The Progressive Era Essay

Muckrakers existed in American history during the progressive period, which lasted from 1900 to 1917. These authors, photographers, and journalists all published their work with the intention of bringing attention to societal issues and injustices. Other authors tackled the problem of unfavorable political structures for the people. At the period of progression, pressure teams were formed as a result of their writing. This was as a result of their use of attention-grabbing titles. Some of the social issues raised by muckrakers were the more injustices experienced due to a large number of immigrants seen, the fast growth of urban areas that resulted to challenges, unregulated business activities and the impact the usage of political machines resulted to. According to the journalists, immigrants brought in a lot of ghettos and poor living conditions because of inadequacy.

Also, the writers condemned the high exploitation of kids’ labor and the white traffic in the female gender. Corruption was also not left out especially in business which consisted of unfair trusts, insurance frauds as well as issues of patent medicines. Therefore, these people also published what the people did not know but affected them negatively. Some of the well-known muckrakers who were much influential are Upton Sin chair, Photographer Jacob Riis, and journalist Ida M. However, though the muckrakers were after informing people about social problems and corruption in the society, they ended up bringing issues that the essay is discussing intensely.

The reason that made the muckrakers bring problems at the progressive era was that they rarely offered reliable and genuine solutions to the issues that they elaborated. To start with is the 1906 book; called The Jungle which shows that the issues raised by these people and the solutions were given did not match. The book was written by Upton Sin Chair where various concerns were raised. Some of the problems posed according to the article by (Emily Yoshiwara) were the many slums that had come up due to more people in the urban areas. Also, the writer said that both working and living conditions were deplorable were Upton wanted to inform the readers that unskilled immigrants could never march the American Society. The author was a socialist who published novels not as a general muckraker but with the intention to galvanize people for them to demand more changes to the structure of America’s administration and economy. He wove his socialist information to fake narration about Jurgis Rudkus who was one of the immigrants and suffered to maintain the working class level in Chicago.

The book was mainly dedicated to “the workingmen of America.”

The author’s writing was mostly involving extensive experiences. At one time, he lived with meat packers in Chicago at the time the employers conducted several strikes due to low wages. He elaborated their entire life like the corrupt machines that the politicians used against them, nightmare experiences and the harsh company bosses who ruled them. The author majorly touched on the filthy companies where men prepared and packed meat for delivery in the entire country. In one of his messages, Upton said that there was meat kept piling in rooms where water from the roof drooped which would lead to increased rats in the meat room. He added that it was not possible to see the rats as the room was dark but when a person enters their hands, many dead rats would be removed. While transporting the meat, the rats would, therefore, be included which was poison to human beings. Jungle Book is the leading books in America known for making the readers think of vegetarianism. One year after the book was published, about 100, 000 copies had been bought. However, the real intention of the writer, which was the promote socialism was eliminated by the people’s disgust at the point that their meat consisted of dead rats and poisoned bread. The readers proved limited interest in discouraging capitalism than in allowing regulations to make sure that the nation’s meat was safe.

Due to the novel, the Congress implemented the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food as well as Drugs Act in the year 1906 with the aim to protect buyers from unsafe and poisonous foods. However, the writer’s socialist aim got a little traction, and nothing was done to the workers. In the same year, Upton wrote a magazine called Cosmopolitan where the writer insisted that the readers would be surprised realizing that his plans failed after the popularity of the book. He emphasized that all the issues were uproar and accidental and the intentions were different. More so, he said that he hoped to threaten the nation about technical matters and how the victims were being affected. In the end, Upton concluded that he intended to reach the hearts of the citizens, but he mistakenly attacked the stomach.

