The Progressive Era from 1900-1915 contained many important issues that centered mostly on the improvement of society. The main focus of this period, however, was the overall improvement of social injustices that occurred to the common people especially worker’s rights.
The foremost issue was worker’s rights. With businessmen like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie leading the way, American soon became a powerhouse for industrialization. During this period, American industries soon out produced those in England, France, and Germany combined. With all this advancement came tragedy as well. As the men at the top of the tier got richer, the lowly workers were subjected to horrendous conditions, long hours, and little pay. A growing sense of reformation found as the Progressive Era went on was justified in the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 (Document 8).
Due to unlawful practices of the business owners (mostly the narrow exits the women used, where they were searched for any scraps of material that may have been taking from the factory, which prevented the frightened women from leaving easily), many of the company’s workers -mostly teenaged, single women- perished from the fire itself while some jumped from the building to avoid being burned. This fire helped get the ball rolling on social reforms in the work area. It was not, however, the first instance of reformation in action.
Mother Jones, a noted social reformer, noted in her book The March of the Mill Children (Document 1), that seventy-five thousand textile workers were on strike in Kensington, PN due to the long hours, deadly conditions, and low wages that they received from the factory. This strike showed the deplorable conditions that were found in early factories. Laws that protected workers, especially children, did exist but they were rarely enforced. Families often lied about the age of children to have more income because for many of them it was, as one mother said, “a question of starvation or perjury.” In addition to the filth in the manufacturing factories was the filth in the food industries like meat packing.
In his book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair revealed the appalling practices of the meat packing industries (Document 3). His work shocked the American public into action. Legislation like the Pure Food and Drugs Act was passed in an effort to regulate the production and packing of food products. Things really began to change with Roosevelt’s policy of new nationalism (Document 5). New nationalism encouraged a strong central govemment that would support workers and labor unions and strive to make improvements for workers so that “every man will have his fair chance to make himself all that in him lies”.
All of these changes would not have come about had it not been for the efforts of the many reformists of the time. At the beginning the Progressive Era, corruption was still a big issue, one noted by Lincoln Steffens in The Shame of the Cities (Document 2) which detailed the corruption that took place in big, industrial cities like Chicago and New York. Steffens was just one of the many investigative journalists called “muckrakers” that focused on uncovered all the little secrets that big businesses tried to keep from the public.
McClure’s Magazine (Document 9) was a key magazine that featured notable muckrakers like Sinclair, Steffens, and Tarbell (all of whom wrote other important Progressive works). Sinclair’s The Jungle focused on the atrocious conditions of the meat packing industry while Ida Tarbell’s work The History of Stand Oil focused on the dealings of the Standard Oil Company. The muckrakers were not the only group to push for social reforms. Women were also very significant in the fight for more rights. Women like Jane Addams fought against “unsanitary housing, ill-ventilated factories, dangerous occupations, prostitution…” and many more issues like those she mentions in Ballots Necessary for Women (Document 4). Many groups that sought suffrage for woman would later use the incredible influence that women such as Jane Addams had in bringing about new social reforms.
The Progressive Era brought about many important changes to American society. These changes would have a lasting impact and would inspire many later reforms as well.
