sourced story
c. 1901-1914Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The Progressive Era and the Trust Busters

A reform movement takes on monopolies and unsafe food

On the timeline · around c. 1901-1914 · Gilded Age and IndustrializationGilded Age and IndustrializationWorld Wars and DepressionThe Progressive Era and the Trust Busters189519001905191019151920

Quick facts

Trust-busting case
Northern Securities, ordered broken up in 1901, decided 1904
President
Theodore Roosevelt
Consumer law
Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906
Spark
Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle

What happened

The concentration of wealth and corporate power in the Gilded Age produced a broad reform movement known as Progressivism. President Theodore Roosevelt made a signature of it by turning federal antitrust law against giant corporations. In 1901 he instructed his Justice Department to break up the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company, as an illegal combination acting in restraint of trade; the Supreme Court agreed in 1904, and Roosevelt earned a reputation as a trust buster. Progressive pressure also produced consumer protection: after Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle exposed filthy conditions in meatpacking, public outrage pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited misbranded or adulterated food and drugs and laid the foundation for the Food and Drug Administration.

Why it matters

The Progressive Era built the beginnings of the modern regulatory state, the idea that the federal government should check corporate power and protect ordinary consumers and workers. Antitrust enforcement, food and drug safety, and later reforms like the income tax and direct election of senators grew out of this period and reshaped the relationship between government, business, and citizens.

How we know

The Northern Securities case is documented in Supreme Court records and the Theodore Roosevelt Center's archive, and the Pure Food and Drug Act's passage is documented in congressional records held by the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

Sources

See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.

Part of a timelineHistory of the United States32 events · A hundred English colonists on a swampy island, a constitution argued out over one Philadelphia summer, a country that doubled its size for four cents an acre and fought a civil war over who counted as free, and the superpower that came out the other sideView all →
The Progressive Era and the Trust Busters · History of the United States · SourcedStory