Primary Source Learning: Progressive Era Primary Source Set

Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1900-1929. The Progressive Era was one of economic growth and prosperity but also one in which many worked to make American society a better and safer place through environmental, business and government reforms. The story about this time of growth and reform may be in digital or print form. It could be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even a song. Click on each thumbnail image below to access the full size primary source. You may also use this primary set for a found poetry activity (click the previous link). Be sure to take a look at the Progressive Era to New Era timeline as well as associated lesson plans (see below).

Housing conditions Providence, Rhode Island	First flight, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina	J. S. Farrand Packing Company, Baltimore, Maryland
Eskimos sitting in an automobile	Prohibition “bust”	Suffrage parade, New York City, May 6, 1912
“Over the top” – American soldiers answering the bugle call to “charge”	Buy War Bonds. Pave the way to victory	Ku Klux Klan parade, Washington, D.C., 09/13/1926
Leading the Klu [sic] Klux Klan parade	New York. Ellis Island	Children pointing at movie poster for Uncle Sam
Letter, Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute	Help to Save the Hetch-Hetchy Valley	Do you know? by Carrie Chapman Catt
Will live forever by E. N. Haag	The Great Railroad Strike of 1894	Why the trusts and bosses oppose the Progressive Party

Related teaching resources

• Progressive era primary source collections
• Woman suffrage primary source collections
• Library of Congress Progressive Era lesson plans
• 1900 America: Primary Sources and Epic Poetry
• The American West: Images of Its People
• Baseball, Race and Ethnicity: Rounding the Bases
• Change in Early 20th Century America: Doing the Decades
• Child Labor and the Building of America
• Child Labor in America
• The Conservation Movement at a Crossroads: The Hetch Hetchy Controversy
• Explorations in American Environmental History
• The Great Gatsby: Primary Sources from the Roaring Twenties
• How Transportation Transformed America: Going to Market
• Immigration and Oral History
• Immigration History Firsthand
• Indian Boarding Schools
• Labor Unions and Working Conditions: United We Stand
• Local History: Mapping My Spot
• Music and U.S. Reform History: Stand Up and Sing
• Natural Disasters: Nature’s Fury
• The New England Fishing Industry: Sea Changes in a Community
• Nineteenth Century Women: Struggle and Triumph
• Reservation Controversies
• Segregation: From Jim Crow to Linda Brown
• Suffrage Strategies: Voices for Votes
• Suffragists and Their Tactics
• Thomas Edison, Electricity, and America
• The Titanic: Shifting Responses to Its Sinking
• Twentieth Century Entertainment: When Work is Done
• Women’s Suffrage: Their Rights and Nothing Less
• World War I: What Are We Fighting For Over There?

Primary source sets by time period

• Settlement primary source set
• American Revolution primary source set
• Young Nation primary source set
• Expansion & Reform primary source set
• Civil War & Reconstruction primary source set
• Industrial America Primary Source Set
• Great Depression & World War II primary source set
• Primary Source Learning: Postwar United States (1945-1968) primary source set