Progressive Era Vocabulary
TERMS
DEFINITIONS IN YOUR OWN WORDS
1. 18TH Amendment Change in the U.S. Constitution that
outlawed making, buying and selling
alcoholic beverages
2. 19th Amendment Change in the U.S. Constitution that gave
women the right to vote in all states
3. American
An organization of workers that focused
Federation of Labor on helping workers gain higher wages &
better working conditions-one of the first
labor unions organized in the U.S.
4. Child labor
a situation in which children worked like
adults in factories
5. Homestead
a labor dispute in 1892 when
Strike
steelworkers lost union help
(representation) until the 1930s
6. Jane Addams
Progressive reformer who founded the
settlement house called Hull House
7. Progressives
followers of the movement that called for
reform of social problems as a result of
urbanization
8. Prohibition
forbidding by law of the making or selling
of alcoholic beverages
9. Reform
to make something better by change
10. Restriction
to limit or not allow something (rules &
boundaries)
11. Strike
to make or achieve a balance or bargain
by refusing to work
12. Suffrage
the right to vote
13. Temperance
totally avoiding alcoholic beverages
14. Unions
15. Wages
16. Muckraker
organizations of wage-earners formed for
the purpose of helping members with
gaining better wages and working
conditions
money earned/pay for a job
an investigative journalist who “raked”
the “muck” or dirt underlying society in
the late 1800s. They wanted to expose
corruption in order to remove it.
17. Referendum
An election that gives voters the
opportunity to accept or reject a proposed
measure or law on a state ballot (ex. The
VA Lottery)
18. Initiative
The legal method that allows citizens to
place an issue on a state ballot
19. Recall
allows voters to remove unsatisfactory
elected officials from their jobs
20. Political
in the late 1800s they controlled the local
Machine
gov’t (headed by the political boss-Boss
Tweed)
21. Kickback (noun) an arrangement in which city contractors
pad (inflate) their bill for city work and
split the extra charge between themselves
and the city boss
22. Laissez-faire
French term for “hands off”; meaning that
the gov’t should interfere as little as
possible in the nation’s economy
23. Upton Sinclair muckraker who wrote The Jungle which
led to the meat inspection act of 1906
24. Ida Tarbell
muckraker who exposed Standard Oil and
got the gov’t to break up the monopoly
25. 21st
Amendment
26. 17th
Amendment
A change in the U.S. Constitution that
overturned the 18th Amendment
A change in the U.S. Constitution
allowing for the direct election of senators
27. Progressive
Movement
A movement or era in the late 1800s/early
1900s when reformers were needed to
demand massive improvements in the
following areas: the workplace, child
labor, run-down tenements, fight corrupt
businesses and political machines and
bring about equal rights for groups left
behind during the industrial revolution.