Progressive Characters

Theodore Roosevelt

1. As a child, Theodore Roosevelt was always sick and often stayed in bed. Once he was older and was stronger, he would spend his time outdoors. Later he graduated from Harvard. After his wife died, he became interested in politics and thought about the idea of Manifest Destiny.

2. The Big Stick Policy means that countries should not be afraid to use military force. He also added the Roosevelt Corollary to ensure that if European countries invaded Central and South America, then they would be able to get involved. He also helped create the Progressive Party.
3. Roosevelt made the country believe the imperialistic ideas of taking over the world. He advanced the nation by making them more involved in foreign affairs.

Woodrow Wilson

1. Wilson was interested in the academics and in politics. He attended Princeton University and became a professor, then became the University's President. Moral Internationalism, meaning that the United States had the right to be involved in all world affairs, was his idea.

2. Wilson was involved in the Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I. He also created the fourteen points, all leaders of every countries would gather to discuss global issues.

3. He advanced the nation by making sure the U.S. would be involved in foreign affairs. Through the United Nations the U.S. had the power to be involved in all global issues. 

Ida Tarbell

1. Tarbell was raised in a farming background and a very humble family. Her family established a small oil company themselves. She lbecame muckracker and was known for exposing the Rockefeller corporation.

2. Tarbell exposed Rockefeller in her series "The History of the Standard Oil Company". This led to an investigation of the his companies and then they separated into 6 companies. 

3. Tarbell was a muckraker, meaning she wrote facts which in turn exposed the truth. That is how she had exposed the corruption of the oil company. Her writing led to an investigation of the Standard Oil Company and its disbandment into six different companies, effectively ending Rockefeller's reign

Robert La Follette

1. La Follete was raised in a humble family. He created the Wisconsin Idea in which he tried to get the democracy to be fully for the people.

2. He was involved in the Sedition Act. He since he fought against it. He believed that it was unconstitutional and fought to get Eugene Debs out of prison for speaking negatively about the government.

3. He advanced the nation by trying to even out the equality in the country.  He tried to find a way where people would have a lot of power in the government. He fought for the constitutional rights of the people.

John D. Rockefeller

1. Rockefeller was born in a farm. His family owned a farm and then sold it to buy more land. He went to University and was one of the top people in his class. He created the Standard Oil Company and out of that, he became rich.

2. John Rockefeller was involved in the monopoly business. He knew how to make his country advance through 

3. John Rockefeller advanced the nation through the economical scale. He took over the economic side of the United States through the oil companies and the railroad companies. This in turn, made the United States one of the most influential and most wealthy countries.

Eugene Debs

1. Eugene V. Debs was born in a German family in Terre Haute, Indiana He was an immigrant, his life was difficult, yet their knowledge was as vast as the family library. His family opened a general store and later became trusted members of the community; after finishing high school, Debs went to work at the Union Pacific Railway, but left the dangerous job to do union work and became a union activist.

2. Debs engendered the American Railway Union to help the rights of the workers and he opened a publishing company that to get the voices of the workers that were unheard. The ARU and himself stood behind the Pullman Strike even if he was jailed. The Great Railway Strike was one of his greatest accomplishments which showed what he was giving up for the workers rights.

3. He fought for the progression and way of betterment of life for the Railroad Workers and also the socialist ideas to promote the communal growth of Americans. He wanted to progress the American way life through the government and wanted to end Laissez Fair.

Africans w/ Estela

African Americans first arrived in America during the 17th century. Unlike other immigrants, African Americans were brought to America against their own will. They were caught up in a brutal system of human exploitation. When they first stepped foot onto North America they found themselves in the midst of a thriving slave society. African Americans endured a treatment of harshness seldom. 

African American slaves could be found all over the country to put their hands on all kinds of labor. They tended the wheat fields and fruit orchards of New York and New Jersey; they traveled underground to mine iron and lead in the Ohio Valley; they piloted fishing boats and worked the docks in New England; they operated printing presses in New York City, dairies in Delaware, and managed households from Florida to Maine. After, when African American Americans were given their freedom with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, many tens of thousands began traveling throughout the South in search of long-lost family members, searches that often took years. Then returned to their homelands.

During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, slavery was the law in all of the 13 colonies, North and South. It was employed by its most prominent citizens, including many of the founders of the new United States. The importation of slaves was provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and continued to take place on a large scale even after it was made illegal in 1808. Due to these laws every African American that was brought into America was auctioned off, made a slave, and did lots of labor. 

African American immigrants were received by the current citizens of the United States as slaves. They were put up for auction and declared each to be private property. They used them for their own benefit. In the eyes of the law and of most non-African Americans, they had no authority to make decisions about their own lives. They could be bought, sold, tortured, rewarded, educated, or killed at a slaveholder's will.

Assimilation was not a part of the African Americans' lives in America. They did not see themselves as part of a larger national family at all. They were mistreated in America in a variety of ways. African Americans were seen as property and nothing more; only accepted as slaves.



While in America, African Americans were slaves. Based on their owner they either didn't get payed at all or got payed very little. Some African Americans were able to save up and buy their own freedom and try to start a better life with what they had. Other slaves were had no choice and had to do labor for free and when freed or escaped were left with nothing. The slaves never had lots of many, barely any to support themselves or their families.

The African Americans traditions were not respected. They had to change when they were in the United States. African Americans had a completely way of doing things than they did in the U.S. They had to learn American ways because they were not in their homelands.