Kenan Lewis

History Honor II Honors

How Progressive was the Progressive Era
November 4th 2013


The Progressive Era took place between 1890 and 1920. Fast growing industrialization
and urbanization forced people to work in dangerous jobs for low pay, live in places of low
poverty causing them to be stuffed into tenements to live in places with high risks of disease and
sickness, and many other things that caused the United States to make a change. The name of the
era basically describes itself, there were many different ways that the progressive era improved
the ways of the people living today, but the three most progressive reforms during this time
period were Food and Drug Regulation, Labor reform and working Conditions, and
Urbanization.
The place that the Progressive Era changed was in food and drug regulation. Food was
very unsanitary back in the start of the 1900s. Before the Reform Age started the most
unsanitary thing that was being packaged was meat. Upton Sinclair was a investigative
muckraker who went to a meat house in New York and saw how the meat of New York was
prepared and wrote about it in his book. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and
the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it(The
Jungle, Chapter 14). This evidence demonstrates how unsanitary and dirty the meat packing
houses were. Also during this time things and products that people used every day contained
very unsafe substances like cocaine or morphine. Upton Sinclair wrote in another document For
example there was an attempt to outlaw Coca-Cola in 1909 because of its excessive
cocaine.(Upton Sinclair Food and Drug Regulation).At this time Theodore Roosevelt was
president and after hearing about how they were manufacturing peoples food, him and congress
took action on this and created two new laws. One law that was passed was called the Meat
Inspection Act of 1906, this law made it a requirement that all livestock and meat that was
slaughtered was inspected by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) (Pure Food and Drug
Act, 1906). This law led to the second law named the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This is
the law that made it illegal to manufacture, sell or transport poisonous medicines. This law also
required that all products that had unsafe substances in them, had the ingredients listed on the
side of them so the customers knew what they were consuming. This was progressive because it
improved that way that food and medicine worked and how people viewed what they put in their
bodies.
During the Reform Age working conditions were very hard. Workers would work long
hard hours in dangerous factories just to receive a low pay. They would lock doors so the
workers could not go on breaks, in some factories the floors would hot enough to boil water. All
ages and gender of people went to work, from children, to women, to men and all in these
dangerous and hazardous environments, and most of the time these poor labor policies ended
in tragedy. One way that poor labor policies affected Americans was in the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory. On March 25th 1911 in New York City 260 teenage and adult women report
to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. While they are working someone throws a cigarette in
a garbage pail not knowing that was filled with flammable material and there factory catches on
fire. The girls try to get out but they don't have much ways, there is a fire escape but it was
locked because the bosses did not want the girls sneaking out to take breaks while working. All
the girls piled into the narrow exit that the factory had made that way so they could check the
girls to see what the bringing in and out of the factory, but it was built for for girl at a time. The
elevator could only fit so much people and it certainly was not 260 people, the fire only lasts for
half an hour but 146 people died. This shows that if the factories were made with more safety
concerns than worrying about how much work they would get and what the girls would do at
work more girls would have survived than that. Another way that labor affected this era is with
child labor. In 19102 million children under 15 were working. Factories liked to hire children
because they worked on unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults so they didn't have to pay
them much. Many Americans were calling it child slavery by 1900s and wanted child labor to
end (Hines, Child Labor in America).By 1916 Congress passed the Keating-Owen Act that made
the child labor age. Later on President Woodrow Wilson signed onto the Tax on Employment
Child Labor stating that children under 14 cannot work more than 8 hours a day and 6 days a
week .(Progressives and Labor Movements Reading)
Lastly urbanization was a big part of the Progressive Era. During this time there was a lot
of poverty and people with not a lot of money. A journalist and reporters named Jacob Riis
traveled America with his camera taking pictures of urban suffering and poverty. His pictures
showed homeless children, filthy streets and trash lining the streets of different cities. They
showed people stuffed into small houses called tenements where there would be people sleeping
on the floor and 20 people in a room meant for 4 people. These tenements were dark and cold
with no heat, light or running water, there was no window so the people living inside could have
fresh air or light. There was sickness spreading throughout the tenements and people why die
from theses illnesses and their bodies would be left there or thrown outside. Riis showed these
pictures to wealthy citizens and they were shocked to see how the other side lived. (Urbanization
& the Progressive, Era Page 1). This news got to people in charge and news laws were
created for the standards of living like every room that does not have enough light to an
extent where a person can read from has to have a working light in it (NYC Tenement Law
of 1901 Document C) and many more laws followed.
Therefore the Progressive Era was very progressive; America grew in many ways
during this age and became a better and cleaner country than it was before. This era is very
important in American history, it has affected the way that we live today, work we work,
how we eat, how we go to school, and rights for everyone. Your life would be very different
from how it is now if this reform age never happened and the country that was full of filth,
poverty, and full of corruption that has grown into the America you now call home.