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5th grade · Social Studies · Unit 2 of 9

The Progressive Era

Suffrage, reformers and Helen Keller

What your child practices

Progressive Era reforms in Alabama and the nation: women's suffrage, the 1901 Constitution and the poll taxes and literacy tests it used to take away votes, prison, school and labor reform, Helen Keller, and immigration and the Great Migration.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 5.2; 5.3; 5.4 · Progressive Era political and social reforms in Alabama and the US, Helen Keller, and immigration and the Great Migration

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The Progressive Era (about 1890 to 1920) tried to fix problems from fast growth.
  2. Labor unions are workers who join to ask for better pay and safer jobs.
  3. Booker T. Washington led Tuskegee Institute. In the Great Migration, millions of Black Southerners moved north and west.

Example: Who was the first leader of Tuskegee Institute? It opened in Alabama in 1881. Its leader was a famous Black educator. Answer: Booker T. Washington

The Progressive Era in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 2 of 9 in 5th grade Social Studies, after Industry & Inventors and before World War I.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    The Progressive Era, about 1890 to 1920, was a time when reformers worked to…

    • end all schools
    • stop new inventions
    • fix problems caused by fast growth
    • bring back slavery

  2. Question 2

    Alabama's lawmakers did not approve the 19th Amendment until…

    • 1953, long after it was already law
    • 1865
    • 1819
    • 1920

  3. Question 3

    Child labor laws were passed to…

    • keep young children out of dangerous jobs and in school
    • close schools
    • make children work longer
    • lower pay for adults

  4. Question 4

    Many immigrants arriving in the East were checked at…

    • Pearl Harbor
    • Mobile Bay
    • Cape Canaveral
    • Ellis Island

  5. Question 5

    A literacy test made people prove they could…

    • run fast
    • count coins
    • read and explain parts of the constitution before voting
    • swim

  6. Question 6

    Many immigrants from Asia arriving on the West Coast were held for questioning at…

    • Dauphin Island
    • Ellis Island
    • Hawaii
    • Angel Island

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