A Time Of Reform And Change Essay Example

time of change and improvement. It began in 1890 and lasted until the roaring 20’s. Muckrakes were journalists who sparked the progressive era. They exposed the truth about social issues and revealed wrong doings such as child labor and harsh working conditions. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, was a book that exposed the harsh working conditions in the meat packing industry. “They your hand slips up on the blade and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell.” (Sinclair, p,43). As we see, the Jungle, exposes the dangerous working conditions in this industry. Due to these social issues and the people who revealed them laws were passed to improve working conditions and lower work shifts. People were now only going to work for 8 hours and have 8 hours of free time. This free time was known as leisure. Since people had more time to themselves they didn’t know what to do with themselves because they were used to working all day, going home to sleep and going to church on Sunday. This free time resulted in new technology such as, amusement parks, radio, movies and sports. Many people went to these parks for fun and met new people. Men and women interacted more due to rides and games. However, certain individuals didn’t like the idea of leisure. Who knew people would he against something so simple.

One might ask themselves, why would people be against leisure? Isn’t it nice to relax and enjoy life? However, there are some disadvantages of it as well. One of the main

arguments was that it would shape society in a negative way. The reason for this is because men and women were getting more and more comfortable with one another. In other words, before this era, women were seen as the submissive sex. Their duty was only in the household. In addition, they couldn’t own property and even they belonged to their husbands. Sex before marriage was seen as a sin and if women did it then their reputation would be ruined. Since people were so use to this way of living, many people didn’t like the change that the progressive era brought. Women started to become more cautious, flirt with men, smoke cigarettes and show a bit more skin. Many wealthy American’s argued whether to give labor workers shorter work days. They believed that the more time spent in factories would result in more production and money. But if a worker is tired, wouldn’t they work at a slower rate?

Leisure activities also had many positive aspects as well. Leisure activities not only included amusement parks and movies. It included exercise and better air quality for people who were able to get out of the factory. “While the main focus is on enjoyment, a major component tends to be aerobic exercise, which is intensive and high energy movement designed to increase cardiovascular health.” (Study.com, 2018) Things like this helped manage with stress and get things off one’s mind.

In conclusion, we can see that there are many advantages and disadvantages of leisure activities. There are numerous reasons why corporations were against it. The Progressive Era, was a time of reform and change.