Progressive Era & WWI: Reform, Suffrage, and the Great War
Between 1890 and 1920, Progressive reformers tackled corruption, child labor, and women's rights. Then WWI thrust America onto the world stage. Master both stories.
Reform at home, war abroad
The Progressive Era (1890-1920) addressed industrialization's worst side effects — corrupt monopolies, child labor, urban slums, women without the vote. Just as reform peaked, WWI dragged America into global war.
Progressive reforms
- Trust-busting — Theodore Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up monopolies (Standard Oil, Northern Securities). Earned him the nickname "Trust Buster."
- 16th Amendment (1913) — established the federal income tax.
- 17th Amendment (1913) — direct election of US senators by voters (previously chosen by state legislatures).
- 18th Amendment (1919) — Prohibition (banned alcohol). Repealed by 21st Amendment in 1933.
- 19th Amendment (1920) — gave women the right to vote, after a 70-year suffrage movement led by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul.
- Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) — created what would become the FDA. Inspired by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
World War I (1914-1918)
The war began in Europe in 1914 after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. The US stayed neutral until 1917, when:
- Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare sank ships including the Lusitania (1915).
- The Zimmermann Telegram revealed Germany was urging Mexico to attack the US.
- President Wilson called for war: "to make the world safe for democracy."
American involvement was decisive but brief — about 18 months. After the November 1918 armistice, Wilson proposed Fourteen Points for peace, including a League of Nations to prevent future wars. The League was adopted but the US Senate refused to join it (rejecting the Treaty of Versailles), foreshadowing American isolationism in the 1920s-30s.