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Difficulty: EasyProgressive Era Reforms and Influences

Source: Upton Sinclair, *The Jungle*, 1906

"There would be meat that had tumbled on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit, unregarded, tons of damp split beef, piled on the floor... and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together."

Which of the following legislative measures was most directly prompted by public outrage over the conditions described in the excerpt?

  1. A
    The establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railway rates.
  2. B
    The creation of the Social Security Administration to provide elderly pensions.
  3. The passage of the Meat Inspection Act to protect consumer health.Answer
  4. D
    The passage of the Dawes Act to reform Native American reservations.

Answer

The passage of the Meat Inspection Act to protect consumer health.
The correct answer is correct because the graphic descriptions of unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants in Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel *The Jungle* shocked the American public and led President Theodore Roosevelt to push for regulatory legislation, resulting in the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus to identify the author, publication year, and subject matter.
The excerpt is from Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel *The Jungle*, which describes highly unsanitary and dangerous conditions in the meatpacking industry.
Understanding the context of the stimulus is necessary to connect it to the correct historical reform.
2
Identify the primary goal of muckraking journalism during the Progressive Era as shown in the text.
Muckrakers aimed to expose societal ills and corporate greed to prompt federal regulation and government intervention.
Exposing these conditions created public demand for state and federal consumer protection reforms.
3
Select the federal legislation that directly addressed meat quality and packaging sanitary standards.
The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was passed to mandate federal inspection of meat processing plants.
This law directly corrected the issues outlined by Sinclair's publication.

Key Concept

Muckraking and federal consumer protection regulation in the Progressive Era
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Topics

Progressive Era Reforms and Influences

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