The Progressive Movement Modern U.S. History – Hamer Muckraker Photography
Muckrakers Reformers such as Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine took photographs of the living and working conditions of the poor in America. Their photographs helped to introduce the plight of the poor to the rest of America and encouraged people and the government to make necessary improvements.
Homework Many factory jobs required that workers take home piecework to continue working at night. Other workers did not work in factories, but were organized by larger companies to make items in their small homes.
1. Cigar Makers
2. Old Mrs. Benoit in her Attic Room
3. Boy Carrying Homework
4. Teens doing Homework
5. Garment Homework
Life in the Tenements Tenements were overcrowded buildings with very little light or ventilation. They were rented to the poor in cities who were often immigrants.
6. Family in Tenement Home
7. Home in the Dump
8. Tenement “Rookeries”
9. NYC Tenement
10. Peddler's Sleeping Quarters in the Cellar
11. Man Ready for His Solitary Sabbath Meal
12. Family at Home
13. Three Generations in One Tenement
14. These Sheds Cost $1 a Month to Live In
15. Roofs of Tenements
16. Tenement Room with All of Its Furnishings
Childhood? Many children of impoverished families had to begin working at young ages. They either didn’t attend school, or went at night after their long workdays. These children grew up in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Many died or were injured at young ages.
17. Children with their “Slide”
18. Night School
19. Chicago Tenement Child
20. Little “Mother” (Young Girl Caring for her Siblings)
21. Boy Lost his Arm Running a Saw in a Box Factory
22. Playground
23. Street Boy
24. Young Basket-Sellers
25. Newsie
26. Newsie and Society Lady
Work Conditions Work Conditions during this time were often unsafe and unclean. Workers toiled for long hours and often had to take work home. Injuries in the work place were also common.
27. Sweatshop
28. Cigar Factory
29. Work at a Bean Cannery
30. Girls at a Box Factory
31. Boy Picking Cotton
32. Breaker Boys (picking through coal on a conveyor belt that they stopped with their feet)
33. Boys Fixing Bobbins at a Cotton Mill
34. Girl Weaving
35. Boy at Glass Factory
36. Glass Blowing
37. Mine Driver
38. Spinning Room at a Factory
39. Teenage Girls at a Manufacturing Company in Georgia
40. Young Knitter
Improvements? Great improvements in technology and architecture were the “gilded” parts of the Gilded Age. Workers still had to toil to create these improvements. After reformers like Riss and Hine worked to change urban living and working conditions, changes were made, such as converting a slum into Mulberry Park.
44. “Icarus” Working on the Empire State Building
45. Riveting at Empire State Building
46. Steelworker at Empire State Building
47. Mulberry Flats becomes a Park
Immigrating to America The journey to America was difficult. Most immigrants traveled in steerage, the cargo hold of the ship, and many caught dangerous diseases on the journey. Many saw America as a land of opportunity and would do anything to get here.
41. Climbing Into America at Ellis Island
42. Ferry from Ellis Island to NYC
43. Finnish Stowaway