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 general amelioration of social injustices plaguing ordinary people, especially workers' rights. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The main issue was workers' rights. With businessmen like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie leading the way, America soon became a powerhouse for industrialization. During this period, American industries soon surpassed those of England, France, and Germany combined. With all this progress came tragedy. As the men at the top became wealthier, lower-level workers were subjected to horrendous conditions, long hours, and poor pay. A growing sense of reform found as the Progressive Era progressed was justified in the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 (Document 8). Due to the illegal practices of the entrepreneurs (especially the narrow exits used by the women, where any scraps of material that may have been taken from the factory were searched, which prevented the frightened women from exiting easily), many workers of the company - mostly multiple teenage and single women died from the fire itself while some jumped off the building to avoid being burned. This fire helped get the ball rolling on social reforms in the labor sector. It 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 garment workers were on strike in Kensington, PN because of the long hours, deadly conditions, and low wages they entailed. received from the factory. This strike showed the deplorable conditions found in the early factories. Laws protecting workers, especially children, existed but were rarely enforced. Families often lied about their children's ages in order to have more income because for many of them it was, as one mother said, "a question of hunger or perjury." In addition to filth in manufacturing factories there was also filth in food industries, such as meatpacking. In his book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair revealed the appalling practices of the meatpacking industries (Document 3). His work shocked the American public into action. Legislation such as the Pure Food and Drugs Act has been passed in an attempt to regulate the manufacturing and packaging of food products. Things really began to change with Roosevelt's policy of new nationalism (Document 5). The new nationalism encouraged a strong central government that supported workers and unions and strove to make improvements for workers so that "every man had his fair chance to realize for himself all that lies in him." All these changes would not have happened. if it had not been for the efforts of the many reformists of the time. In the early 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 such as Chicago and New York. Steffens was just one of many investigative journalists called “muckrakers” who focused on uncovering all the little secrets that big companies”..