Source Sets / U.S. History
Did Progressive Era reformers make life better for workers?
Muckraking texts, photographs of child labor and the Triangle fire, mill workers who opposed a federal child labor law, and Theodore Roosevelt's warning about muckrakers set up a debate about what reform achieved.
Teach it
✓ Lesson readyA ready-to-run lesson for this set: Historian’s Lab: Station Rotation. Slides include a hook, one slide per source, directions, a take-a-stand vote, an exit ticket, and a teacher script in the speaker notes.
1. Hook: look closely 3-5 min
Show: Breaker boys in #9 Breaker, Hughestown Borough, Pa. Coal Co. Smallest boy is Angelo Ross, (See labels #1953 + #1951.) Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania. (Lewis Wickes Hine, 1911, Library of Congress)
Ask: These are “breaker boys” at a Pennsylvania coal company. Estimate their ages. What job do you think they do?
2. Main activity: Historian’s Lab: Station Rotation
Grouping: Four stations, groups of 4 to 6, rotating every 7 minutes
Materials (printables are in the Lesson Plan Doc)
- Four station cards (printable pages in the Lesson Plan Doc)
- Station recording sheet (in the Lesson Plan Doc)
- Launch 3 min
Explain the lab. At each station students record the problem, the evidence, and a rating from 1 (no real change likely) to 5 (strong push for reform). - Rotate 28 min
Four stations, 7 minutes each. - What changed? 7 min
Share facts students may not know: New York passed new factory safety laws after the Triangle fire, and Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act in 1906. Congress passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act in 1916, over objections like the Cherokee Falls letter, but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1918 (Hammer v. Dagenhart). Ask: Did exposing problems lead to fixing them? - Take a stand 7 min
Use the vote slide. - Exit ticket 5 min
Students answer on a slip before leaving.
Take a stand: Did Progressive Era reformers make life better for workers?
- Yes, real gains: Muckrakers exposed tenements, child labor, and unsafe food; new laws on food safety and factory safety followed within a few years.
- Only partly: Many reforms were slow or weak, some workers opposed them (mill families wrote that a child labor law would bring hardship), and Roosevelt warned that some muckrakers went too far.
3. Pacing options
15-minute bell-ringer
- 3 min Hook: breaker boys
- 8 min Run Station 3 (Triangle fire) as a whole class
- 4 min Exit ticket question 1
Full 50-minute lesson
- 4 min Hook: breaker boys
- 3 min Launch
- 28 min Four stations
- 7 min What changed?
- 5 min Vote and exit ticket
- 3 min Buffer
4. Exit ticket
- Which station’s evidence best answers the big question? Explain.
- Choose one problem from today. Name the reform that followed, or explain why one did not.
5. Differentiation
Support
- This set has no Adapted Docs yet; read key passages aloud or chunk them for struggling readers.
- Read the Riis and Sinclair excerpts aloud, or chunk them into two or three short paragraphs with a one-line summary for each.
- Start struggling readers at Station 2 (photographs).
- Provide the recording sheet with the problem already named at each station.
Extension
- Read Roosevelt’s full speech. Why would a reform-minded president criticize reporters?
- Find one Progressive Era law that is still in force and explain what it does.
Suggested sequence
- How the Other Half Lives by Jacob RiisDocument · Project Gutenberg · Industrialization & Gilded Age (1870-1900) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 30+ minRiis's 1890 exposé of New York tenement life.Ask: How did Riis try to change people's minds about poverty?Open with this source to frame the question.
- The Jungle by Upton SinclairDocument · Project Gutenberg · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 30+ minSinclair's 1906 novel exposing the meatpacking industry.Ask: How did The Jungle lead to new laws?
- Lewis Hine Child Labor PhotographsPhotograph · Library of Congress · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 10 minNational Child Labor Committee photos by Lewis Hine.Ask: How did Hine's photographs fuel child labor reform?
- Breaker boys in #9 Breaker, Hughestown Borough, Pa. Coal Co. Smallest boy is Angelo Ross, (See labels #1953 + #1951.) Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania.Photograph · Library of Congress · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 5 minLibrary of Congress photograph: Breaker boys in #9 Breaker, Hughestown Borough, Pa. Coal Co. Smallest boy is Angelo Ross, (See labels #1953 + #1951.) Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania. (1911).Ask: How did photographs help change child labor laws?
- Two 7-Year Old Newsies, Profane and Smart, Selling Sunday, Nashville, Tennessee. (1910)Photograph · Library of Congress · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 5 minLibrary of Congress photograph: Two 7-Year Old Newsies, Profane and Smart, Selling Sunday, Nashville, Tennessee. (1910). This photograph, taken by an unknown photographer in Nashville, Tennessee, in November 1910, shows two seven-year old newspaper boys. The photograph is from the collection of the Children's Bureau, a government office es…Ask: What were working conditions like for children in American cities?
- Letter from Operatives of Cherokee Falls Manufacturing Company Cotton Mill in Opposition to Keating-Owen Child Labor BillLetter · DocsTeach (National Archives) · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 10 minLetter from South Carolina cotton mill workers opposing the Keating-Owen child labor bill.Ask: Why did some mill families oppose child labor laws?
- Triangle Shirtwaist Factory FireDocument collection · Cornell University · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 20 minTestimony, photos, and documents on the 1911 fire.Ask: How did the Triangle fire change labor laws?
- Theodore Roosevelt, The Man with the Muck-rake (1906)Speech · Wikisource · Progressive Era (1890-1920) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 15 minRoosevelt's 1906 speech criticizing sensational investigative journalists.Ask: What role should journalists play in a democracy?Close with this source before writing.
Watch
Free videos to pair with this set. Preview before showing in class.
- ▶ Industrialization and Immigration (grades 3-5)Bill of Rights Institute · free, no login
Teach with (more from Hillsdale): Unit 5: The Turn of the Century (1877-1919) (free K-12 curriculum unit)
Culminating writing prompt
Using evidence from at least three sources in this set, write an argument that answers the question: “Did Progressive Era reformers make life better for workers?” Cite each source by title, explain how its author, audience, and purpose affect its reliability, and respond to at least one counterargument.
Printable writing sheet (make a copy)
Students can plan with the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning organizer.