Today we continued to present our Chapter 9 Projects.What did Progressives do to make our government more democratic?I learned that 17th amendment allowed the people of the state to choose the senators in 1913 instead of the state legislatures. I also learned that political machines ususally picked who they wanted to be president, because of this Direct Primaries took the power from the machines. The common person was actually able to choose who they wanted instead of having someone else choose them for you,. Before secret ballots it was open and other people could see who you voted for. Another thing I learned is that some people like would pay you or give you things to vote for who they wanted to win. If you tried to go against them they could see who you voted for, so you had to do what they wanted. Referendum's allow people to decide if they want to law to pass or not. I learned that the state would send out a referendum and the people would vote on the referendum. I also learned recall allows people to recall the governor or any other person in government for their state if that person is not doing a very good job.What did the Progressives do to reduce child labor?The Progressives pressured politicians to pass the Keating-Owen Law. I learned that the Keating-Owen Law stated that if children made something in a state, it couldn’t be taken to another state by anyone. The Progressives also limited the amount of time or hours children could work. The maximum amount of time was 15 hours. I also learned that children would not fight back, create labor unions, and could do some things better so business owners wanted to hire them. They could also reach smaller parts and were usually hurt on the job because of fatique. Another thing I learned is that the children were hurt the most out of all the factory workers. Today you have to be 14 years old to work at a business.Next we talked about Workmen's Compensation. Before the Progressive Era if you were hurt in while working the business owner would just fire them and did not have to pay the hurt worker. I learned that the Progressives passed the Workmen's Compensation laws that said if you were hurt on the job, the worker would get paid during the were on leave. Some companies even started death benefits.What is women's suffrage? The 19th amendment. What approaches did women use to get the right to vote?I learned that before the Progressive Era the women were the protectors of the home because they cooked and cleaned the house. Women usually didn't work, but most of the time women worked in textile mills. Women were upset with the 14th and 15th amendment because when the black men got the right to vote, but the women weren't. I also learned that the Progressives passed the 19th amendment in 1920 that gave the women the right to vote. Women tried to achieve the right to vote by trying to convince state legislatures to grant the women the right to vote. The second was by pursuing court cases to test the 14th Amendment and finally by pushing for a national constitutional amendment to grant women the ability to vote. I learned this was called the Three Prong Strategy.
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