Period 9 · 1900–1920

The Progressive Era and World War I

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, reformers set out to tame industrial capitalism, clean up politics, protect workers, and expand democracy. Women won the vote, Black Americans organized against Jim Crow and began moving north, and the United States entered World War I as a rising world power.

Progressives — journalists, settlement-house workers, labor activists, and politicians — attacked monopolies, corruption, unsafe workplaces, and child labor. Disasters like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911) fueled demands for reform. Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal and Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom brought reform to Washington: regulation of business, conservation, the Federal Reserve, and amendments creating the income tax and the direct election of senators.

The woman suffrage movement reached its goal with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Black Americans, led by figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, founded the NAACP to fight Jim Crow, and hundreds of thousands joined the Great Migration north.

In 1917 the United States entered World War I. American troops helped win the war, but at home the government suppressed dissent — upheld by the Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States — and after the war the Senate rejected Wilson’s League of Nations.

See this period on the timeline

Highlights

Jacob Riis’s photograph of Bandits’ Roost, an alley on Mulberry Street in New York

c. 1890s – c. 1920Movement

Progressivism

Reformers confront the problems of industrial America, c. 1890s–1920

Mar 25, 1911Event

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A disaster that changed American workplace safety, March 25, 1911

Aug 18, 1920Document

The Nineteenth Amendment

Women’s right to vote, 1920

James Montgomery Flagg’s “I Want You” recruiting poster

Apr 6, 1917 – Nov 11, 1918War

World War I

The United States enters the Great War, 1917–1918

1868 (disputed)–1963Person

W. E. B. Du Bois

Scholar, editor, and co-founder of the NAACP

c. 1910s – c. 1970sMovement

The Great Migration

Millions of Black Southerners move North and West, 1910s–1970

Events and wars

Portrait photograph of Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, around 1891

Jan 17, 1893 – Jul 7, 1898Event

The Overthrow and Annexation of Hawaiʻi

How American sugar planters toppled Queen Liliʻuokalani and the United States took the islands in 1898

Members of Puerto Rico’s first autonomous cabinet under Spain, including Luis Muñoz Rivera, as published in 1898

1898–1952Event

Puerto Rico Under the United States

From Spanish colony to U.S. territory and commonwealth, 1898–1952

John T. Daniels’s photograph of the Wright Flyer’s first flight on December 17, 1903, with Wilbur Wright running alongside the wingtip

Dec 17, 1903Event

The Wright Brothers’ First Flight

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, December 17, 1903: the first powered, controlled airplane flights

Mar 25, 1911Event

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A disaster that changed American workplace safety, March 25, 1911

Apr 6, 1917 – Nov 11, 1918War

World War I

The United States enters the Great War, 1917–1918

Jan 17, 1920 – Dec 5, 1933Event

Prohibition

The national ban on alcohol, 1920–1933

People

1835–1919Person

Andrew Carnegie

Steel magnate and philanthropist of the Gilded Age

1847–1931Person

Thomas Edison

Inventor of the phonograph and a practical electric light, and creator of the modern research laboratory

1856–1915Person

Booker T. Washington

Educator and the most influential Black leader of his generation

born 1856Person

Woodrow Wilson

Twenty-eighth president: progressive reformer, wartime leader, and segregationist

1858–1919Person

Theodore Roosevelt

Twenty-sixth president and champion of the “Square Deal”

1862–1931Person

Ida B. Wells

Journalist who exposed lynching and fought for civil rights and suffrage

1863–1947Person

Henry Ford

Automaker who put America on wheels with the Model T, the moving assembly line, and the Five Dollar Day

1868 (disputed)–1963Person

W. E. B. Du Bois

Scholar, editor, and co-founder of the NAACP

1895–1948Person

Babe Ruth

The slugger who transformed baseball and became the most celebrated athlete of the 1920s

Documents and court cases

The antidraft leaflet distributed by Charles Schenck

1919Court Case

Schenck v. United States

Free speech in wartime and the “clear and present danger” test, 1919

Aug 18, 1920Document

The Nineteenth Amendment

Women’s right to vote, 1920

Movements, institutions, and ideas

The west front of the United States Capitol

1789Institution

Congress

The legislative branch: the Senate and the House of Representatives

Illustration of suffrage activism in New York City

Jul 19, 1848 – Aug 18, 1920Movement

The Woman Suffrage Movement

Seventy-two years of struggle for women’s right to vote, 1848–1920

Strikers at the start of the 1912 Lawrence textile strike

1877–1935Movement

The Labor Movement

Workers organize for wages, hours, and a voice on the job

A segregation sign in Durham, North Carolina

1880s – 1965Concept

Jim Crow

The system of legal segregation and disenfranchisement, 1880s–1960s

c. 1890s – c. 1920Movement

Progressivism

Reformers confront the problems of industrial America, c. 1890s–1920

c. 1910s – c. 1970sMovement

The Great Migration

Millions of Black Southerners move North and West, 1910s–1970

Concept

Jazz

America’s homegrown music, born in New Orleans

Places

1892–1924Place

Ellis Island

The nation’s busiest immigration station, 1892–1924

Jan 21, 1910 – 1940Place

Angel Island Immigration Station

The West Coast station built to enforce exclusion, 1910–1940

Sources for this overview

1899–1913: Defending U.S. International Interests — U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
1914–1920: World War One and Wilsonian Diplomacy — U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
The American Yawp, “The Progressive Era” — The American Yawp (eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright; Stanford University Press)

Atlas by Alexander. More on Telegram.