Critical Thinking Questions for the Progressive Response

Answer the following questions in complete sentences:

1a) Robert La Follete was the governor of Wisconsin and a U.S. Senator who fought for Progressive reforms. What are three topics that were important to Progressives? 1b) What was the most important issue to Robert La Follete? 1c)What groups of Americans supported him? 1d) What groups of Americans opposed him?

2a) The second slide contains a portrait of  Ida Tarbell, one of the most influential muckraking journalists of the progressive era, who wrote an exposé of the Standard Oil Company. What "muck" did she uncover about Standard Oil? 2b) Why do you think writers such as Tarbell were named "muckrakers"? 2c) What effect did they have on American society?

3a)  Our third slide is a 10-year-old miner already stooped over from years of hard labor. What problems might this boy face now and in the future? 3b) Should government be responsible for protecting him?  Why? 3c) How did the Progressive try to help workers? 3d)How do you think the industrialists responded to Progressive reforms?

4a) The forth slide is a political cartoon. Describe what is happening in this cartoon? 4b) Does the cartoonist support reforms to help consumers, or is he poking fun at such reforms? Explain.  4c)Do you think consumers have enough safeguards today? Give an example.  Or do you think the government interferes with business too much? If so, how?

5a) For our fifth slide, describe what is happening in this cartoon, and who do the three figures represent? 5b) What do you think is the artist's intended message in this cartoon? 5c) How does it reflect the Progressives' attitude toward abuse by corporations?

6a) Our sixth slide shows women protesting. Who are these women, and what do they want?  6b) Why did the Progressive movement concern itself with suffrage? 6c) What does the fact that many women could not vote before 1920 reveal to you about the attitudes toward women in the early 1900's? 6d) What rights are women still fighting for today?

7a) Our seventh slide was taken in Yosemite. Who are these men, and where are they standing? 7b) What shared interests did they have? 7c) How were America's natural resources affected by industrialization and urbanization? 7d) What measures are being taken today to protect the environment?

8a) In our eighth and final slide describe what type of man this is and what he did do to help blacks? 8b) Why didn't the Progressives fight for civil rights for blacks?  8c) What is revealed about race relations in the early 1900's by the fact that Progressives ignored issues affecting blacks?