The Progressive Era as it came to be called, was a period defined by social activism in response to the economic and social problems arising from rapid industrialization during the 1890s to the 1920s.

Populism and the Grange Movement

This website, maintained by Professor Robert Miller at Missouri State University, holds a wealth of primary resources. 

The Authentic History Center

This diverse collection of primary sources make available a broad tour through U.S. history. Maintained by Michael Barnes, a public school teacher, the post-Civil War section contains a multimedia timeline that covers the basic politics of the era. There are sections on the wild west, the Spanish American War, and immigration. This site is worth the visit.

Interstate Commerce Act

Read the original 1887 legislation that created the Interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the conduct of the railroad industry. With this act the railroads became the first industry subject to federal regulation.

Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University

The Vincent Voice Library maintains this collection of audio recording ranging from Progressive Party campaign speeches, the Battle of San Juan Hill (1898), and addresses from the President. For more primary sources from President T. Roosevelt, visit the Library of Congress Manuscript Collection and the Film Collection.

Scientific Management: Frederick Winslow Taylor

This website holds a full-text index of original manuscripts, drawings, artifacts and books by and about Frederick Winslow Taylor, the originator of Scientific Management. The Samuel Williams Library at the Stevens Institute of Technology maintains the Special Collection.

Anti-Saloon League

The Anti-Saloon League Museum, located at the Westerville Public Library (Westerville, Ohio), maintains this site to show the League's importance in the national prohibition movement. From 1893-1933, the League worked to unify public anti-alcohol sentiment and lobby for the enforcement of existing temperance laws and enactment of new legislation. This site contains a brief history of the League and its leaders as well as the League's printed materials--fliers, cartoons, songs, and dramas, “wet and dry” maps of the U.S., contemporary periodical accounts of the temperance movement, and a few excerpts from the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem .

Wickersham Commission Report

Chaired by former U.S. Attorney General George W. Wickersham, the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement produced fourteen reports between 1929 and 1931. One of these reports, the Report on the Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the United States (January 7, 1931), demonstrates a significant official government investigation into prohibition. Although it concluded that the enforcement of prohibition had been woefully ineffective, the Commission nevertheless recommended the continuation of prohibition. This site contains the full text of the report.

Suffragists Oral History Project

This website contains interviews with leaders of the woman's suffrage movement collected in the early 1970s by the Suffragists Oral History Project, under the auspices of the Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office. You will find full text of interviews with notable women, such as Alice Paul, Burnita Shelton Matthews, Helen Valeska Bary, Jeannette Rankin, Mabel Vernon, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, and Sara Bard Field.

New York Times: Articles on Passage of the 19th Amendment

Accessible at the Modern History Sourcebook, an online resource based at Fordham College, this document is comprised of a series of articles from the New York Times detailing the passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in Congress and the battle to get the Amendment ratified by the states. The Amendment was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 19, 1920.

Archives: Women Suffrage and the 19th Amendment

Maintained by the National Archives, this website contains documents from the 1860s to 1920 related to the woman's suffrage movement, as well as lesson plans and teaching resources.

Booker T. Washington: Online Resources

The Booker T. Washington: Online Resources, maintained by the Library of Congress, contains a searchable database of the various materials and media associated with Booker T. Washington and includes a list of related digital materials available on other Web sites.

Images of American Radicalism: Cover Illustrations from The Masses, 1913-1917

Maintained by the Michigan State University Library, this website contains back and front cover illustrations from The Masses, an artistically avant-garde socialist journal from the Progressive Era.

Woman Suffrage Writings

“Votes for Women:” Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Collection, 1848-1920 consists of 167 primary sources documenting the suffrage campaign, it is a subset of the Library's larger collection donated by Carrie Chapman Catt, longtime president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in November of 1938. The collection includes works from the libraries of other members and officers of the organization including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Mary A. Livermore.

"Votes For Women," Suffrage Pictures, 1850–1920

Maintained by the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, this selection of 38 pictures includes portraits of individuals, photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display, as well as cartoons commenting on the movement.

Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850 -1920

The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920, documents the movement to protect America's natural heritage. The collection consists of 62 books and pamphlets, 140 Federal statutes and Congressional resolutions, 34 additional legislative documents, excerpts from the Congressional Globe and the Congressional Record, 360 Presidential proclamations, 170 prints and photographs, 2 historic manuscripts, and 2 motion pictures.