Chapter Sixteen Reforms In The 1800's

Chapter Sixteen Reforms As the 1900’s approached, America faced many changes other than just the changing of the year. From the passing of multiple different amendments, to genders and races fighting for their own civil rights, this was a very crucial time in America’s history. The country had now reached the point in development that allowed citizen’s to grow and become active and working members in society as well as within their individual lives. Because of this, an abundance of people was passionately fighting for issues that they believed needed to be reformed. For example, there was housing reform acts that encouraged safer and more sanitary living conditions for those in an urban setting, women and African Americans began campaigning …show more content…
Though all of these progressions were important for the quickly progressing United States, there were two of them that truly helped form the country as we know it today. These include labor laws and cleaning the government of its corruption. In the 1800’s, many labor unions were formed in order to improve the jobs that working Americans had to face. The unions’ main purpose was to raise awareness of the unfairness that many workers in corporate businesses faced on a day to day basis. There were many successes as well as multiple failures that labor unions faced; however, they managed to carry their work on throughout the years. As the new century approached, one of the hottest issues of that …show more content…
During this time, the government was unsympathetically stealing money from the citizens, as well as doing many other things behind the peoples’ backs. Society began to realize this, and they soon fought for change. They began small and targeted city governments. An important man in this reform movement was Tom Johnson. He stepped in and took control of the city’s police department as well as improving the city’s services, wages, and education systems for young children. Once city governments were improved, the people moved their focus to state governments. In Wisconsin, Robert M. Lafollette pushed for changes within the state government, such as limited campaign spending as well as the regulation of railroads and taxation. States such as New York and Mississippi soon followed in his footsteps. As states began correcting the issues within their government, country wide elections were also changed. In 1913, the seventeenth amendment was passed which allowed voters to elect their U.S. senators. They also pressed for the usage of secret ballot voting and three election reform measures. These included the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. All of these gave individual citizens more power in who is elected into office; therefore, the majority of the people were able to form their government to their own liking. This reform movement was

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