Progressive Era DBQ

Prompt

Evaluate the effectiveness of Progressive Era reformers and the federal government in bringing about reform at the national level. In your answer be sure to analyze the successes and limitations of their efforts in the period 1900-1920.

The Progressive Era was a time where the likes of Social Gospels, muckrakers,and the federal government united under the banner of social betterment. It was to improve the ills of a society that had fallen prey to the disconcerting aspects of modernization in the cities and where the lives of America's people had degenerated into squalor in places such as tenement housing which were home to poor laborers who worked long hours for low wages in dangerous conditions. Although Progressive reformers and the federal government achieved,to some degree,success at a national level with the passages of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914,which prohibited exclusive sales contracts with the intent of ridding the market of competitors and legalized peaceful strikes, and the Pure Foods and Drug Act of 1906,that prohibited the manufacturing and sale of foods or drugs that had been altered in a fashion that would pose as a harm for human consumption, there were limitations concerning further reforms taking place as in with women's suffrage where women didn't even attain the right to vote till the enactment of the nineteenth amendment on August 18th,1920 or
the copious amounts of African American men drafted into WWI to fight for a country who had yet to bestow upon them rights that the Declaration of Independence had deemed inalienable. The Progressive Era was full of intent to improve and report societal ills but did have limitations with stalwart reformers heading causes, a select few doubting the veracity of the Progressive Movement and the reach of the federal government, and the setbacks that surely inhibited some reforms from taking off immediately.

Progressive Era Reformers and the Federal Government Bringing Light to and Improving Society
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Those doubtful of the Progressive Movement at achieving reform and Federal Government Reach
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Limitations in achieving true reform at a national level 
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