Progressivism In The Gilded Age

Progressivism is unquestionably hard to define. Nonetheless, many historians have endeavored to define and sought out how it embarked. Every person will have different perspectives, thus each of the historians will have different outlooks of how they view the findings and what they assume progressivism is. Therefore, this essay will work to exemplify what I think triggered the progressive movement in the United States. Gilded Age caused many problems to outbreak in its era, such as, outlandish fortunes and poverty, incongruous meat production, flux of foreign immigration, ecological demolition, etc. (The American Yawp, Ch.20-1). Progressive Era, in a way, inaugurated to clean up the mess Gilded Age had generated. Since people are a diverse

The fired had took with it 146 worker lives and wounded 71 workers, because the factory owner chained shut the door so the workers cannot have unauthorized breaks. Not only that, but the factory’s facilities were worn out and old that it disintegrated almost immediately. A year before the horrendous deaths of these workers, they “had gone out on strike demanding union recognition, higher wages, and better safety conditions” (The American Yawp, Ch.20-2). Yet, this is how they responded to the workers’ demands. Due to occurrences like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, it called for many activists raised and pushed forward reforming America, and the government to interfere with the economy. Our 27th President, Theodore Roosevelt, addressed that “our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit” (Roosevelt, 1910).

The riches that some American experiences is just one sided story, as much as the rich people enjoy their day to day life, the less unfortunate people suffered twice as much. Living in unsanitary, cramped places and worked in harmful environment just to be able to provide meals for their family. The contrasting lives of the two is just calamitous. Jacob Riis, a New York City journalist published, How the Other Half Lives (1890), “…vividly described the squalor he saw, he documented it with photography, giving readers an unflinching view of urban poverty” (The American Yawp, Ch.20-2). Showing them the lives of how the less unfortunate people lives and the poor conditions they lived in. In addition, Upton Sinclair published, The Jungle (1906), in attempt to unveil the appalling exploitation of (immigrants) workers in the meat packing industry, which contributed greatly to the socialist movement, also led to the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act passed in 1906 (The American Yawp, Ch.20-2). Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair exposed of the ghastly surroundings and situations strengthened the support for the progressivism evolution. Another reason for the advancement of progressive era is faith/religion, the emerged of the social gospel. The social gospel “…emphasized the need for Christians to be concerned