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The Progressive Er The Food And Drug Act Of 1906

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The Food and Drug Administration was created to prevent the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.” (Carpenter). After many years of trying to establish similar acts to help protect the health and safety of the citizens of the US (and some being approved), President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Food and Drug Act in 1906, which would later develop into the FDA that we know today. The FDA was advocated by Harvey Washington Wiley, the chief chemist at the Bureau of Chemistry. The FDA was the endpoint after years of countless efforts to get the government involved in the health and safety of …show more content…

The Progressive Era was a time of urbanization within families, and the food system played a very big part during this time. Three main things were prioritized within the cities: the purity of food, milk, and drinking water (en.wikipedia.org). These three things took center stage because they were some of the most important aspects for daily life. By creating the FDA, Roosevelt would ensure his people that the quality and safety of food was at its best. Along with the passing of the Food and Drug Act in 1906, Roosevelt also passed the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, an act that “prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured that livestock were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions.” (Rouse). By passing this Act, Roosevelt put the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in charge of inspecting “all cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and horses both before and after they were slaughtered and processed for human consumption.” (Rouse). This was important because it is very common for a person to contract a foodborne illness from contaminated meat. One main thing that led to the Meat Inspection Act was the publication of The Jungle, a novel by Upton Sinclair, that highlighted the details and conditions of the meatpacking industry (federal.laws.com). Sinclair caused a major uprising, writing about how he had discovered what the sanitary conditions were in meatpacking plants. This caught Roosevelt’s attention, leading Roosevelt to send representatives to conduct a report (the Neill-Reynolds report) on the sanitary conditions in these plants. The report was horrific and Roosevelt believed that the people should know what was really going on in these plants. However, there were a few problems when Roosevelt decided that he wanted to publish the report and expose the industry; if he chose to expose the

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