Jennifer Silva

US History II
A-Block
Progressive Era Essay
November 7th, 2013
The Progressives and the Reform Movement
The progressive Era was a time period in which American reformers began to take
initiative aspects of society that they believed didn't go along with their moral and societal
values; it lasted from 1890s through 1920s. Progressives were Americans who wanted to
improve life in America. Their main goals were to protect social welfare, create economic and
political reform and promote moral improvement. Most of the reformers were educated writers,
journalists, urban and middle class, white, African Americans and many of them were
intellectual women. During The Progressive Era laws were made and Americans took initiatives
to help the country move forward and solve the problems in the society. The progressives
reformed and made laws about food and drug regulation and labor movement which were
both very successful and moved the country forward. However, the temperance movement was
a complete failure.
One of the first successful areas reformed by Progressives during the Progressive Era was
the food and drug regulation. Before the changes started happening, meat used to be piled up in
dirty factories floors with water licking form the ceiling and many other substances getting
mixed with the meat which made it unsafe and unhealthy to consume. After visiting and
investigating one meat-packing house in New York City, an investigative muckraker Upton
Sinclair once wrote 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). When readers first read the Jungle they started to take initiatives. The United States
Congress and Teddy Roosevelt were the first two who took action immediately to fix the
problems. Two laws were passed to prevent what was going on inside the meat factories from
happening. In 1906 the first law was passed, The Federal Meat Inspection Act. This law
authorized FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to provide inspection services for all livestock,
this prevented contaminated or misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food. The
second law passed by the congress was the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. This law requires
all products to be labeled correctly and include all ingredients and it forbade the manufacture,
sale or transportation of poisonous patent medicines (Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906). Both of
these two laws helped solve the problems faced by Americans and helped become a better and
healthier country.
Likewise labor movement was a success. During the nineteenth century unhappy
American workers decided that it was time to fight for the rights and privileges they deserved. .
A group of American citizens joined together to become a powerful union and fight against the
big businesses who took advantage of them. Three goals of the labor union were; higher wages,
shorter working hours, and better working conditions. They started their fight by refusing to be
treated like they weren't humans and refusing to work under terrible conditions. Working
conditions were pretty bad for most workers. Before the Progressive Era, the factories were
badly lit, poorly ventilated, and hazardous because owners refused to pay for expensive safety
features. Textile workers inhaled dust and fibers that filled the air in the mills. Workers in
cigarette factories endured tremendous heat and the stench of tobacco. Garment workers strained
their backs crouching over poorly lit tables and workers (History Alive). Workers who worked
underground on the mines would end up dying one after the other because there would be
explosions or cave-ins. In steel mills the floors were so hot that water sizzled on them. Workers
would work long hours, some even work 24 hours straight; the work was very hard and they
would get paid very little, for example; railroad workers got paid 10 cents per hour. In 1908
Muller v. Oregon enacted a law that limited women to ten hours of work in factories and
laundries. After that in 1914 the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was passed and it restricted the use of
injunction against labor, and it legalized peaceful strikes and boycotts which gave Unions more
power to fight for their rights and accomplish their goals. Children were basically forced to work
by their parents because the family needed more money to survive. Since children had to work
they werent able to go to school and get an education. In 1917 all of that changed, the Smith-
Hughes Act was passed. The act provided one million dollars to states that agreed to improve
their public schools by providing vocational education programs (Progressive and the labor
movement). Unions also trained unskilled workers to be able to occupy all the jobs, and that
helped with child labor because most adults had jobs. All of these laws that were passed and the
efforts made by the Progressives helped the country move forward and become a stronger nation
filled with equality.
However the temperance movement was a complete failure. Instead of helping the
country move forward it gave it a step back. The temperance movement first began in Georgia in
the late 1820s. Progressives were working on fixing the society by working towards making
alcohol and drugs illegal. Citizens who were concerned about the effects of alcohol started
speaking up about it way before the temperance movement but no one listened to them. Women
played a big role in the temperance movement; they believed that alcohol was destroying
families and marriages. Men would spend their money on alcohol while their family was home
and starving. The temperance movement was also supported by factories owners because they
needed workers to be able to go to work early in the morning and be in the best working mood
they could be in. Progressives were dedicated into improving the society in general and they
believed that by making alcohol and drugs illegal they were helping the society, which they
were. They were successful in passing some laws. In 1917, the House of Representatives
wanted to make Prohibition the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Congress sent the
amendment to the states for ratification, where it needed three-fourths approval. In just 13
months enough states ratified the amendment that would prohibit the manufacture, sale, and
transportation of alcoholic liquors (Overview of the Temperance Movement). At first
everything seemed to go great, liquor consumption dropped, and arrests for drunkenness fell
and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford However
American citizens refused to obey the law, they were sneaking alcohol around and there were a
lot of illegal bars around the country. Enforcing Prohibition proved to be extremely difficult.
The illegal production and distribution of liquor, or bootlegging, became rampant, and the
national government did not have the means or desire to try to enforce every border, lake, river,
and speakeasy in America (Overview of the Temperance Movement). By 1933, the 21
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amendment was passed, repealing the failed experiment prohibition. Therefore the temperance
movement was a failure because it cause more problem than it solved, Americans refused to
obey it.
As one can see the Progressive Era was somewhat progressives. The progressives
reformed and made laws about Food and Drug regulation and Labor Movement which were both
successful and moved the country forward. However, the temperance movement was a complete
failure. The Progressive Era is a very important topic to the American history because it was a
time of change and a lot of big changes happened in the United States. The country finally
started to move forward instead of backwards, problems were being fixed and citizens were
getting the rights and privileges they deserved as an American citizen. Children were getting a
chance to be a kid and do things that kids do and adults were starting to be treated like humans
not animals or machines. Progressives basically wanted the Government to put more effort into
protecting the well-being of the American citizens which is something that Americans are still
trying to do. The Progressives succeeded in almost everything because they worked together,
they formed unions and believed in one another. Anything is possible when people work
together.