Questions: The Progressive Era in the United States (c. 1890–1920)

Question 1

Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle (1906) led most directly to which reforms?

• A. The Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Act
• B. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act
• C. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments
• D. The creation of national parks

Answer: (B)

Sinclair described filthy conditions in Chicago meatpacking plants. Public outrage led Congress to pass both food safety laws in 1906.

Question 2

Most leading Progressive reformers made ending racial segregation a central goal.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Segregation spread during these years, and President Woodrow Wilson's administration segregated parts of the federal workforce. Civil rights activists founded the NAACP in 1909 largely because mainstream reform ignored their cause.

Question 3

Name two constitutional amendments of the Progressive Era and what each did.

Model answer: Sixteenth (1913): allowed a federal income tax. Seventeenth (1913): direct election of U.S. senators by voters. Eighteenth (ratified 1919): prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Nineteenth (1920): barred denying the vote on account of sex.

These amendments show the reach of Progressive goals: fairer taxation, more democratic government, moral reform and women's political rights.

Question 4

What tragedy of 1911 led New York to pass new factory safety and labor laws?

• A. The Haymarket bombing
• B. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
• C. The Pullman Strike
• D. The sinking of the Titanic

Answer: (B)

A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, many trapped behind locked doors. The state then passed many new fire safety and labor laws.