Reconstruction Era And The Progressive Era

In the mid nineteenth century, the 13th through 15th Amendment was created to end slavery, to guarantee rights to all citizens who were born in the United States, and to refine the rights to citizens which cannot be abused by race, color, and previous slavery occupation. Freedmen’s Bureau was also created to serve the first social service established by the government to help all people, including African American, who are struggling from the Civil War. This era was called Reconstruction and started in 1865 through 1877. After Reconstruction, there came the Gilded Age in 1877 through 1900 and the Progressive Era in 1900 and 1920. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was marked as a progress towards an urban and industrial society.

Factories, mass production, transportation, communication networks, and national markets grew in this age but there were issues for low class citizens. Working in the Gilded Age was very risky and dangerous because workers had no policies on minimum wage, no social security, no paid vacation, no sick leaves, no government relations, no worker’s compensation, no employment benefits, no health care, and no child labor laws (lecture, February 7). Many citizens including children worked with heavy and large machinery making it an unpredictable moment to when they will get injured when working. These working citizens won’t be able to receive their incredibly low income and take time off when they are wounded. Operators were also charged for mistakes at factories (Triangle Fire). This is a social inequality to the social class because while corporations are increasing so is the working citizens hours are increasing. The working class had to work fourteen hours a day with no break and an incredibly low income. The low class were very tired and sore from being stiff in chairs for fourteen hours straight so how can they not make mistakes. They were ashamed on how they were living and being shown in front of the wealthy citizens. The society and wealthy citizens back in the Gilded age were threatening to low and working-class

In the Knights of Labor was the largest and most successful group because it “organized women, African Americans, immigrants and unskilled workers who were excluded from the craft unions… Working class communities joined the Knights’ local lodges, while in the industrial districts, the Knights organized coal miners and railroad workers. They effectively challenged corporate power with the organized power of labor” (Globalyceum, “The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914”). The Knights of Labor was a secret organization which was illegal to form a secret union and can be thrown into jail. All followers from the Knights of Labor risked their lives to improve society and to get justice for the working-class citizens. The Pullman Strike in 1894 was also a secret union and again, it’s illegal but they risked it for better working conditions, an eight-hour working day, and thirty percent back to their wages. This strike was formed because the government cut the wages by thirty percent which affected three thousand citizens (lecture, February 12). These people struggled for social justice and equality and these organizations improved society and the Gilded Age which is soon to be the Progressive