Muckrakers continued some of the investigative exposures and sensational traditions of yellow journalism, but instead wrote to change society. Julius Chambers of the New York Tribune is considered by many to be the original muckraker. His intent was to obtain information about the alleged abuse of inmates.
The publication of articles and accounts of the experience in the Tribune led to the release of 12 patients who were not mentally ill, to a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution, and eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws.
From this point onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak about the rights of the mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care, and treatment. Children : Jacob Riis documented the hard life encountered by many immigrants and the poor in the city.
Journalists began to respond to the excesses of the Gilded Age toward the end of the period. Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, muckraker, and social documentary photographer. Barnett an early leader in the civil-rights movement.
Wells was a skilled, persuasive rhetorician who traveled internationally on lecture tours. She wrote an article that suggested that despite the myth that white women were sexually at risk for attacks by black men, most liaisons between black men and white women were consensual. Early efforts in urban reform were driven by poor conditions exposed by tragedies such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, , was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City and resulted in the fourth-highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.
The fire caused the deaths of garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits—a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks—many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped to the streets below from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors.
It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, involving only about 20 percent of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was happening.
The news of the strike spread quickly to all of the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under.
She demanded an end to talk and called for a strike of the entire industry. Approximately 20, out of the 32, workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out during the next two days. The union also became more involved in electoral politics, in part as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The fire had various effects on the community. The Settlement House movement was a reform that intended for the rich and the poor to live together in interdependent communities.
The Settlement House movement was a reformist social movement that began in the s and peaked around the s in England and the United States. Its objective was to get the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. By , there were settlements in 32 states.
The movement started in London in the mid-nineteenth century. Settlement houses often offered food, shelter, and basic and higher education that was provided by virtue of charity on the part of wealthy donors, the residents of the city, and for education scholars who volunteered their time. Victorian England, increasingly concerned with poverty, gave rise to the movement whereby those connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people.
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, founded in ; Henry Street Settlement, founded in ; and University Settlement House, founded in and the oldest in the United States were important sites for social reform.
These and other settlement houses inspired the establishment of settlement schools to serve isolated rural communities in Appalachia. Hull House : Children in line on a retaining wall at Hull House, By , Hull House had grown to 13 buildings.
In , the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club. With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that had grown, by , to nearly settlement houses nationally. The Hull mansion and several subsequent acquisitions were continuously renovated to accommodate the changing demands of the association.
The original building and one additional building, which has been moved yards, survives today. Addams followed the example of Toynbee Hall, which was founded in in the East End of London as a center for social reform.
Hull House also held concerts that were free to everyone, offered free lectures on current issues, and operated clubs for both children and adults. In the Progressive Era, when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers. She helped America address and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, local public health, and world peace.
She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed to be able to vote to do so effectively. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American Pragmatist school of philosophy.
Maternalist reforms provided assistance for mothers and children, expanding the American welfare state. Aid to veterans, free grants of land, and pensions for widows and handicapped veterans, have been offered in all U. Following World War I, provisions were made for a full-scale system of hospital and medical-care benefits for veterans. These state laws made industry and businesses responsible for compensating workers or their survivors when workers were injured or killed in connection with their jobs.
Retirement programs for mainly state and local governments date back to the nineteenth century and paid teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All of these social programs were far from universal and varied considerably from one state to another.
Prior to the Great Depression, the United States had social programs that mostly centered around individual efforts, family efforts, church charities, business workers compensation, life insurance, and sick leave programs, as well as on some state tax supported social programs. The misery and poverty of the Great Depression threatened to overwhelm all of these programs. The severe depression of the s made federal action almost a necessity, as neither the states, local communities, and businesses and industries, nor private charities had the financial resources to cope with the growing need among the American people.
Beginning in , the federal government first made loans, then grants, to states to pay for direct relief and work relief. After that, special federal emergency relief such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and other public-works programs were started.
In , President Franklin D. This program was expanded several times over the years. One unique trend in the history of welfare in the United States were maternalist reforms. Beginning in the Progressive Era, experiments in public policy took the form of laws providing for state assistance for mothers with young children who did not have the financial support of a male member of the household.
These laws provided financial reimbursements and set limits on the maximum working hours for women. These reforms arose from the belief that government has an obligation and interest in protecting and improving the living standards of women and children. To improve the conditions of women and children, these policies attempted to reconcile the conflicting roles placed on women during this time period.
It was the first national government office in the world that focused solely on the well-being of children and their mothers.
The legislation creating the agency was signed into law on April 9, Taft appointed Julia Lathrop as the first head of the bureau. Lathrop, a noted maternalist reformer, was the first woman ever to head a government agency in the United States. In , Lathrop stepped down as director, and the noted child-labor reformer Grace Abbott was appointed to succeed her. The Sherwood Act of May 11, , was the first important U.
During the s alone, there were nearly 10, labor strikes and lockouts. The belief that big businesses had too much power in the United States led to a backlash. In the presidential election, Populist candidate James Weaver won 22 electoral votes. David J. Like the Populists, Progressives advocated democratic reforms and greater governmental regulation of the economy to temper the capitalistic excesses of the Gilded Age. Unlike previous presidents, Roosevelt vigorously enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up industrial behemoths.
Investigative journalists, writers and photographers spurred Progressive reforms by exposing corporate malfeasance and social injustice. In states across the country, Progressives pushed for greater democratization of government and the expansion of voting rights in order to reduce the power of political machines.
Constitution, which established a federal income tax. Additionally, the Progressive Era was characterized by loose, multiple, and contradictory goals that impeded the efforts of reformers and often pitted political leaders against one another, most drastically in the Republican Party.
For instance, national Progressive leaders such as Roosevelt argued for increased federal regulation to coordinate big business practices while others, such as Wilson, promised to legislate for open competition. At the local, municipal, and state levels, various Progressives advocated for disparate reforms whose concerns ranged as wide as prisons, education, government reorganization, urban improvement, prohibition, female suffrage, birth control, improved working conditions, labor, and child labor.
Although significant advancements were made in social justice and reform on a case-by-case basis, there was little local effort to coordinate reformers on a wide platform of issues. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. The Progressive Era: — Search for:. Conclusion: The Successes and Failures of Progressivism.
Conclusion: The Successes and Failures of Progressivism Although the Progressive Era brought reform to government and business and increased political power for many citizens, its benefits were limited to white Americans; African Americans and other minorities continued to experience discrimination and marginalization during this era. Learning Objectives Summarize the successes and failures of Progressive efforts during this era.
Key Takeaways Key Points The Progressive Era saw many far-reaching reform movements whose goals included eliminating government corruption, granting suffrage for women, and passing antitrust legislation.
Four constitutional amendments were passed during the time that increased the democratic influence of citizens and outlawed the production and sale of alcohol.
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