Progressive Movement DBQ

Progressive Movement DBQ The Progressive Era was a time of national reform in the sense of America was purging itself of corruption and evil. The time just prior to this reform was full of government corruption and national poverty. A small amount of people such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were extremely wealthy from their monopolies. However, the vast majority of Americans were lower class working families. During this time period there was not much of a middle class; there was the extremely rich and the extremely poor without much in between.
Jacob Riis exposed how the poverty stricken people were living and exposed his finding to the rest of America (Doc 1). Not only were the parents working hard to provide, the children were forced to work because of the lack money each household had. Children usually worked in sweatshops or factories with dangerous working conditions causing injuries and illness (Doc 4). Reporters begin inspecting all aspects of working environments which leads to Ida Tarbell publishing the History of Standard Oil which exposed Rockefeller for the corrupt businessman he was. Two years later, Upton Sinclair publishes “The Jungle” (Doc 5). The jungle shows what was happening in meat packing factories at this time and how unsanitary the work environment was (Doc 6).
This was the era of monopolies which allowed these, “Big Business”, men to control the federal government and get away with their wrongdoings (Doc 8). Even though the corruption ruined people’s lives and went against the morals our Founding Fathers established, all the wrongdoings showed America where we needed to change.
Change begins with the Civil Service Act in 1883. America then passes the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906 in order to protect people’s health (Doc 5). In the span of only seven years, four amendments are accepted into the Constitution. These amendments consist of the