Progressive Era : Reform Leaders
US.5 (B) Evaluate the
impact of muckrakers and
reform leaders such as
Upton Sinclair, Susan B.
Anthony, Ida B. Wells,
and W.E.B. DuBois on
American society
US.26 (D) Identify the
political, social, and
economic contributions
of women such as
Frances Willard, Jane
Addams, ....
Progressive Era : Reform Leaders
Reform Leader =
someone who breaks
down social, economic,
or political issues with
the hopes to initiate and
institute changes for
the better.
Progressive Era : Reform Leaders
Muckraker =
journalist who wrote during
the progressive era for
popular magazines and
continued the tradition of
investigative reporting.
Term refers for a watchdog
function.
Progressive Reform Leader
Upton Sinclair = American
author who acquired fame for his
1906 muckraking novel The Jungle.
It exposed condition in the U.S
.meat packing industry, causing a
public uproar that got the Food and
Drug Act and the Meat Inspection
act passed into law.
Upton Sinclair
Progressive Era : Reform Leaders
The Jungle =
a book written by Upton Sinclair
about the pertaining to the
corruption of the American
meatpacking industry during the
early-20th century.
* poor immigrants
* unpleasant living and working
conditions
* hopelessness among the
working class
* corruption on the part of those
in power
Progressive Era : Reform Leaders
Excerpt from : The Jungle: Upton Sinclair
“There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and
sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of
consumption germs.
There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from
leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about
on it. It was too dark in these storage 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.”
Progressive Reform Leader - Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis, a Danish-American muckraker
journalist and slum and school reformer, was born in
Ribe, Denmark. He came to America in 1870 and
wrote for the New York Evening Sun newspaper.
As a pioneer investigative journalist, he went
undercover working at a meat packing factory. He
was one of the first Americans to use flashlight
powder, allowing his documentation of New York
slums to penetrate the dark of night. He became well
known as a social reformer.
His book How the Other Half Lives, pioneering
photojournalism, and friendship with Theodore
Roosevelt (then New York Police Board of
Commissioners head) led to positive changes for
New York tenement dwellers.
Jacob Riis worked to improve the lives of the urban
poor. A native of Denmark, Riis had boarded a
steamship bound for American in 1870 at the age of
21 and settled in New York City. There he personally
experienced the dreadful conditions in which many
new American immigrants lived.
Progressive Reform Leader - Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony (February
15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a
prominent American civil rights leader
who played a pivotal role in the 19th
century women's rights movement to
introduce women's suffrage into the
United States. She traveled the United
States and Europe, and averaged 75 to
100 speeches per year.
Progressive Reform Leader - Jane
Jane Addams was born to a wealthy family in Cedarville,
Illinois. Her father, a state senator, taught her a sense of
tolerance, philanthropy, and a strong work ethic. He
encouraged her to pursue higher education, though not
at the expense of losing her femininity and the prospect
of marriage and motherhood. She attended college in
Europe and the United States, and wanted to go on for a
degree in medicine, but her parents, fearing for her
marriage prospects, felt she was already sufficiently
educated.
While in Great Britain, Addams toured Toynebee Hall, a
settlement house in London’s East End. In 1889 she and
her friend, Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House in
Chicago, one of the first settlement houses in the United
States. At its height, Hull House was visited each week
by around two thousand people. Its facilities included a
night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for
older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a
coffeehouse, a gymnasium, a girls club, a swimming
pool, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, a
library, and labor-related divisions.
Addams
Progressive Reform Leader - Frances
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28,
1839 – February 17, 1898) was an American educator,
temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her
influence was instrumental in the passage of the
Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women
Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Willard became the national president of Woman's
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879, and
remained president for 19 years. She developed the
slogan "Do everything" for the women of the WCTU to
incite lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publication, and
education. Her vision progressed to include federal aid to
education, free school lunches, unions for workers, the
eight-hour work day, work relief for the poor, municipal
sanitation and boards of health, national transportation,
strong anti-rape laws, and protections against child
abuse.
Willard
Progressive Era : Reform Leader
Ida B. Wells = an African
American, newspaper editor owned
a newspaper with her husband.
An early leader of the civil rights
movement who documented
lynching in the U.S.
Lynching was a way to control or
punish blacks who competed with
whites.
She was active in the women’s
rights and the women’s suffrage
movement.
Progressive Era : Third Political Parties, Bull
Moose Party, Populist Party, Progressive Party
Terms to know:
Populist = a member of a
political party that claimed to
represent the common
people, primarily agrarian
(farm) interest).
Labor onmia vincit means "Work (Labor)
conquers (vincit) everything (omnia)."
Progressive = a member of a
political party that is seen as
moving forward with new
ideas that are not sticking to
the same thing over and over
again. They want to make
progress.
Progressive Era : Third Political Parties, Bull
Moose Party, Populist Party, Progressive Party
• Populist Party = Populist
Party, which worked to improve
conditions for farmers and laborers.
The Populist Party supported its own
third-party candidates who were
usually backed by the Farmer’s
Alliance, the National Grange, as well
as the nation’s working class.
William Jennings Bryant = ran for
president 3 times and lost. Gave
famous “Cross of Gold Speech.
Farmers were angry with the high cost
of loans, production costs, storage
and transportation fees.
Progressive Era : Third Political Parties, Bull
Moose Party, Populist Party, Progressive Party
• Progressive Party =
the Progressive Party of 1912
was a political party created by
a split in the Republican Party
in the presidential election of
1912. It was formed by
Theodore Roosevelt.
The party is colloquially also
known as the “Bull Moose
Party” after Roosevelt's boast
that he was "as strong as a bull
moose".