The Progressive Era

The progressive era was an era of reform which lasted from 1890s-1930s. Reforms were put in to action due to the increasingly horrible conditions of the middle and lower classes. Many reforms appeared self-serving but on the contrary the reforms tried to bring more equality & benefits to the masses.

One of the most horrifying and inhumane practices of this era was child labor. Progressives wanted to put an end to this because it was morally inhumane and took jobs away from men. John Spargo gives a peak into the life of a child coal miner as seen in Document E. According to the document the work place for child was exceedingly dangerous causing direct problems as well as in future harms. Children would become physically deformed from crouching position they assumed. Chopped off fingers and mangled body’s where a frequent ordeal in the mines. The dust from the coal laid foundations for the black lung as well as other diseases. Families also suffered the main cause for child labor was poverty. Poverty went ramped and eventually destroyed many families. Represented in Document G a home would be broken up from an unemployed husband which then led to the wife and kids working for horrible wages and obtaining terrible illnesses. When neither fathers nor sons could get jobs they eventually became homeless. Document A portrays a photo, taken by Jacob Riis a commonly known muckraker of the era, of three homeless boys huddling together for warmth in a gutter. When reformers tried to put a stop to poverty and child labor they where doing it for the common good. In the eyes of the progressives if you gave people more rights and helped to reduce poverty in was in the common interest of the public.

Another goal of progressive reformers was more rights for women as well as safe environments. Document B describes one such environment, the Hull House founded in 1889. The Hull House was a sanctuary for the common person, many where educated there and became reformers as well. The Hull Hose provided many programs and became a social spring where ideas where shared and people where kept out of trouble. The Hull House provided numerous benefits to the public. Environments like the Hull House where needed because saloons where a common place of fights, rapes and other unpleasant events. Thomas West gives three reasons to justify refusing a saloon license in Document D. The most important reason was the one pertaining to women who must transverse alone at night. Women who had jobs where also at risk of getting mugged and/or raped on their way home by drunkards who wander out of the saloon. Among other problems there where also reforms for birth control. Margent Sanger gives insight to the dilemmas of the common housewife in Document J. The fear of another birth was always leering over the families. Children would be born and die because of harsh conditions, starvation or rape. The motives for these reforms