The Progressive Era and What Made It Ineffective

I disagree with the statement, “The Progressive Era was generally ineffective because the movement tended to encompass too many social problems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” The Progressive Era attempted to fix many problems of society and they did. The Progressive Era fixed many of the major issues in society. Although some were left without a solution the Progressives established many more positive things than they did negative. A main issue of the Progressive Era was the working conditions of laborers. Laborers were often under payed and overworked. Progressives worked diligently to get this changed. They wanted to really improve the workplace for the workers in it. In Document G, the Progressive Party Platform includes many reforms of the workplace. This includes an eight hour work day, the prohibition of child labor, equal pay for equal work, six day work week, as well as full reports on industrial accidents and diseases as well as the opening of labor products to public inspection. In Document D, there is a photograph of child miners. This shows just how young the boys were. They were not just teenagers, they were anywhere from 8-10 years and older. They boys are quite dirty and they have meager lunches. Some boys did not have the finances to bring lunch to work with them. They were paid extremely low wages and were abused and injured. Further showing the atrocities of the workplace is Document F, an excerpt from Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle. Many men in the meat packaging plants had little left of their hands. They were covered in scratches that were bound to catch the germs from all around the plant. Tuberculosis and other blood poisoning germs lived in abundance in the plants. This was because the conditions of the plants allowed this. They factory workers had to work no matter what ailed them or what had happened to them. Many of the jobs in the meat packing factory lasted up to only five years. People didn't stay there very long. And