The Impact Of The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era, dated from about 1900 to 1920, is known for the reformers who brought about change at a national level. For the middle class, reformers were extremely efficient and effective in making progress. For other demographics, like women and African Americans, change did not come so easily. Although the Progressive Era was successful in reforming certain parts of the federal government and American society, like big business and workers’ conditions, there was still a lot of progress to be made with women and other minorities by the time the era came to a close. To a lesser extent, the economy was transformed due to an unprecedented amount of government intervention in the proceedings of large corporations. The Progressive Era was

Despite many people working for companies that cared so little for their employees, upper class citizens had no idea what was going on behind closed doors. It took muckrakers, investigative journalists who exposed the horrors of factory jobs, for the wealthy to see what poor, immigrant workers had to do for a living. Even the president at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, was not fully aware of what conditions these workers were subjected to. He sent two trusted men to investigate a certain meat-packing facility, and The Neill-Reynolds Report was the result. In this report, it was revealed to Roosevelt, along with the nation, that the men “saw meat shoveled from filthy wooden floors… in most cases damp and soggy…” and that the workers arrived every day to their jobs only to face “the expectoration of tuberculosis and other diseased workers,” (Doc B). Not only did people in the meat-packing industry have to work in dangerous conditions, but their health was at serious risk as well, from both fellow employees and the raw meat that was handled daily. Fortunately, once word of this reached President Roosevelt, he passed the Federal

This did affect the economy greatly, but reformers changed the country’s political purposes far more than economics. President Theodore Roosevelt became known as a “trustbuster”, but he was closer to a trust regulator. As shown in a famous political cartoon, Roosevelt only destroyed a small number of trusts, 43 to be exact, but he controlled many more (Doc A). Politicians and the federal government also made decisions about smaller aspects of business, such as child labor and Congress’ authority to regulate the proceedings of businesses. In the court case Hammer v. Dagenhart in 1918, it was asked if it was “within the authority of Congress in regulating commerce among the states to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of manufactured goods” that were produced by child laborers. The ultimate decision was that the act was “purely a state authority,” (Doc G). Although power wasn’t directly transferred to the federal government, states had the authority to determine whether or not it was appropriate for companies to transfer products across state lines if they were produced in a factory of child laborers. As the government assumed more power, President Roosevelt proposed the direct election of senators in a speech on February 22nd, 1912. He said, “I believe in the election of United States senators by direct vote… instead of by indirect vote