Growing cash crops like tobacco and cotton overworked the land.
Consumers pressured businesses by boycotting nonunion goods.
This 1876 case allowed the government (and in this case, the state of Illinois) to regulate some private businesses, such as railroads, if they were business that served the public good; the case allowed the state to set the rates these businesses could charge.
William Howard Taft was the incumbent Republican President and was nominated for a second term by his party in 1912. Teddy Roosevelt who started off as a Republican left and started a new party. This cost Taft the re-election and put a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson in as President.
Companies could charge as much as they liked.
To report on society's problems was the goal of muckrakers.
William Howard Taft
a company expanding its business by buying a competing company
Andrew Carnegie
Hiring of city commissioners