TR, Progressivism, Food, and Medicine - US History Teachers

TR, Progressivism,

Food, and Medicine

C. Rebuilding a Nation (ca. 1877-ca.

1914)

2.Increasing Influence and Challenges

b. Explain the origins and

accomplishments of the Progressive

movement

d. Evaluate, take, and defend positions on

the various U.S. foreign policies in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

e. Analyze the causes and consequences

of the Spanish-American War

Contaminated Food

-Upton Sinclair, a muckraker journalist,

wrote a book called The Jungle.

-Just as Jacob Riis exposed the terrible

living conditions of immigrants, Upton

Sinclair exposed the unsanitary conditions of

food processing factories.

-This caused citizens to become concerned

about consuming mass produced food.

There would be meat stored in a great

piles in rooms…thousands of rats would

race about it….a man could run his hand

over these piles of meat and sweep off

handfuls of the dried dung of rats…the

packers would put poisoned bread out for

them; they would die, and then rats,

bread, and meat would go into the

hoppers together.

-Excerpts from The Jungle by Upton

Sinclair

In TR’s time, many were concerned

about the unsanitary way that meat was processed.

The Jungle of Chicago

-The Jungle was written with a focus on Chicago

life and also displayed how bad working

conditions were for those in the food processing

factories.

-Many Progressives felt that the only way to stop

these terrible occurrences from putting the public

health at risk was government intervention.

-Teddy Roosevelt asserted that he would use

government power to intervene, if Sinclair’s

descriptions proved true.

Making Food Safe

-TR appointed a commission of experts to

investigate the meat packaging and Upton

Sinclair’s claims of unsanitary conditions.

-The commission backed Sinclair’s claims.

Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act of

1906.

-The government began to force food companies

to serve food in a sanitary way. The government

also paid for the inspections.

The Pure Food and Drug Act

-Companies made outrageous claims to sell

products that did not work. Some children’s

medicine had opium, alcohol, and other drugs.

-In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act was

passed. The law called for label claims to be

backed by truth.

-Removing contaminations from medicine and

food was also required.

Many makers of

products in the early

20th Century made

outlandish claims

that were not backed

by evidence.

The

End

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