In this circa-1910 image, President William Howard Taft throws out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball Game.

How Gilded Age Excesses Led to the Progressive Era; A rally of the Populist movement in Willowdale Township, Dickinson County, Kansas

William Randolph Hearst: (1863-1951) Newspaper Tycoon.

William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Presidential nominee, delivering a campaign speech in 1910. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Progressive Era

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HISTORY

America’s Founding Fathers decided that one elected civilian—the U.S. president—would lead the executive branch of the federal government, a governmental structure that has remained in place for more than 200 years.

U.S. Presidents

World War I pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against Great Britain, the United States, France, Russia, Italy and Japan. New military technology resulted in unprecedented carnage. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

World War I

The U.S. government, with its three branches of government and a system of checks and balances, is responsible for governing the 50 states and all districts and territories of the United States.

U.S. Government and Politics

In the early 20th century, America was flexing its economic and political muscle on the international stage. The era was defined by the temperance movement, Progressive-era activism, the sinking of the Titanic and World War I.

Early 20th Century U.S.

Though the 19th century saw the rise of populism, the labor movement and Jacksonian democracy, it also ushered in the Gilded Age, when men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and J. P. Morgan wielded vast control over politics and business.

Progressive Era

Topics

William Randolph Hearst

William Jennings Bryan

William Howard Taft

Stories

How Gilded Age Corruption Led to the Progressive Era

7 Things You May Not Know About ‘The Jungle’

This Day in History

William Jennings Bryan resigns as U.S. secretary of state