Progressive Era DBQ
DBQ (40 points)
Directions: This task is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents
and is based on the accompanying documents (1-7). Some of the documents have been
edited for the purposes of this question. As you analyze the documents, take into account
both the source of each document and any point of view that may be presented in the
document.
Historical Context: Throughout the history of the United States, urbanization and
industrialization have led to great advances and great social problems. During the
Progressive Era, reform movements attempted to solve problems such as tenement
overcrowding, lynching, child labor, and to achieve suffrage for women.
Task:
 Discuss two social, economic, and/or political problems affecting Americans during
the Progressive Era.
 Explain one reform solution to each of the problems you have selected.
 Evaluate whether the reform movements of the Progressive were a success or a failure.
Using information from the documents and your knowledge of U.S. History, answer the
questions that follow each document in Part A. Your answers to the questions will help
you write the Part B essay.
Part A
Document 1
"In 1869 there were 14,872 tenements in New York, with a population of
468,492 persons. In 1879 the number of the tenements was estimated at
21,000, and their tenants had passed the half-million mark. At the end of
the year 1888, when a regular census was made for the first time since
1869, the showing was: 32,390 tenements, with a population of 1,093,701
souls. Today we have 37,316 tenements, including 2,630 rear houses, and
their population is over 1,250,000 . . . This drift of the population to the
great cities has to be taken into account as a steady factor. It will probably
increase rather than decrease for many years to come. At the beginning of
the century the percentage of our population that lived in cities was one in
twenty-five. In 1880 it was one in four and one-half, and in 1890 the
census will in all probability show it to be one in four..."
-Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1890, Chapter 24
What urban problem is the author is discussing? (2)
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Document 2
Caption: Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the
empty bobbins. Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Ga. (taken 1908-1912)
What does this picture tell you about the conditions of working in a factory during the early 1900s?
(2)
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Document 3
"New York codes affecting women and children in 1917"
No child under 16 shall be employed or permitted to work in any factory between 5 p.m.
and 8 a.m. for more than 8 hours a day or more than six days a week.
No male minor 16-18 shall be employed in any factory more than 9 hours a day, 6 days,
or 54 hours a week, or between 12 p.m. and 4 a.m. . .
No child under 16 shall be employed or permitted to work on dangerous machinery, or in
oiling or cleaning machinery, or among dangerous acids or chemicals, or explosives, or in
any distillery, brewery or any establishment where alcoholic liquors are manufactured or
packed. . .
No female under 16 shall be employed in any capacity requiring constant standing. . .
No male person under 18 or female under 21 shall be permitted to clean machinery in
motion . . .
- Excerpted from Laws affecting women and children in the suffrage and non-suffrage
states, by Annie G. Porritt, 1917
What are two things that children are not permitted to do under these laws? (6)
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Document 4
"'To take the case of the saleswomen for illustration: The investigation of the Working
Women's Society disclosed the fact that wages averaging from $2 to $4.50 a week were
reduced by excessive fines, the employers placing a value upon time lost that is not given
to services rendered.' A little girl, who received two dollars a week, made cash-sales
amounting to $167 in a single day, while the receipts of a fifteen-dollar male clerk in the
same department footed up only $195; yet for some trivial mistake the girl was fined
sixty cents out of her two dollars . . . One of the causes for fine in a certain large store
was sitting down. The law requiring seats for saleswomen, generally ignored, was obeyed
faithfully in this establishment. The seats were there, but the girls were fined when found
using them."
-Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1890, Chapter 20
What happened to saleswomen and their salaries? (3)
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Document 5
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE By Walquist
(Tune: "Love Me and the World Is Mine")
"There's millions like me wandering,
Who are deeply pondering,
Oh, what must we do to live?
Shall the workers face starvation, mis'ry and privation,
In a land so rich and fair?
CHORUS
Unite, my Fellow Men, unite!
Take back your freedom and your right
You have nothing to lose now,
Workers of the World, unite.
Oh! workingmen, come organize,
Oh! when, oh! when will you get wise?"
-I.W.W. Songbook, early 1900s
What should the workers do to improve their working conditions? (2)
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Document 6
What does this map reveal about the progress for women's suffrage? (3)
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Document 7
Excitement was at fever heat until the morning papers, two days after, announced that the
wounded deputy sheriffs were out of danger. This hindered rather than helped the plans
of the whites. There was no law on the statute books which would execute an AfroAmerican for wounding a white man, but the "unwritten law" did. Three of these men,
the president, the manager and clerk of the grocery--"the leaders of the conspiracy"--were
secretly taken from jail and lynched in a shockingly brutal manner. "The Negroes are
getting too independent," they say, "we must teach them a lesson."
What lesson? The lesson of subordination. "Kill the leaders and it will cow the Negro
who dares to shoot a white man, even in self defense."
-excerpt from SOUTHERN HORRORS by Ida B. Wells 1892
Why were the three African American men lynched? (2)
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Part B (20 points total)
Directions: Using the information from the documents provided, and your knowledge of United States
history, write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Historical Context: Throughout the history of the United States, urbanization and industrialization have
led to great advances and great social problems. During the Progressive Era, reform movements attempted
to solve problems such as tenement overcrowding, lynching, child labor, and to achieve suffrage for
women.
Task:
 Discuss two social, economic, and/or political problems affecting Americans during the Progressive Era.
 Explain one reform solution to each of the problems you have selected.
 Evaluate whether the reform movements of the Progressive were a success or a failure.
Guidelines
When writing your essay, be sure to
 Address all aspects of the task by accurately analyzing and interpreting at least four documents.
 Incorporate information from the documents in the body of the essay.
 Incorporate relevant outside information throughout the essay.
 Richly support the theme with relevant facts, examples, and details.
 Write a well-developed essay that consistently demonstrates a logical and clear plan of organization.
 Introduce the theme by establishing a framework that is beyond a simple restatement of the Task or
Historical Content and conclude the essay with a summation of the theme.