The Progressive Era from 1900 to 1915 contained many important issues focused primarily on improving society. The main focus of this period, however, was the overall improvement of social injustices suffered by ordinary people, particularly workers' rights. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe main issue was workers' rights. With businessmen like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie leading the way, America quickly became a powerhouse of industrialization. During this period, American industries quickly surpassed those of England, France, and Germany combined. All this progress has also led to tragedy. As the men at the top of the ladder grew richer, lowly workers were subjected to appalling conditions, long hours, and low pay. A growing sense of reform discovered as the Progressive Era progressed was vindicated by the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 (Document 8). Due to illegal practices by the company's owners (mainly the narrow exits used by the women, where they were searched for leftover materials that might have been removed from the factory, which prevented frightened women from exiting easily), many of the company's workers - mostly teenage girls and single women - perished from the fire itself while some jumped from the building to avoid being burned. This fire helped launch social reforms in the field of work. This was not, however, the first example of reform in action. Mother Jones, a noted social reformer, noted in her book The March of the Mill Children (Document 1), that seventy-five thousand textile workers were on strike in Kensington, PN, due to long hours, poor working conditions. life-threatening conditions and low wages. they received from the factory. This strike showed the deplorable conditions that prevailed in the first factories. Laws protecting workers, particularly children, existed but were rarely enforced. Families often lied about children's ages to gain more income because for many of them it was, as one mother put it, "a matter of starvation or perjury." In addition to the dirt from manufacturing plants, there was the dirt from food industries like meat packing. In his book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposed the appalling practices of the meatpacking industries (Document 3). His work moved the American public to action. Laws such as the Pure Food and Drugs Act were passed in an effort to regulate the production and packaging of food products. Things really began to change with Roosevelt's New Nationalism policy (Document 5). The new nationalism encouraged a strong central government that would support workers and unions and strive to bring about improvements for workers so that "every man has his fair chance of achieving all that lies within him." All these changes would not have happened. without the efforts of the many reformists of the time. At the start of the Progressive Era, corruption was still a major problem, as noted by Lincoln Steffens in The Shame of the Cities (Document 2) which detailed the corruption that took place in large industrial cities like Chicago and New York . Steffens was just one of many investigative journalists called “ ».