Progressive Era Dbq

However, Despite the challenges posed by resistance to legislative change driven by classical liberalism's support for big factory owners, the Factory Act of 1833 exposed and addressed harsh working conditions, especially for children, through subsequent activist movements that established minimum age

Progressivism Historiography Common Assignment The progressive movement was a great period of time in American History because it shows a time when not just one group but the entire country came together to cause real change across the nation. Each essay described the progressives and the reformed society, that they wanted, in their own ways. “Progressivism: Middle Class Disillusionment”, written by George Mowry- “Urban Liberalism and the Age of Reform”, written by Joseph Huthmacher-

Tuttle,Carolyn. Edited: Robert Whaples “ Child labor during the British industrial revolution.” .EH.Net Encyclopedia. August 14, 2001.

In the speech, given at the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention, a United States social worker and reformer who successfully fought for child labor laws, Florence Kelley identifies how the working ages vary throughout States, compares different states and their child labor laws, and details the power that they have as american citizens, in order to prove that laws and restrictions need to be put in place for child labor, ultimately moving the people attending the convention to stand up to child labor and fight the government to put new laws in place. To convey her message about child labor, Florence Kelley identifies how the working ages vary throughout the States in order to show that the laws are inconsistent throughout the states. She wanted to have fair ages throughout all of the states because “they vary in age from six and seven years (in the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and ten years (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania).” She goes on to say that kids aging from six to sixteen are working dangerous, dirty jobs at such a young age.

During the Progressive Era, many reforms were made in the attempt to fix the negative facets of America (Fagnilli 27). Progressives were reformers who supported ideas that attempted to make a change in society’s problems, such as corruption of government, women’s suffrage, and accessibility of education (The Progressive Era). These reformers lived mostly in urban areas, and therefore witnessed these issues first-hand, thus they believed that country could be mended by the government if it took responsibility for ensuring safe work conditions and environment, and education (The Progressive Era). Crucial to change in America, issues that were targeted by reforms had both positive and negative impacts, which indisputably changed America.

Child Labor in the Early 1900's There was a time in America when it was common for children to be working intense amounts in the factories of the labor industry. By 1904, 50,000 workers in the South were under the age of 16 with 20,000 under the age of 12. Having children working in the industry was dangerous and unreasonable and resulted in countless accidents in the workspace. In the early 1900's, children who worked in the labor industry were exploited as they were forced to work long hours, were deprived of an education, and ultimately put their lives at risk until The National Child Labor Committee began advocating for reform.

Teddy Roosevelt proved not only to be an economic reformist but also a social reformist as he transitioned from trust-busting into directly benefitting and protecting the lives and wellbeing of consumers. Before any reforms took place, however, Roosevelt noticed that American meet was being shut out of European markets due to it being unsanitary. This problem along with Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, drew the major problems of sanitation and working conditions right to Roosevelt’s eye. Therefore, in an attempt to correct this problem, Roosevelt with help of Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 which said that the preparation of meat would be inspection by the federal government when transferred over state lines. This act not

Labor unions came about to push for better wages, and work conditions but only did little to improve the lives of the blue collar workers. There was also a strong fight to abolish child labor. Companies and cities were growing at a rapid rate. With larger companies they looked for ways to cut costs so the quick answer was to hire children to do simple tasks. Grace Abbott joined The Children’s Bureau

Stemming from some of the Populist party’s ideas and following the turbulent times of the Reconstruction Era and Gilded Age, the Progressive movement arose in the 1890s in the United States as a means of utilizing the federal government to achieve national development. This was a huge step forward for the common man, as the industrialization of the nation and rise of big businesses, which exploded around the 1860s, left him robbed and mistreated. But this backtrack no longer reigned with the development of the Progressive Era, which brought prosperity through major reforms. This movement was a nationwide event, not bound to any singular political party or social class, but rather a mix, demonstrating its widespread success. The Progressive

During the first period, 1900-1920, progressives pushed for child labor reform, laws that would regulate child labor. This political campaign prompted historians to write about child labor at the turn of the nineteenth century. The connection between the political action of the progressive reformers and the academics of the historians is clear. These historical articles and books tend to be extremely persuasive either pushing for or against the reform. After the reform passed, historians lost interest in the subject, instead, choosing to write about the politics of labor of the industrial revolution, unionism and union politics, or the change in marketing and consumerism.

Both Progressive Era reformers and the federal government sought to bring about reform at the national level. Examples of such reforms they wanted to make include: trust-busting, consumer safety, restrictions on child labour, civil rights, and women’s suffrage. Overall, the Progressive Era reformers and the federal government were effective in their efforts from 1900 to 1920, however there were some limitations. During the Gilded Age, and prior, the quality of America was unsatisfactory.

The awareness of the public economic difference has yet brought focus back on to the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era in American history, a topic that hasn 't really been mentioned since the financial crisis, also known as the Global Financial Crisis that occurred in late 2007 leading into 2008. The periods we know as the Gilded Age and Progressive Era were focused more so on the wealth, which is why we compare that time to the time we live in today. Our problem when researching for historical analogies is that we tend to examine in past with our own personal assumptions, finding what all we want, which would consider us to be biased. We are honored to be able to observe the history of our country through the works of Michael McGerr 's A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920. Up until today 's time, historians of the era had given up on the different impulses behind the reform efforts of the progressive era.

As the rate of industrialization in America grew during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, child labor became more and more common. The rapid growth of the economy and the vast amounts of poor immigrants during the Industrial Age in America justified the work of children as young as the age of three. By 1900, over two million children were employed. However, the risks of involving child labor greatly outweighed the positives; child labor was inhumane, cruel, and caused physical deformities among children. Children typically worked in coal mines, mills, and factories which contained many life-threatening hazards.

In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the rapid growth of the United States resulted in many benefits, but also many disadvantages. With the growing diversity of America, the industrialization of the United States and more, there are bound to be problems with these advancements. The Progressive movement and its reformers worked to improve the social, political, and economic problems in America. Three specific problems of many that were present and were reformed were the urbanization problems, monopolists in society and the poor working conditions in factories. These problems were reformed and their improvements made an impact on America today.

The Progressive Era was a time of change for many with many questions asked about the change. Although there was no true answers to the questions there was a ton of opinions and options on how to fix Economic, Political and Cultural change. The progressives were often known as a group of reformers that worked to improve the social and political problems of the 1800-1900’s. Throughout the readings from George Mowry, Joseph Huthmacher and James J Connolly the idea of who the progressives are and what groups they belong to are expresseddifferently. The progressives had sought different reformed societies and political systems.