Notes

Kamilah Garces Social Studies
1/2/14 Mr. Gallo

Living as an American in the late 1800s and the early 1900s there were many problems. However, many reforms were proposed during the Progressive Era to fix the problems. These situations were bad but eventually there were laws proposed to fix them. One problem there was in the 1800s was that there were overcrowding cities with homeless immigrants. Another problem in the 1800s was that there was child labor. Also, there were industrial abuses concerning meat production.
In the big cities there was overcrowding and dirty filthy conditions for the immigrants. Jacob Riis’ photographs, “Lodges in a Bayard Street Tenement” illustrates that the rooms in the houses were small and cramped up. People did not have enough food or clothing either.
Another big issue was Child Labor. Child Labor is where children would work long hours at any age and would get paid very little. According to www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/2002_p7/ak_p7/childlabor.html#wages , there were children who got treated horribly. The people who served the children would beat them, verbally abuse them and take no consideration of their safety. Also, the punishments were that if a child was late to work they would have a heavy weight tied to their neck and they would have to walk down the factory. It was dangerous because it could of lead to severe back or neck injuries. According to the chart in document 3, 18.2% of workers were children in the 1900’s although it did decrease till 1920.
In document 2 Upton Sinclair, The Jungle describes issues with meat production. When the meat got spoiled, it would be chopped up and turned into sausage. According to the textbook there would be meat that fell onto the dirty floor and workers would step on it. Also, there was meat that would be stored in a pile inside a room. Water from the leaky roofs would drip all over the meat and thousands of rats would run on top of the meat. Men didn’t wash their hands before they touched the meat.
One law that was made for improving conditions in factories was to fix minimum standards of health and safety. That made it safer for the homeless immigrants. Another law that was made, it was for Child Labor. The Factory Act was passed in 1833. It limited the amount of hours children spent working. Children from 9-13 years old were only allowed to work 8 hours a day. Children that were 14-18 years old worked no more than 12 hours a day. Children under 9 years old were not allowed to work at all. The government also set up The Children’s Bureau in 1912 which was where Child Labor was monitored. There were laws made for the meat production. It was called The Federal Meat Inspection Act. That meant that all meats had to be inspected before it gets sent out. Also, another law was The Pure Food and Drug Act which is basically where all foods and drug makers had to list out the ingredients used to make the product on the package.
The Progressive Party Platform which is discussed in Document 6 is the reason why most of the laws were passed.