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  • Essay / Overview of Major Issues of the Progressive Era

    The Progressive Movement impacted America in many ways. During the early Progressive Era, there were many different problems, including terrible working conditions, lack of women's rights, immigration, industrialization, political corruption, urbanization, and alcohol. The United States has had many problems, but the progressive movement has managed to create a ton of change and implement many new laws to help. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayOne of the first significant problems was the terrible working conditions. The workplace was one of the most dangerous places. In his book titled “The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair described the meatpacking plant where he worked and talked about the mounds of raw meat and the hundreds of rats that went in and out of the piles of meat. Upton Sinclair also said they put poison and several chemicals around the meat to kill the rats. The rats died and fell into the meat and were picked up with the meat and put together in the grinder. Upton Sinclair also said unskilled immigrants performed backbreaking and dangerous work, working in dark, poorly lit and unventilated rooms. It was scorchingly hot in the summer and unheated in the winter. Many remained all day on floors covered in blood, pieces of meat and foul-smelling water, brandishing sledgehammers and butcher knives. Women and children over the age of 14 worked in meat trimming stations, making sausages and canned goods. Another prime example of poor working conditions was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York on March 25, 1911 at 4:40 p.m. The fire was the deadliest industrial fire in the city's history, killing 146 workers, 23 women, girls and 23 men. It was caused when a match or cigarette butt was thrown into a trash can filled with leftover shirt size fabric fueling the fire started very quickly, the only thing that wasn't very untoward was steel beams. Most of the bad guys and women died from smoke inhalation, burned alive, and some girls and boys jumped or fell from the eighth and ninth floors. Everyone died because the stairwell and exit doors were locked (a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and reduce merchandise theft). The elevator operator saved many lives by going up and owning as much as possible, but didn't get back up when the weight of panicking people enveloped the elevator and made it useful for trapping everyone. The firefighters were useless because the ladders were too short and could only reach the seventh floor and could not reach the correct floor. Firefighters began to act quickly and grabbed the safety nets, but they broke under the weight and force of the falling people. Some men also tried to build a human bridge from one building to another, but this failed when too many people climbed on it and broke the intermediaries, causing everyone to die. They also used the fire escape for a few minutes before it collapsed from all the weight on it and the structure was poorly installed and it also melted from the heat. There was one survivor, one.