DBQ- Progressive Era Reform
Historical Context:
Task:
Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history and government, answer the questions that follow each document. Your answers to the questions will help you write the SA below, in which you will be asked to:
Prompt: Discuss specific problems or injustices that were present in American life during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Explain how reforms proposed during the Progressive Era attempted to address these problems
Document A
1a. State two conditions that Jacob Riis' photograph shows about life in cities in the late 1800s
“Lodgers in a Bayard Street Tenement”
Source: photo by Jacob Riis, 1890
Document B
2a. Identify one industrial abuse that is described in this passage from The Jungle.
“With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and another working in a sausage factory, the family had a first-hand knowledge of the great majority of Packingtown swindles. For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it or else chop it up into sausage. With what had been told them by Jonas, who had worked in the pickle rooms, they could now study the whole of the spoiled meat industry on the inside, and read a new and grim meaning into that old Packingtown jest - that they use everything of the pig except the squeal.”
Source: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)
Document C
3a. Which type of labor-related action is best described in this song?
The Uprising of the Twenty Thousands
(Dedicated to the [shirt makers] of 1909)
In the black of the winter of nineteen nine,
When we froze and bled on the picket line,
We showed the world that women could fight
And we rose and won with women’s might.
Chorus:
Hail the waistmakers of nineteen nine,
Making their stand on the picket line,
Breaking the power of those who reign,
Pointing the way, smashing the chain.
And we gave new courage to the men
Who carried on in nineteen ten
And shoulder to shoulder we’ll win through,
Led by the I.L.G.W.U.
Source: “Let’s Sing,” Educational Department, Inter-national Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, NYC
Document D
4a. According to the chart, how did the percentage of working children between the ages of 10 and 15 change from 1890 to 1920?
Date | Percentage of Children Between the Ages of 10 and 15 Who Worked |
1890 1900 1910 1920 | 18.1 18.2 15.0 11.3 |
Document E
5. According to Thomas Nast’s cartoon, what impact do trusts have on American liberty? And how would your assigned character/ role interpret this document
Source: Thomas Nast, 1889 (adapted)
The Rising of the Usurpers and the Sinking of the Liberties of the People
Usurper: one who illegally seizes [takes] another’s power, rights or possessions
Document F
6a. According to the cartoon, who were the “Bosses of the Senate”?
Source: Joseph J. Kappler, 1890 (adapted)
This is a Senate
of the MONOPOLISTS
by the MONOPOLISTS and
for the MONOPOLISTS!
PEOPLE’S
ENTRANCE
CLOSED
THE BOSSES OF THE SENATE.
Document G
7. What did Theodore Roosevelt say should be done to corporations that operate with little or no consideration for the public good?
“Our laws should be so drawn as to protect and encourage corporations which do their honest duty by the public and discriminate sharply against [regulate] those organized in the spirit of mere greed, for improper speculative purpose.“
Source: Theodore Roosevelt (1900)
Document H
We propose. . . “effective legislation to prevent industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, and unemployment . . . to fix minimum standards of health and safety in industry . . . and to provide a living wage throughout industry . . . .”
Source: Progressive Party platform (1912)
8. State two reforms that were proposed in the Progressive Party platform of 1912.
Document I
9a. According to the cartoon, what was President Roosevelt’s position on trusts?
Documents J–1
10a. How did the 17th Amendment make the selection of United States senators more democratic?
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each senator shall have one vote.
Source: United States Constitution
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each senator shall have one vote.
Source: 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Documents J–2
Document K
11a. What argument was used by Susan B. Anthony to support the demand that women be given the right to vote?
The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: “We, the people of the United States…” It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men.
Source: Susan B. Anthony
Document L
12a. Describe the common purpose of the legislative acts in the table above.
CLOSURE
Using the documents and your knowledge of the U.S. history of this time, respond to the following prompt:
The Progressive movement that began in the late 1800s was an attempt to bring about governmental reforms and to correct injustices in American life.