Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 19

Document Links:

Document 19.1 FRANCES WILLARD, On Behalf of Home Protection (1884)

Document 19.2 Abstinence Poster (1919)

Document 19.3 Indiana Sterilization Law (1907)

Document 19.4 The Immigration Act of 1917

Document 19.5 Sanitary Precaution (c. 1914)

Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 19

Praise Progressivism: Based on these sources and the text of chapter 19, construct an argument about the positive elements of progressives’ activism and their impact on the United States.

Criticize Progressivism: Based on these sources and the text of chapter 19, construct an argument that identifies and criticizes the negative elements of progressive activism and the movements’ damaging impact on the United States.

Assess Change: What do these five documents reveal about whether and to what degree the moral reforms promoted by progressives in the twentieth century differed from those pursued by nineteenth-century moral reformers? What similarities and differences can you identify, and how do you account for them?

Make Comparisons: What perspectives do the progressive reformers who created these five documents share and in what ways do they disagree? Which strands of the complex progressive movement do you see represented in these documents, and which strands are not evident here?