#Reform

62 entries

People (21)

Andrew Carnegie

Scottish-born steel magnate and America's greatest philanthropist

Author of The Feminine Mystique and Founder of Second-Wave Feminism, 1921–2006

Billie Jean King

The tennis champion who won the "Battle of the Sexes" and equal pay

Booker T. Washington

Educator, founder of Tuskegee Institute, and architect of the Atlanta Compromise

Chester A. Arthur

21st President of the United States, the machine politician who became an unlikely reformer

Reformer who transformed the treatment of the mentally ill in America

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Suffragist, abolitionist, and primary architect of the American women's rights movement

Labor Leader, Socialist Presidential Candidate, and Prisoner of Conscience, 1855–1926

Journalist and activist who became the defining public voice of second-wave American feminism

Deaf-blind author and activist whose radicalism the 20th century spent decades trying to forget

Investigative Journalist Who Broke Standard Oil, 1857–1944

Social reformer, Nobel laureate, and founder of Hull House

John D. Rockefeller

Founder of Standard Oil and the wealthiest private citizen in American history

Naturalist, Writer, and Father of the American Conservation Movement

Margaret Sanger

Birth control pioneer whose crusade for reproductive rights is inseparable from her eugenicist ideology

Marine Biologist and Author Whose Silent Spring Launched the Environmental Movement, 1907–1964

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Father of American Transcendentalism and prophet of self-reliance

Founder of the American Federation of Labor and father of the U.S. labor movement

Susan B. Anthony

The suffragist whose half-century of organizing made the 19th Amendment possible

Muckraking Author of The Jungle Who Accidentally Reformed the Food Supply, 1878–1968

William Lloyd Garrison

Publisher, abolitionist, and the loudest moral voice against American slavery

Places (1)

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The most-visited national park, created by dispossessing 6,600 Appalachian families

Eras (2)

Jacksonian Democracy

The 20 years of democratic expansion — and brutal exclusion — that remade American politics, 1828–1848

The Progressive Era

The reform movement that used government to rein in the Gilded Age's excesses, 1900–1920

Events (9)

Civil Rights Movement

The decades-long struggle that dismantled legal segregation and reshaped American democracy

Prohibition Era

The national ban on alcohol that lasted from 1920 to 1933

Salk Polio Vaccine

The 1955 vaccine that ended summer polio epidemics — and the doctor who refused to patent it

Seneca Falls Convention

The 1848 gathering that launched the organized American women's rights movement

Tennessee Valley Authority

The New Deal's most ambitious experiment — electrifying Appalachia and remaking a region

The #MeToo Movement

The 2017 reckoning over sexual harassment and assault

The AIDS Epidemic

A public-health catastrophe that reshaped medicine and activism

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The 1911 factory disaster that transformed American labor law

Women's Suffrage Movement

The seven-decade campaign that won American women the right to vote in 1920

Documents (11)

Eighteenth Amendment

The Constitutional Ban on Alcohol That Created Prohibition, 1919–1933

Medicare and Medicaid Act

The 1965 Law That Created Health Coverage for the Elderly and the Poor

Pendleton Civil Service Act

The 1883 Reform That Ended the Spoils System in Federal Hiring

Seventeenth Amendment

The Amendment That Created Direct Election of U.S. Senators, 1913

Sherman Antitrust Act

The 1890 law that gave the federal government its first tool against monopoly power

Sixteenth Amendment

The Amendment That Created the Federal Income Tax, 1913

Social Security Act

The 1935 law that created the American social safety net

The Fair Labor Standards Act

The 1938 law that set the minimum wage, the 40-hour week, and ended child labor

The Indian Citizenship Act

The 1924 law that made Native Americans citizens of a country built on their land

The 1935 law that gave American workers the right to organize

Twenty-First Amendment

The Repeal of Prohibition — The Only Amendment to Undo Another, 1933

Concepts (18)

The movement to end slavery in America, from moral argument to political force

Civil Disobedience

The deliberate, nonviolent refusal to obey unjust laws as a form of moral protest

Evangelical Christianity

The faith of revivals, reform movements, and the most durable political coalition in modern American history

First Great Awakening

The 1730s–1740s religious revival that made Americans a people before they were a nation

Machine Politics

The urban political organizations that traded services for votes and ran American cities for a century

The Progressive Era journalism that exposed America's hidden costs of industrial prosperity

Native American History

The nations who were here first — conquest, removal, and a story of survival

Temperance Movement

The campaign against alcohol that reshaped American social and political life

The Environmental Movement

From Theodore Roosevelt's conservation to Rachel Carson's alarm to the unresolved politics of climate

The Great Society

Lyndon Johnson's legislative program to end poverty and expand opportunity

The Knights of Labor

The first great American union — and its rise and sudden fall

The Labor Movement

The century-long fight by American workers for fair wages, safe conditions, and human dignity

Franklin Roosevelt's 1933–1939 legislative program to combat the Great Depression

The Second Great Awakening

The religious revival that reshaped American faith, reform, and politics, 1800–1840

Transcendentalism

The New England movement that gave America its philosophy of individual conscience

The Progressive Era campaign to break up industrial monopolies and restore competition

Women's Liberation Movement

The feminist uprising of the 1960s and '70s that transformed American law and culture

The two-century fight for equality — the vote, the workplace, and the body

All Tags

Politics 123 Economy 109 Civil Rights 107 Military 99 Presidency 93 Founding Era 84 Law & Justice 82 Foreign Policy 76 Race 73 Reform 62 Civil War 59 Protest 58 Cold War 57 Westward Expansion 57 Slavery 53 Science & Technology 53 Industry 52 Constitution 51 War 49 Revolution 49 Women 45 Modern America 44 Indigenous 40 Arts & Culture 36 Diplomacy 34 Media & Press 31 Immigration 28 World War II 28 Labor 25 Supreme Court 25 Religion 24 Environment 23 Exploration 23 Disaster 22 Congress 22 Reconstruction 21 Progressive Era 21 Abolition 20 Assassination 15 Gilded Age 13 Finance 13 Colonial America 13 Public Health 12 Education 10 Democracy 8 Sports 8 World War I 7 Suffrage 7 Corruption 7 Prohibition 1