Progressive Journalists: The Muckrakers

1. Progressive Journalists:The Muckrakers This is one choice for muckraker intro

2. Progressivism • The Main Idea • Progressives focused on three areas of reform: easing the suffering of the urban poor, improving unfair and dangerous working conditions, and reforming government at the national, state, and local levels. • Reading Focus • What issues did Progressives focus on, and what helped energize their causes? • How did Progressives try to reform society? • How did Progressives fight to reform the workplace? • How did Progressives reform government at the national, state, and local levels?

3. archives.gov • Industrialization helped many but also created dangerous working environments and unhealthy living conditions for the urban poor. • Progressivism, a wide-ranging reform movement targeting these problems, began in the late 19th century. Progressivism and Its Champions

4. Muckrakers • Journalists called muckrakers and urban photographers exposed people to the plight of the unfortunate in hopes of sparking reform.

5. Muckrakers • Jacob Riis • Danish immigrant who faced New York poverty • Exposed the slums through magazines, photographs, and a best-selling book, How the Other Half Lives

8. Muckrakers • Ida Tarbell • Exposed the corrupt Standard Oil Company and its owner, John D. Rockefeller

9. Muckrakers • Lincoln Steffens • Shame of the Cities (1904) exposed corrupt city governments

10. Reforming Society • Growing cities couldn’t provide people necessary services like garbage collection, safe housing, and police and fire protection. • Reformers saw this as an opportunity to expand public health services.

11. Improving Housing • Tenement Act of 1901, forced landlords to install lighting in public hallways and to provide at least one toilet for every two families • helped impoverished people • within 15 years the death rates dropped dramatically.