The Progressive Era
The Progressive era is one of the most wealth polarized eras in American history, as the gap between the poor and rich was as wide as it had ever been. Following the Civil War, industrialization was on the rise, cities proliferated, and immigrants flooded in across the scarcely regulated border. In fact, there was very little government regulation in any aspect of the American economy, as Washington focused on issues of reconstruction and other post war concerns, adopting a "laissez-faire" attitude towards economy growth. Indeed, production skyrocketed as thousands of factories opened their doors, and skyscrapers became a much more integrated part of city life. Yet industry was not at all without its negative effects to the populace; quite the opposite in actuality. Such dangerous and endless work as went on in the factories, slaughterhouses, and construction sites required a constant flow of underpaid unskilled workers to fill the gaps left by their ailing predecessors. In an economy essentially left free to run amuck as party "bosses" payed off officials, self made billionaires such as Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller strangled their competition and rose to the top as impecunious immigrants struggled to pay for the disgusting tenement housing that was their only living option. Out of this canvas of oppression, hardship, and despair stepped the infamous muckrakers. These passionate, educated journalists and photographers sought to bring the hardships of the disadvantaged workers to the eyes of the public, instant that no wrong go unnoticed. Horrific issues such as brutal child labor conditions, inhumane and disgusting meatpacking, and putrid living conditions that weren't fit for pigs, let alone impoverished immigrant families with young children. Though it was years before any major changes were achieved in terms of regulations on monopolies, construction and living space, child labor, and meatpacking, the persistence of the progressives themselves and their stark, heart wrenching novels, articles, and photographs paved the road for powerful reforms in the future.
Jacob Riis, 1891. Shows a street gang in New York
Jacob Riis, 1891. Shows a peddler living in a cellar on a crude bed
Jacob Riis, 1890. Shows abandoned immigrant children
Lewis W. Hine 1908. Shows the "lost" doffer boys
Lewis W. Hine, 1908. Coal miners of various ages emerging from their dangerous jobs.
Lewis W. Hine, 1912. Child labor in the glass factories.
Lewis W. Hine. 9 Year old boy shucking oysters.
Young boys working in a lumber yard. Lewis W. Hine
Jacob Riis, 1895. Clothing lines show tight living conditions.
Jacob Riis, 1895. A 7 cent lodging house.