America from 1880-1920
America has come a long way since its Independence. Throughout her history she has gone through a number of changes. One of these periods in which number of reforms took place was the progressive era. Many state legislations, federal legislations, and court decisions, passed during this time period, helped to improve societal positions. However there were also a number of state legislations and court decisions that did quite the contrary. In the United States between 1880 and 1920, although state and federal legislations sustained worker attempts to improve their position in society, court decisions destroyed these efforts, whereas both state and court decisions attempted to dismantle previous federal efforts to improve the African American position in society. State legislations such as the Labor laws sustained attempts made by workers to improve their positions in society, yet dismantled previous federal attempts to improve African- Americans' positions through the Black codes and Grandfather laws. Between 1874 and 1896 a number of Labor laws were passed to lessen working hours, regulate wages, and lessen the amount of women and child laborers. These laws were passed in order to protect workers from being exploited by their
Federal legislations such as the Child Labor Laws, also sustained attempts made by workers to improve their positions in society, however African American attempts were simply ignored. A Federal Child labor law passed in 1916, required children part of the workforce to be a certain age, regulated the amount of hours they could work, and the minimum wage they must receive (Garraty 631). These laws were passed in order to once again protect workers, specifically children, from being exploited by their employers. However no federal legislations were made during this period, to improve the horrific predicaments African Americans were faced with. They had no land as a result no redistribution of land after the civil war, no voting rights as a result of prior federal legislations being poorly enforced, and the fever of lynching that had swept both northern and southern states was lurking about them. Court decisions such as Lochner v. NY, and Hammer v. Dagenhart destroyed state and federal efforts to improve the workers positions in society yet sustained state efforts to dismantle previous federal legislations through court decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court declared in the case Lochner v. NY (1905), that the New York ten-hour act for bakers deprived them of the liberty to wor
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Approximate Word count = 878
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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