| Patronage | the practice of awarding government jobs to political supporters |
| Spoils system | practice of rewarding supporters with government jobs |
| Merit | ability |
| Civil service commission | government agency created by the Pendleton Act of 1883 |
| Interstate commerce act | act signed in 1887 that forbade pools and rebates |
| Interstate commerce commission | government agency organized to oversee railroad commerce |
| Sherman Antitrust Act | an 1890 law that banned the formation of trusts and monopolies in the United States |
| Political bosses | powerful politician who controls work done locally and demands payoffs from businesses |
| Muckrakers | journalist who exposed corruption and other problems of the late 1800s and early 1900s name taken from fictional character in John Bunyan’s book: Pilgrim’s Progress |
| Progressives | reformer in the late 1800s and early 1900s who wanted to improve American life |
| Public interest | the good of the people |
| Ida Tarbell | a muckraker (1857-1944) |
| Primary | election in which voters choose their party’s candidate for the general election |
| Initiative | process by which voters cab out a bill directly before the state legislature |
| Referendum | process by which people vote directly on a bill |
| Recall | process by which voters can remove an elected official from office |
| 16th Amendment | an amendment that gave Congress the power to pass an income tax |
| 17th Amendment | an amendment that allowed the direct election of senators |
| Theodore Roosevelt | the Progressive vice president to William McKinley who became president after McKinley was assassinated |
| Trustbuster | person who wanted to destroy all trusts |
| Square Deal | Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign promise that all groups would have an equal opportunity to succeed |
| Conservation | protection of natural resources |
| William H. Taft | Roosevelt’s Secretary of War and president |
| Bull Moose Party | Progressive Republicans who supported Theodore Roosevelt during the election of 1912 |
| Woodrow Wilson | Democratic and Progressive president |
| Federal Trade Commission | government agency created in 1914 to ensure fair competition |
| Clayton Antitrust Act | 1914, banned certain business practices and stopped antitrust laws from being used against unions |
| Suffrage | the right to vote |
| Seneca Falls Convention | an 1848 meeting at which leaders of the women’s rights movement called for equal right for women |
| Carrie Chapman Catt | a school principal and reporter who became a leader of the National Woman Suffrage Association |
| Alice Paul | a suffragist who had fought for women’s rights in Britain and then picketed the White House |
| 19th Amendment | a 1919 amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gives women the right to vote |
| WCTU | (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) group organized in 1874 that worked to ban the sale of liquor in the U.S. |
| Frances Willard | president of the WCTU |
| Carrie Nation | a radical temperance supporter whose husband died from heavy drinking |
| 18th Amendment | a 1917 amendment to the U.S. Constitution that made it illegal to sell alcoholic drinks |
| Jacob Riis | Depicted the misery of NYC slums in How the Other Half Lives in 1890 |
| Ida Tarbell | Business practices of SO in magazine articles, 1904 |
| Lincoln Steffens | Shame of the Cities in 1904 |
| Upton Sinclair | The Jungle in 1906 |
| Lewis Hins | Photographed child labor |
| The Jungle | Revealed unsanitary conditions and lives of workers of the meat industry |
| Bubbly Creek | South Fork of the Chicago River became a notorious open sewer for the Chicago Stock Yards. The bubbles were caused by decaying animal carcasses hurled into the stream. Bubbly Creek’s decaying riverbed continues to bubble to this day. |
| William McKinley | Leads to victory in Spanish-American war Strong economy (high tariff) Made him elected and popular |
| Theodore Roosevelt | Party hoped to bury him as VP of William McKinley Became president after assassination 1901-1908 |
| William H. Taft | High tariff which angers Progressives 1908-1912 |
| Election of 1912 | Roosevelt- 4 million McKinley- 3.5 million Wilson- 6.5 million Roosevelt and McKinley split Republican vote |