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Social Reform Dbq

Decent Essays

Chapter 8: Reform I think Frances Perkins was a driven woman with the best intentions. With her history, knowledge, and passion, there was no better person to lead the reforms after the Triangle fire. I think she was right to see the tragedy as an opportunity to push for social reform, because she took the basic things that so many of those workers who perished had fought for and took them even further. There was no better time to bring these issues forward for reform in my opinion, as sometimes it takes disasters for officials to see the extent of reform that is needed. I think her commitment to social reform was commendable, and the reforms that she pursued were worthy causes and consistent in their theme. I feel like under the right circumstances, if I were the right person for the job as Frances Perkins was, I could devote my life to the issues she did. There are some people whose life calling that is. I think everyone has a personal and social obligation to engage societal problems at some level to …show more content…

Even though at that time it was hard to prove negligence, I believe they willfully neglected to provide adequate safety measures due to their own greed, and therefore cost those many factory workers their lives. I was so frustrated with the progress of the trial. The prosecutor Charles Bostwick missed many key chances to prove his case, and Max Steuer was full of deceit in his case. The most frustrating part to me was why the jury found the owners not guilty, and it was because the judge had issued explicit instructions that the jury must be sure “beyond a reasonable doubt, that Harris and Blanck knew – at 4:45 P.M. on March 25 – that the Washington place door was locked” (Von Drehle, 2003, p.255), otherwise they must acquit. With those detailed instructions given in favor of the owners based on judicial bias (unknown at the time I believe), the jury had no choice but to

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