Blaire Carney December, 1, 2017 Changing Society DBQ DiPrimo 6 During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there was a great abundance of civil issues with American politics and society. Reformers are those people who not only took notice of the problems but also took actions to amend them. Society was such a mess that most citizens were in danger, be it from food unfit to eat before it was further defiled by workers and animals in the abhorrent circumstances found within most food-processing factories, illnesses spread through closely confined living quarters lacking ventilation or necessary access to bathrooms for basic hygiene, corruption, and bribery inherent in the structures of political machines, or discrimination …show more content…
Document four describes events typical to the life of coal miners in lines 9-10 “There were five of us boys. One lies in the cemetery ―fifty tons of rock dropped on him”. This specific text supports the claim that common laborers in this time were subjugated into frightful work environments that held their occupants in bleak hardship for so many hours on end. Lines two through three of document two states “We are tired of toil for naught with but bare enough to live on”. Not only were laborers conscripted into these extremely dangerous harsh conditions by their need to feed their families, they were barely paid enough to keep themselves and their families alive. Another critical grievance against society performed by many affluent employers was the exploitation of the new generations. Not only were fully adult workers being brutalized through an abhorrent working environment, children as young as six years old were exposed to many of the same or similar conditions. Document three is a photograph of two little boys who look to be no older than nine years of age changing the bobbins in a giant machine without any safety equipment while the machine is running. Not only are these kids forced to work in danger of losing digits or other body parts to the hazardous contraptions they worked with all day, this eliminates any chance they have to complete much, if any amount of education that might have helped them rise up in society and break the vicious circle that makes and keeps the poor the way they are, impeding any hierarchical progress. After a grueling day of hard work with little income to show for it, as people went home to their families to eat, they were presented with virtually inedible meat that was then compounded with rat hair, and feces. This “food” was processed in factories bearing the
At this time in history, there were “two million children under the age of sixteen” working to provide for their families, and some kids beginning labor at the tender ages of “six and seven years (in the cotton
As Kelley describes the rapidly increasing wage earning class of young girls, she uses parallel structure and repetition as she says that men, women, youth, and boys all “increase” (115). Asserting that age is not relevant in this work force by grouping men, women, and children all in the same list, Kelley is able to highlight the difference between these categories and make it seem unfair to her audience that they should all be thrown into the same work force. Using an oxymoron to describe how working all night may be beneficial for one person and unfortunate for another, she refers to the child’s work as a “pitiful privilege” (116). The contrasting nature of these two words emphasize the fact that work is inevitably something that must be done and while it is a privilege for men and women to have work to earn money, it is pitiful for children to bear the burden of this responsibility as they are so young. Expanding on this connection between the lives of the children and her audience, Kelley uses a hypothetical example of a child carrying “her pail of midnight luncheon” while an adult could carry “their midday luncheon” (116).
Mia Edwards Professor Gordon History 102 7 March 2023 From the Edge of Reconstruction to the Roaring ’20s Ever since the edge of Reconstruction America has been expanding and changing in many ways, America was impacted by people, developments, and events that went on from the 18th century to the early 20th century. In the early 18th century Agriculture products became in high demand and heavily impacted American Society. From 1870 through 1920 industrialization impacted many American citizens' ways of life by bringing in new means of work and more immigration into the states. At the beginning of the 20th century, progressivism helped play a role in the rapid urbanization happening across America. Leading up to World
Identifying the ages of children working during this time is a powerful example showing how unfair and how unlawful the child labor laws are and why it needs to be fixed.
Child Labor Analysis Child Labor was one of Florence Kelley’s main topics at a speech she gave in Philadelphia during a convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley talks about all the horrors children were going through and the injustices they were suffering. She talks of the conditions children working in, the hours they were going in, and all in all, how wrong child labor was. Her purpose for this was to gain support of people to petition for the end of child labor. Kelley’s appeals to Ethos, Pathos and Logos through the use of great rhetoric is what allows her to achieve her purpose.
Progressive Era Reforms During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States was experiencing a time of widespread reform. This movement brought great changes to multiple fields and areas in the United States. These reforms were ideas that improved the quality of life for working and normal citizens in the United States. Two such examples of these movements are found in reforms made within the working and living conditions across America.
The mid to early 1800s marked a dynamic period in America’s history. Powerful movements such as the Market revolution the Second Great Awakening gave way to new moral and socio-economic beliefs. These new found beliefs fueled a series of reform movement and earned this era the name the Age of Reforms. Although movements such as temperance restricted democracy in the US, to a greater extent, reform movements such as public education, women’s rights, and abolition expanded democracy by giving power and basic rights to women, slaves, and the lower class.
“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.
Children from as young as the age of 6 began working in factories, the beginning of their exploitation, to meet demands of items and financial need for families. In Florence Kelley’s speech before the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia 1905, Kelley addresses the overwhelming problem of child labor in the United States. The imagery, appeal to logic, and the diction Kelley uses in her speech emphasizes the exploitation of children in the child labor crisis in twentieth century America. Kelley’s use of imagery assists her audience in visualizing the inhumanity of the practice.
These workers faced dangers everyday and received little pay. At the same time, many other people also had more money and leisure time. Henry George’s book, Progress and Poverty, talks about this divide. “ It was as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down” (Document 3).
As industrial strength grew and technology advanced, labor in America changed. Machines replaced many of workers’ old duties and some skilled laborers who had been previously valued became easily replaced. Immigrants who were willing to work under poorer conditions flooded into the United States, big businesses grew, and political machines whose interests were not that of the people occupied the government. Laborers worked ten hour shifts, six-day workweeks, and started work as children. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he describes the painful and vigorous work in the meat-packing industry, saying, “The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them...
About one hundred thousand workers from six hundred different mills were on strike there. The strikers wanted their work cut from sixty to fifty-five hours. About a sixth of the strikers were children under sixteen.” ( 5, Josephson). As a result, she gathered a large group of mill children and their parents, shaming the mill owners of their actions.
Reforming the Government During the years 1890 to 1920, there was a group of people called the Progressives they identified many problems that they saw in the city at the time. The Progressives were a diverse group of people from every work of life for example: journalists, Democratic politicians, Republican politicians, industry leaders, and many more. They agreed to use scientific principles in order to identify problems, offer solutions, and then in a rational ways solve these problems. For example, a group of journalists who utilized the Progressive ideals were called, “ the Muckrakers,” which helped spread knowledge about political and social problems. The Progressive’s believed society had these problems because of industrialization and organization, however, that is not completely correct.
Kristen Koehler Professor David Smith History 2366 November 19th, 2017 America in the 1890s: Time of Transformation Americans have continuously incorporated the knowledge acquired from the past to transform the future of the country. The American Civil War forced this country to decide if it would continue to be a loose grouping of largely independent states with different moral and cultural standards, or a true country with a national culture. The dilemmas faced by the country in post-Civil War America helped shape what we think of as modern America. The nation’s values were shifting and its people could either evolve or remain fragmented.
In the 1840’s there was a wave of democratization created after Jackson’s presidency. It was created the value of the common man, and the importance of every person who was in the government. Of course, there were exceptions to this rule as there still certain groups like blacks or women that were viewed as inferior, but the majority of the population felt like they had worth. This led to series of reforms: hospitals for the mentally ill, schools for people with physical disabilities, the temperance movement, and labor unions. This movements fought a better society with better treatment even though there would be no economic incentives to do so.