The progressive Era reforms affected many different groups of people. Even though these impacts were big the biggest impact was on children and workers. Leaders from different political parties and social classes came together and used their power to influence a change in people’s lives for the good. These people mainly focused on big industries that caused social and political problems. They wanted the government to be more concerned as to how poor people were treated and be more aware of their wants and needs.But, they also focused on children having an education and not being overworked.
During this era, workers were in very unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Many of these men were badly injured or killed by these dangerous machines in factories like the meat packing plants. These men’s hands would be cut , their fingers would be chopped up , they would be scarred all over their bodies. Document 8 states “ The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend t count them or trace them. They would have no nails,”. These issues were resolved by laws being placed. Inspections were made to these unsafe industries. According to document 11 , laws like the New York State Tenement House Laws that “ requires fire escapes, lights in dark hallways, a windows in each room” and any injured workers would have benefits , this law was the Maryland Workmen’s compensation Law that “ Provide benefits for workers injured on the job”
Many children were being affected during this era too. These children were overworked and injured many times by dangerous machines in textile factories and mines. Some were even killed sometimes. Their bodies would be deformed to the point where it was hard to identify them. In document 3, an expose by John Spargo that highlights the child coal miners, it states “ When a boy has been working for some time an begins to get rounded-shouldered” it also states “ sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is mangled and torn in the machinery”. Since children were working so many hours, they were not getting the education they needed. These issues were also somewhat resolved. Child labor laws were placed. There was a limit on how many hours children were able to work in a day or a week. While national child labor laws were later overturned, law that required children to go to school helped keep them out of the workplace.
The progressive era had many bad causes. These causes were solved and had good outcomes. These solutions helped many workers and children have a better life. Less families were suffering less losses. Many changes in the government had to be made and laws had to be passed for minority people to be even close to getting treated like americans. The progressive era had a major impact on the United States.
