What We Owe the ProgressivesWorker’s Compensation, Shorter Work Days, Clean Foods and More

Child Labor

Wages in the factories were low so oftentimes parents brought their children to work with them to keep them close and for the extra income

End of the 1800s nearly 20% of children (10-16) worked rather than went to school

OK Dept. of LaborCreated by the constitution (state’s) in 1907

Can’t work under 14 (with few exceptions like “paper routes” and helping on family farms)

Restrictions for number of hours on school days and non-school days

Beyond 16 there is no maximum number of work hours

Children now have to attend school until 16--compulsary

Working Conditions

Industrial workers worked long hours usually in poorly ventilated facilities with hazardous fumes and dangerous machinery

After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fires in NYC, Americans took notice of the conditions workers had to endure

(146 workers died—mostly young women)

NY passed laws trying to make the workplace safer

New Laws in the Workplace

Worker’s compensation- these laws protect workers who are injured on the job and pay them while they recover (if possible)

Maternity leave

Sick Leave

FMLA

Women Seek Equal Rights

Women wanted to expand their role in society and in their communities—beyond taking care of husbands and having babies

Education was key!Women’s colleges prepped women for careers as nurses, teachers, and social workers

Many women couldn’t afford an education and took factory jobs

They had to hand over their paychecks to their husbands

Women’s SuffrageWomen wanted to expand their role in society and in their communities—beyond taking care of husbands and having babies

Education was key!Women’s colleges prepped women for careers as nurses, teachers, and social workers

Many women couldn’t afford an education and took factory jobs

They had to hand over their paychecks to their husbands

Discrimination and Civil Rights

With the decision in Plessy V. Ferguson, states across the country passed segregation laws

Generally speaking, these laws were popular

Many Progressives were prejudiced against nonwhites, non-Protestants, and the non-middle class

African Americans began demanding reform for themselves

Jim Crow laws will make their way into the Oklahoma Constitution

Meat Inspection Act

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Pure Food and Drug Act

Twin Territories

Within the Twin Territories, Progressives wanted to help all these people (the poor, blacks, women, farmers, etc.) by developing a constitution for a new state

William H. Murray and Charles N. Haskell were Democrats who wanted to create a new state of Indian Territory called Sequoyah—they even wrote a constitution when they met with others in Muskogee

Sequoyah wasn’t meant to be…

Sequoyah would have been a Democratic state and since T. Roosevelt was a Republican he didn’t want that, so the Republican controlled Congress proposed that Indian Territory (Dem) and Oklahoma Territory (Rep) combine

This action was approved as the Oklahoma Enabling Act in 1906

Oklahoma is Born

Create the longest and most progressive constitution

As progressive as it was, it also had Jim Crow laws embedded into it, including literacy tests and “Grandfather clauses”

The previous conditions of servitude. or the status of having been slaves, excluded classes from voting