Reforms of the Progressive Movement

Child LaborLewis Hine was a photojournalist and muckraker. He took photos of child laborers, which brought a lot of attention to their cause.

Child labor reforms

Fair Labor Standards Act: set a minimum age for child labor

Working conditions

Samuel Gompers was the founder and president of the AFL. The AFL strengthened Labor Unions.

Working conditions reforms

Fair Labor Standards Act: established the minimum wage and the 40 hours work week.

Government Various

elected officials brought about reforms that increased democracy: gave voters more control over their government

Government reforms- Direct primary- Secret ballot- Initiative,

referendum, recall- 17th Amendment

(elections of senators)

- 19th Amendment

Poverty & immigrationJane Addams was a middle class woman and founder of Hull House, the first settlement house. Settlement houses offered social services to immigrants and the poor (education, daycare, job training).

Poverty & immigrationJacob Riis was a muckraker. He wrote a book called How the Other Half Lives which brought attention to the misery of life in the slums.

Poverty & immigration reforms

Settlement houses were the beginning of social services for the poor.

Health concernsUpton Sinclair was a writer. He wrote a novel called The Jungle which exposed the unsanitary conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry.

Excerpt from The jungle

There was meat that was taken out of pickle and would often be found sour, and  they would rub it up with soda to take away the smell, and sell it to be eaten on free-lunch counters; also of all the miracles of chemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose.

Health concerns reforms

• Meat Inspection Act

• Pure Food and Drug Act

alcoholThe temperance movement wanted to prevent alcohol from ruining people’s lives. Prohibitionists wanted to make alcohol illegal. Carrie Nation was a leader of the prohibitionists.

Alcohol reforms

18th Amendment banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol. Marked beginning of PROHIBITION!

Women’s rightsThe suffrage movement was the effort to get women the right to vote. Leaders included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Susan B. Anthony. Susan B. Anthony was the most well known of the suffragettes.

Women’s rights reforms

19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

African Americans’ rights

Booker T. Washington was a leader in the African American community who believed equality could be achieved through vocational education. He also accepted social separation.

African americans’ rights

W.E.B. Du Bois believe in full political, civil and social rights for African Americans.

African americans’ rights reform

Reform will come later