Overview:
The United States was transformed in the last decades
of the nineteenth century by the industrial revolution.
The rapid growth of cities, increase in immigration,
expansion of a struggling working class and the concentration
of the nation’s wealth in the hands of a few “robber
barrons” all demonstrated that the nation’s
governing institutions were not prepared to cope with
the challenges of that revolution.
The government’s role in the economy in the nineteenth
century is best characterized as one of removing obstacles
to growth. Congress paved the way for the business
community to cater to the needs of private-propertied
interests. Industries left to their own devices
exploited workers, and cities, ill-equipped to respond
to increasing population, provided over-crowded and
dire living accommodations. No public institutions
existed to deal with even the most urgent problems such
as sanitation, poverty or contagious disease.
Some individuals responded to the need for action by
exposing the worst conditions and calling for change.
These reformers included photo journalists, print journalists,
writers and novelists who used their talents to encourage
a reexamination of the role of the government in an
industrialized economy. Upton Sinclair was one
of many who sought reform in the first two decades of
the twentieth century—the Progressive Era.
Objectives:
- Students will be able to create a model for evaluating the validity of a novel as historical evidence.
- Students will examine factual references to analyze the history of industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Students will be able to identify the major social and economic changes in the first half of the twentieth century.
- Students will be able to identify the major social and political reforms of the Progressive Era.
- Students will be engaged in historical research
and the critical analysis of the muckrakers of the
Progressive Era.
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