The other concept rather than the issue of lousy meat was on urban poverty that was discussed by Photojournalist Jacob Riis (Yochelson & Czitrom 2014). In his work, he aimed to show the Americans How the Other Lives book, which was published in 1890, described the overcrowded slums in New York. Highly guided by temperance association, Jacob claimed that the number of saloons was more than that of churches in the slums. For the low-income people, salons gave them a refuge and a relief because it is the only decent place was spotted around. According to Jacob, the solutions to poverty lied in personal Christian charity and not from the administration nor in businesses. Therefore, the writer did not encourage advocate legislation for harsh structure codes. In 1904, one of the house workers called Robert Hunter elaborated more about poverty in New York and Chicago. Hunter claimed that the problems would continue to increase; if the public would not come in. He added that about ten million Americans were not fed, not clothed and lived in poor houses which consisted of 13% of the total population.

It was not easy to prove this point though Hunter said that the US spent a lot of money in carrying out investigations and the poverty level in the nation were rarely looked into compared to other countries in the Western side. However, the captured pictures described poverty in America better than the written words. One of the best photographers was called Lewis Hine who captured the social ills and inequalities in the nation. According to (Roundtable – Using Lewis Hine’s Child Labor Photographs source), Hine’s pictures showed that child labor was a severe condition of the whole nation. He pointed out some examples. One was that boys in the age of ten were spotted in Pennsylvania coal areas, and uneducated kids were labored in Georgia’s textile mills of which the kids told Hines that they wished to read, but the work was too much. Apart from that, Hines found out that both girls and boys who worked in the textile mills were tender, but were forced to climb on the frames to fix the spoilt threads and replace the empty bobbins.

Therefore, Hine’s work showed tangible evidence of poverty and the high rates of child labor that took place for centuries in the country. The photographer documented various locations that described the extent of the problem across the country. Indeed, the photographer exactly knew what he wanted as he left teaching career to take pictures to help people understand the issue of child labor. Together with National Child Committee, changes were made in 1904 where the Congress published them in 1907. His haunting pictures proved efficient for the NCLS’ cause and his continuous faith in the capability of education and science in solving the main social challenges of age. The images resulted in changes after the realization that youthful times were wasted and resulted in kids lacking hope beyond their sad situations. The specter of the poor working kids was not ethical to all progressives knew about America where the pictures people seemed to be more appropriate for the class-bound European nation and not the fabled land of chances.

The third concept is on trust-busting which is well described through Ida Minerva Tarbell issue well explained by (Encyclopedia Entry) on muckrakers; the muckraker grew up in the oil nation in Pennsylvania in a setting that by her account was less than 30 miles from the first oil. The first oil was Rockefeller’s, ’ and as the trade improved, Ida’s family realized the impact of monopolization. As Ida was 14, her father became bankrupt because of the corrupt actions were taken by Rockefeller. Frank, the father of Ida, was one of the many individual oil producers who were destroyed by South Improvement Project which was a secretive initiative between Pennylsvian Railroad and some large oil companies like the Standard Oil. In 1902, Tarbell book called History of the Standard Oil Company started publication which continued until 1904. Later, the entire book was published where the author said that monopolies were greatly benefiting themselves and the public view was immediately necessary.

Together with other writings on the same topic, did not strive for radical changes. They just pointed out monopolies as aberrations among capitalist market area that showed danger to the stability of the free market and to secure the middle class. The authors added that if the situation were not solved immediately, economic inequalities would be experienced, and it would be too late to solve. Ray Stannard, one of the muckrakers, said that ”we muckraked, not because we disliked our globe, but because we loved it. We were not hopeless, cynical or bitter.“ Such information took the message that the buccaneering capitalism of the trusts required to be restrained to save capitalism. In 1911, Tarbell’s public pressure succeeded where the Standard Oil and Rockefeller’s big corporation was split into small companies. However, as the Progressives separated the Standard Oil, it is not all the trust that disappeared. Apart from that, most of the highly known prosecutors did not leave the market and continued making money in the entire era. Therefore, the mass call made by Tarbell was not of much impact.

References

Yochelson, B., & Czitrom, D. (2014). Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure journalism and photography in turn-of-the-century New York.University of Chicago Press.

Roundtable – Using Lewis Hine’s Child Labor Photographs | SHGAPE primary source

Dorothea Lange’s Social Vision:Photography and the Great Depression by Emily Yoshiwara

Muckrakers, the: Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell Encyclopedia Entry