The Gilded Age: The Rise Of The Progressive Movement

According to the American Worker section on sageamericanhistory.net, around the nineteen hundreds there was about “twenty-five to thirty million deaths and one million people injured per year for industrial jobs with unsafe working conditions.” These people who give up everything just to work for little pay with long work hours and end up dying because of the conditions they have to go through everyday to work. Upton Sinclair, a muckraker that exposes the issues in the industrial society and government corruption, wrote a book called The Jungle. These issues that are in the industrial society include unsanitary and harsh conditions, child labor, long-hour shifts, and low pay. The struggles that an immigrant had to achieve “The American Dream”
Mark Twain had a phrase that was used to describe Gilded Age. This phrase was used to describe something that looks great on the outside but ugly and rotten in the inside. The corruption of the government, which made the Progressives want to fix the politics, business, and society. Politics would increase in democracy, involve citizens more directly, and improve efficiency. In business, the Progressives wanted to regulate big businesses and protect the consumers. They desired to make society more comfortable and safe environment. “Men and women worked in the midst of a sickening stench, which caused visitors to hasten by gasping.” (42) The rise of the Progressive movement tried to fix these harsh working conditions by making reforms. These reforms were to end corruption and to make the state government more direct accountable to the people. “Perhaps it was the smoked sausage he had eaten that morning – which may have been made out of some of the tubercular pork that was condemned as unfit for export.” (132) These factories knew about the meat not being good for Americans to be eating but just wanted to make money for the big
“The cheapest doctor they could find would charge them fifteen dollars, and perhaps more when the bill came in; and here was Jurgis, declaring that he would pay it, even if he had to stop eating in the meantime.“ (110) Upton Sinclair was a muckraker, who wanted to expose the problems within the industries, factories, cities, and immigrants in order to have these issues fixed. In Conclusion, the Gilded Age contributed to the rise of the Progressive movement, which has changed the entire government and industrial outlook.
The Industrialization process is responsible for the degradation of lower class Americans by treating workers with low pay, long-hour shifts to make a profit for their corporation.
Upton Sinclair’s vision of “The American Dream” was if you had worked hard enough and sacrifice, you could build a better life for you and your family, but you had to go through so many difficult situations and never meet the requirements to have the freedom and