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The Social Impacts Of The Progressive Era

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The filthiness of cities, lack of rights and horrible working conditions is why the Progressive Era was necessary for the country to improve. The Progressive Era was a variety of responses to the economic, political and social problems that plagued the United States of America (The Progressive Era). Progressivism, the movement of the Progressive era, impacted the lives of people more than any other era. It impacted the economic problems by taking away power from big businesses and making it impossible to have a monopoly. It also affected the political power of America by giving the people the availability to vote for the senators of the state, instead of having them elected (ARHS 3). In retrospect of the Progressive era, progressivism had a big impact on the Economics and politics of the United States, but impacted the social aspect the most greatly by creating women's suffrage, better working conditions and cleaner cities. Progressivism improved the health and sanitation of cities greatly. The first sight of this was the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This was a system of government inspection for meat products. Inspectors graded the meat by its quality. The government did this because there were hazards surround the meat such as cancers in the meat, not monitoring it and keeping it warm. The meat was kept on the floor for rats and was spit on, walked all over, not kept refrigerated and that lead to many illnesses and even death(The progressive Era). Another way it helped the sanitation of cities was to clean the cities streets by sweeping, creating sewer systems and not dumping poop into the streets(ARHS). The progressives had to do this because if they did not disease would continue to spread rapidly. Diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera,and yellow fever would spread throughout the cities. The final biggest way progressives helped Sanitation and health is that they stopped and helped the immigrants who were living in crowded, filthy, crime infested neighborhoods. They improved this by giving people more opportunities, making scripture laws and more surveillance around the neighborhood. This was necessary because the crime rate was drastically increasing in the neighborhoods, resulting in death. They had

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