The Era of Progressivism The Ashcan & The Muckrake Created by Mr. Johnson

7.01 – Explain the conditions that led to the rise of Progressivism. Objective

Ashcan School Muckraking Ida Tarbell Lincoln Steffens Upton Sinclair Key Terms & People Jacob Riis Frank Norris Urban slums Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Wealth in the Gilded Age

Mark Twain – The Gilded Age

Distribution of Wealth Top 1% of Population 25% of nation’s wealth Top 10% of population 70% of nation’s wealth Growing middle class Large numbers of poor farmers and city dwellers Rich Poor

Distribution of Wealth Andrew Carnegie Homeless Children

The Ashcan School of Artists

“The Apostles of Ugliness” The New York Realists

“Eviction” Everett Shinn, 1904 “Eviction” Everett Shinn, 1904

“Tugboat and Lighter” William Glackens, 1904

“Paddy Flannigan” George Bellows, 1908

“Dutch Joe” Robert Henri, 1910

“McSorley’s Bar” John Sloan, 1912 “McSorley’s Bar” John Sloan, 1912

“Snow in New York” Robert Henri, 1901 “Snow in New York” Robert Henri, 1901

“Fire on 24 th Street” Everett Shinn, 1907

“A Stag at Sharkey’s Place” George Bellows, 1917

Progressivism: The Social Gospel

MuckrakersMuckrakers TemperanceTemperance SuffragettesSuffragettes OldPopulistsOldPopulists MidclassWomenMidclassWomen LaborUnionsLaborUnions CivilRights?CivilRights?

Help the Poor? Help Yourself? Gospel of Wealth Progressivism & Social Gospel Unionism Socialism Communism Anarchism Rich Poor

The Muckrakers

What is a Muckraker? Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress Digging up dirty secrets of government and business corruption… leads to reform

Jacob Riis Urban slums Upton Sinclair Meatpacking Ida Tarbell Standard Oil John Spargo Child Labor Who Were the Muckrakers? Frank Norris Western farmers Lincoln Steffens Municipal corruption Nellie Bly Mental Health McClure’s Magazine Leading muckraker magazine

Muckraking & Yellow Journalism

Trust-Busting

“Wealth Against Commonwealth” Standard Oil Monopoly Henry Demarest Lloyd

A History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) Anti-trust lawsuit Break-up of Standard Oil in 1911 Ida Tarbell

Standard Oil & Rockefeller

Poverty of Farmers & Immigrants

Epic of Wheat trilogy –Conflict between farmers and railroad companies Frank Norris

Epic of Wheat

How the Other Half Lives (1889) Urban slums –Poverty –Overcrowding –Working conditions –Sanitation –Crime Jacob Riis

How the Other Half Lives

Settlement houses Hull House, Chicago Jane Addams

Settlement Houses

Working Conditions

John Spargo

Florence Kelley Sweatshops

The Jungle (1906) Meatpacking industry –Sanitation –Working conditions Upton Sinclair

The Jungle (1906)

Meatpacking Scandal

Labeling & inspection of food & drugs Eventual creation of the FDA Sinclair –“I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” WRAL Restaurant InspectionsWRAL Restaurant Inspections Pure Food & Drug Act (1906)

Garment Factory New York City Young women workers Locked doors 145 dead Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)

State labor departments Workers compensation Minimum wage laws Max occupancy Fire escapes Reforms

Municipal Corruption

“Honest Graft” Defense of Political Machines George Washington Plunkitt

Cartoonist Attacked Tammany Hall Thomas Nast

The Shame of the Cities (1904) –Political machines –Graft & electoral fraud Lincoln Steffens

Political Machines

Mental Health

Ten Days in a Mad-House –Physical & verbal abuse –Rat–infested kitchens –Patients who were not mentally ill Nellie Bly

“What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.” Ten Days in a Mad-House

T.R.: Reluctant Reformer

“There is filth on the floor and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil.” T.R. on Muckrakers