• Female activists sought to get higher wages and better working conditions.
• Organizations like the The Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) worked to accomplish this through the work of middle and working class women
• In the early 1900's strikes such as the Rising of 20,000 and Bread and Roses were used to get work place equality
• Florence Kelly's work with The National Consumers League (NCL) played a large role in women achieving maximum working hours and a minimum wage

• The National Association of Colored Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Urban League all worked towards economic equality for African Americans
• Broker T. Washington established an African American trade school to help them progress in society

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) helped to promote political equality for African Americans in the forms of political lobbying, publicity efforts, and court strategies.
• W.E.B Debouis formed the Niagra Movement and the NAACP. He went to courts to fight Jim Crow laws and continued to use the legal department in fighting “separate but equal” doctrine made in Plessy vs. Ferguson
• Women progressed in that an adult unmarried woman could own property and make contracts in her own name.
• Women campaigned for voting rights under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the head of the National American Women Suffrage Association. Women were able to vote in 1920 thanks to the 19th amendment.

• Maternal Commonwealth: Upper-middle-class women of the late 19th century were not content with the cult of domesticity of the early 1800s. Many had become college educated and yearned to put their knowledge and skills to work for the public good.
• Womens’ Christian Temperance Movement: supported prohibition of alcohol and served at soup kitchens or medical clinics.
• Settlement houses: provided family-style cooking, lessons in English, and tips on how to adapt to American culture.
• Contempt for African Americans: Revitalized Ku Klux Klan continued to intimidate and victimize African Americans in the South, but also included anyone they perceived as foreign—immigrants, Catholics, and Jews—in their campaign of violence. The government actively passed laws that hindered African Americans from using their rights.
• People:
• W. E. B. Du Bois - Black historian and sociologist; lobbied for equal economic and social rights for African Americans
• Florence Kelley: social reformer. known for workers rights, childrens rights
• Jane Addams - Social activist

During this period, reform gave women a sense of purpose as they attempted to change society and fight for their autonomy. African Americans used various methods (schooling, protest, violence, media) to fight against a system that deliberately barred them from exercising their rights as U.S. citizens.