The Progressive Era was from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. It was filled with muckrakers trying to eliminate the flaws in the US. This included problems such as the exploitation of workers, tenement housing, and impure food and drugs. These problems were hurting U.S. citizens and needed to be fixed. Without muckrakers and people who saw what was happening and wanted change, these problems could still be here today. Even some of these problems are still around today like race inequality, drug abuse, and alcoholism. These problems were never fully solved but many others were, thanks to them. There are also people today who we could consider muckrakers. One big person is Greta Thunburg. She stands up for what she believes in and we need more …show more content…
This occurred when they were put in dangerous and unhealthy conditions and being forced to work excessive hours. This also included sweatshops and child labor. Workers could also have their work taken advantage of by underpaying them. This wasn’t fair to the workers and it let companies make way more profits than they should have because they barely paid their workers. Muckrakers named Lewis Hine and John Spargo saw this problem and wanted to do something about it. Lewis Hine took pictures of child labor and that helped people see what was going on behind the scenes of big companies. John Spargo was a writer and his books informed people of child labor and how bad it really was. One of his most famous books was called “The Bitter Cry of Children”. After people started to realize that this needed to change laws started to get put in place. There were four acts/laws passed: the Children's Bureau, the Adamson Act, the Keating Owens Child Labor Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Children’s Bureau helped improve the lives of children and families by eliminating abuse and neglect, the Adamson Act put an eight-hour workday in place with overtime pay;, the Keating Owens Child Labor Act made it illegal for any factory or shop to sell their products if they employed children under 14, and finally; and, the Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938 put in place minimum wage, overtime pay, record keeping, and …show more content…
This means there were a bunch of extra items added to the meat without people knowing. This could be anything from fingernails to a finger. Workers could sometimes get their fingers chopped off in the machines so they would end up in people's food. But, this wasn’t all the bad that people were normally consuming. There were fake medicines that had cocaine and/or heroin in the ingredients. People had no idea how bad this was and even children were drinking these medicines thinking they were “curing” them. Muckrakers named Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkin Adams found out about these problems and wanted to expose them. Upton Sinclair wrote a book called “The Jungle” which exposed meatpacking to the public. Samuel Adams exposed fake medicine sellers and what was actually in them. When the publicpeople found out about all this they decided to establish laws, acts, and a whole organization to fix the problems. The Pure Food and Drug Act made it illegal to sell mislabeled or contaminated food. The Meat Inspection Act made it illegal to sell altered or misbranded meat and that it was processed in clean/safe conditions. The last fix put in place was the FDA. The FDA is still up and running today. It stands for “Food and Drug Administration” and they search and test all the food we eat. They also have the authority to search restaurants to make sure they are preparing safe
The Jungle most directly led to The Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which prevented misbranded and adulterated food from being sold in the United States. This law also made sure that the United States’ and imported meat and meat products were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 also improved the food industry by banning the degradation and mislabeling of every product entering or made in the United States. This law gave the government the power to regulate the food industry and enforce it by destroying the products violating it and imposing fines and jail sentences on those responsible for the substandard products (Smith & Williams). In response to the new laws that were passed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was created in 1906.
As briefly mentioned earlier, Upton Sinclair’s work forced the government to look into and act on the situation. The government was rather bare, pressed, and exposed. To mediate public worry, the government sent officials to survey the situation in the meatpacking facilities, to decide whether the situation was really as drastic as the book described. When word was sent back sharing news of how the situation was indeed dire, the decisive solution was to put a new act in place— the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906. As stated by U.S. Capitol - Visitor Center, “The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation's first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)”.
Eventually, the medicine industry became extremely competitive, causing many people to create drugs with fake formulas just to make a quick profit out of
The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (34 Stat. 768) was the first federal law prohibiting the interstate transportation and sale of adulterated food enacted by Congress pursuant to its power under the commerce clause. Scandals concerning the purity and quality of food sold to the U.S. public became widespread as the unsanitary methods used by the food industry were disclosed. One notable example was a novel written by Upton Sinclair entitled The Jungle, in which he exposed the dangerous working conditions as well as the unsavory products created by the Chicago meat-packing industry of the early twentieth century. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley was instrumental in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which was subsequently amended in 1912, 1913, and
The Pure Food and Drug Act was a law that gave careful federal examination of meat products and ordered that the food and drug companies could not sell their products with out proper labeling and quality checking all items. It also was a requirement that all drugs that are distributed to have accurate labeling to include contents and dosage amounts. Prior to this act being established, many companies would sell drugs and products to patients advertising sneaky and false ingredients that the consumer would be completely oblivious to. Times eventually came to a point where the Pure Food and Drug Act was also troubled by the safety of certain products, as well as products that were secure and safe, but not very efficient. I am personally thankful for this act, as I can recall reading about Coca-Cola back in 1903 using cocaine as it’s active ingredient.
In 1904 Harsh national campaign for federal child labor law reform began, they had set a national minimum wage for the first time, a maximum number of hours for workers and placed limitations on child labor, children under sixteen years of age were prohibited in manufacturing and mining.
The Foods and Drug Act of 1906 has tremendously impacted the health of Americans. The act ensures that there is uniformity among food and drug products. Requiring uniformity makes sure that
That same day, The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was created. This act required the makers of prepared food and medicine to host government inspection as well. Overall, these acts have now been a reassurance to the public that meat and other things are in good
During the progressive era our country faced many problems. The rise of substantial businesses caused industrial problems. Women suffrage, alcohol, child labor, and safety issues caused social problems. The necessitation of citizens in government decisions also caused political problems. Progressives were people who wanted to solve all of these quandaries.
Companies employed children to work in worse environments than adults. Companies did this because Children were less likely to fight back and got paid much less than adults. Many of the underage children working did not go to school, which created a cycle of poverty. Their working conditions were so harsh that in 1902-1915 progressive child labor reformers sought to fight back. With the help of the progressive child labor reformers, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Keating-Owen Act banning articles produced by child labor from being sold in interstate commerce.
Intro: When people eat food they do not think about what is in it, or how it is made. The only thing people care about is what the food tastes like and how much they get. During the 1900’s the meat packing industry had not regulations of any kind. All that mattered to the industry was that they made as much money as possible with as little expenditure as possible. During this times people were often made sick and died either from working conditions or poor food quality.
Wages were so low, children had to go to work at soon as possible. Kids worked by dangerous machinery, one simple mistake and they would get hurt or killed. With the progressive movement child labor was exposed. In a factory, they would lock the children up so they could keep working. Many would get sick and diseases due to working in the factories. "
In the early twentieth century, Upton Sinclair, who is the author of “The Jungle”, exposed the unsanitary of the working conditions in the meat industry during the progressive era. The mass-production method was tended to replace skilled workers
In summary, William Taft's creation of the Children's Bureau following the Triangle Factory Fire of 1911 led to better working conditions in New York and other states by promoting and enforcing laws that protected children from exploitation and unsafe working conditions. One possible counterargument to the idea that William Taft's creation of the Children's Bureau led to better working conditions in New York is that the Bureau's impact was limited and its reforms were not significant enough to bring about lasting
The Progressive Era was a movement from the late 19th century to the early 20th century where many people in the United States tried to reform political, social, and economic injustices. This might sound like a good thing, but most of the movement was filled with corruption and ulterior motives. The Progressive movement was not entirely clean; while there were selfless reformers, many reformers only wanted reform if it suited them. Using the historical interpretations of George Mowry, Joseph Huthmacher, and James J. Connolly, I will explain who the progressives were and what their reformed society entailed. I will also state what historian is most persuasive and why.