-
Coal Miner Strike
Anthracite coal miners go on strike in Pennsylvania, protesting the deplorable working conditions of the mines and in the mining towns. -
Coal Strike Ends
After months of striking, coal miners and their reluctant employers finally agree to an arbitration commission at President Roosevelt's behest. The commission awards the mine workers a nine-hour day and a 10% wage increase, but the United Mine Workers Union does not receive company recognition and the miners are forbidden from striking again for the next three years. -
Elkins Act
Congress passes the Elkins Act, which is intended to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Act. The Elkins Act makes it a crime for railroads to grant freight rates other than those which they have published. With rebates, some rail lines especially the larger ones grant off-the-books discounts to important customers. These special customers are usually trusts who demand special treatment or else threaten to take their extremely valuable business elsewhere. -
The Jungle Published
Socialist author Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a sensationally graphic account of the meatpacking industry in Chicago's stockyards. Sinclair is trying to raise public awareness of corporate corruption and the deplorable conditions in which poor workers toil, but most of the resulting public outcry instead centers on demand for more food safety provisions. -
Food and Drug Act & Meat Inspection
Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act in response to exposés of the patent-drug, meatpacking, and food industries. On the same day, Congress also approves its second Meat Inspection law to date. The U.S. Drug Administration must inspect all animals destined for human consumption—cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and swine—before they are slaughtered. Carcasses are subject to post-mortem inspections and slaughterhouses and processing plants must uphold cleanliness standards. -
Financial Panic
A financial panic strikes the nation. Republicans argue that Progressive reforms have caused this economic downturn. In the absence of a Federal Reserve Bank, financiers like J.P. Morgan take steps to rectify the economic instability. Morgan pools the resources of New York banks to bail out the failing institutions that caused the recession. He also secures a guarantee from President Roosevelt that the government will not pursue antitrust action against U.S. Steel. -
Muller v. Oregon
In Muller v. Oregon, the Supreme Court holds that Oregon can constitutionally pass a law limiting women's work in factories and laundries to ten hours a day. The Court has allowed states to regulate child labor within their borders, but until now, it has taken a more restrictive approach to laws concerning the conditions of adult female workers because it used to consider such regulations to be violations of adult employees' freedom of contract. The Muller decision reverses this trend. -
Progressive Movement & Mann-Elkins Act
The word "Progressive" enters common parlance as a description of the burgeoning political movement that seeks to reform various aspects of American society and politics.
The Mann-Elkins Act is passed in order to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Commission. -
Department of Labor Established & Standard Oil Antitrust
The Taft administration creates the Department of Labor, and the Taft administration uses the Sherman Antitrust Act to act against the Standard Oil trust and the American Tobacco Company. -
Fire Ignites Public
A fire breaks out in the supposedly "fireproof" Asch building where Triangle Waist Company occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The workers are locked inside the factory; some jump to their deaths to avoid burning alive. In all, 146 people die in the blaze, all within half an hour. This incident ignites public opinion against unsafe urban working conditions and the plight of young female immigrant workers. -
Roosevelt Bolts
The Republican Party holds its convention in Chicago and nominates William Howard Taft after a fierce struggle. Teddy Roosevelt, Taft's former friend and predecessor in the White House, has been running against Taft since February for the nomination. When he doesn't win the nomination, Roosevelt bolts the party and runs for president on a separate ticket with the Progressive Party. -
Wilson Elected
With the Republican vote split between Taft and Progressive candidate Roosevelt, the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson is elected president. -
Underwood-Simmons Tariff
President Wilson calls a special session of Congress to pass the Underwood-Simmons Tariff, which reduces the nation's protective tariff rates substantially for the first time since the Civil War. Progressives hope that this reform will encourage competition in the marketplace and undermine monopolization. To recoup the lost revenue, the government also passes the first income tax, levied on individuals and corporations earning over $4,000 a year. -
16th Amendment
The 16th Amendment is ratified, empowering Congress to levy income taxes. -
17th Amendment
The 17th Amendment is ratified, allowing for the direct election of U.S. Senators instead of through state legislators. -
Progressive Movement
Benjamin P. DeWitt, a 24-year-old professor of English and government at New York University, publishes The Progressive Movement, his only book. It seeks to offer a "non-partisan, comprehensive discussion of current tendencies in American politics" and is an instant success. -
Wilson Reelected
Woodrow Wilson is successfully reelected after campaigning with the slogan "He kept us out of war." -
Wilson Asks for War
President Wilson appears before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany and the Central Powers. -
Sedition Act
Congress passes the Sedition Act, an even more repressive measure than the Espionage Act. Along with the Sabotage Act of April 20th, it expands the penalties of the Espionage Act to apply to anyone who discourages military recruiting, interferes with government bond sales, or criticizes the government, the Constitution, service uniforms, the flag, or the war or even wartime production levels. -
Armistice Day
Germany surrenders and the Allies win World War I. This comes to be known as Armistice Day. -
Treaty of Versailles
Woodrow Wilson becomes the first sitting president to leave the United States when he travels to Paris as he is so deeply invested in the outcome. He wants to carry his Progressive principles to Europe and ensure a perpetual peace throughout the region. President Wilson then presents the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate for ratification when he comes back. -
Cities Populated
For the first time, a majority of the American population now lives in cities.
