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American Federation of Labor (AFL)
An umbrella organization for smaller independent unions founded and headed by labor organizer Samuel Gompers. The AFL protected only skilled workers and had a limited membership of a half a million workers around the turn of the century. It fought businesses for higher wages, shorter workdays, and improvements in the work environment.
Clayton Anti-Trust Act
Law passed in 1914 that was a much tougher replaced to the 1890 Sherman Act, a bill passed by Congress in 1890 that had been intended to ban big business monopolies. Ironically, lawmakers had used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prosecute more labor unions than corporate monopolies during the 1890s. Roosevelt and Taft later used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prosecute dozens of trusts like Standard Oil and the U.S. Steel Corporation. The 1914 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, however, eliminated many of the older act’s loopholes.
Horizontal Integration
A business tactic, often employed by Gilded Age businessmen—and targeted by Progressive Era reformers—that soght to put competitors out of business by selling one type of product in various markets. Another way to accomplish horizontal integration is to buy these competing companies and limit consumer access to a particular commodity, thereby creating a monopoly.
Muckrakers
Exposé writers who informed the public about many corporate evils and social injustices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many muckraker articles and books, such as Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, pushed the US government to launch reform campaigns and contributed to the Progressive movement.
New Freedom
President Woodrow Wilson’s comprehensive package of domestic policies enacted during his first term that sought to lower tariffs, regulate trusts, and protect organized labor.
Open Door Notes
A group of notes sent by Secretary of State John Hay to Japan and several European powers, requesting that they respect Chinese rights and the policy of free trade. Hay sent the First Open Door Note in 1899, fearing that the United States would be excluded from lucrative trade rights in Asia. He drafted the Second Open Door Note in 1900, partly to ensure that the major European powers would recognize China’s territorial integrity, and partly because he feared that Europe would use the violence of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion as a justification for colonizing China.
Populist Party
Political party founded in 1891 by farmers in the Midwest who were suffering from the ill effects of high, pro–big-business tariffs. The Populists campaigned for shorter workdays, nationalization of public utilities, direct election of senators, the recall and referendum, a one-term limit for presidents, and cheap paper money backed by silver (at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold). Although William Jennings Bryan’s loss in the election of 1896 broke up the party, Populist ideals endured and later coalesced into the Progressive movement.
Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
President Theodore Roosevelt’s addendum to the Monroe Doctrine, which effectively declared that only the United States could intervene in the affairs of Latin America. Roosevelt made the declaration in 1904 to prevent Britain, Germany, Italy, and other European nations from forcibly collecting unpaid debts in Latin America.
Square Deal
The collective term for Theodore Roosevelt’s set of progressive domestic policies, which aimed to regulate big business, help organized labor, protect consumers, and conserve the country’s dwindling natural resources.
