Practice of rewarding supporters with government jobs - this practice led to corruption
- Old Immigration
- Immigrants from Northwest Europe arriving in the EARLY 1800s
- Patronage
- Another name for the spoils system, in which government jobs or favors are given out to political allies and friends
- Primary
- an election in which voters choose their party's candidate
- Laissez-faire
- Policy that the government should NOT interfere in the nations economy (hands off)
- New Immigration
- Immigrants from Southern and Eastern European countries and Asia arriving in the LATE 1800s
- Referendum
- The practice of letting voters accept or reject measures proposed by the legislature
- Civil service
- Refers to all federal jobs (except elected positions and the armed services), one must take an exam, and only those with the highest scores are qualified to get the jobs
- Square deal
- Theodore Roosevelt's promise of fair and equal treatment for all
- Conservation
- The protection of natural resources
- 19th Amendment
- In August of 1920 this gave women the right to vote
- Corruption
- Dishonest or illegal actions
- Temperance
- Movement founded by the WCTU seeking legislation designed to limit alcohol consumption
- Initiative
- The right of citizens to place a measure or issue before the voters or the legislature for approval
- Political machine
- An organization linked to a political party that often controlled local government
- Sharecropper
- A farmer that works and lives on land owned by someone else. They pay rent by giving a portion of their crop to the landowner
- Corporation
- A business owned by investors (people who buy stock) and that sells stock in order to raise money
- Trustbuster
- Someone who breaks up a trust into smaller companies
- Muckraker
- Reporters and journalists who reported on corrupt politicians and other problems in society, for example, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle about the gruesome details of the meatpacking industry; Thomas Nast's cartoons ruined Boss Tweed