Frances Willard September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898

Frances Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's

suffragist. The temperance movement wanted to remove the influence of liquor

from American society by banning all alcohol. Willard became the president of

the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1879, and remained president for 19

years. While leader of the WCTU, she developed the slogan "Do everything" for

women, motivating the members to lobby Congress, petition for laws, preach,

publish, and educate on behalf of women.

Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the 18th and 19th Amendments

to the United States Constitution. Prohibition of alcohol (18th) and Woman’s right

to vote (19th) were ideas strongly supported by progressive Americans.

Frances Willard’s vision expanded to include federal aid ($$$) to education, free

school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the

poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong

anti-rape laws, and protections against child abuse.

Reformer - a person who is

working to change a

problem in society.

Temperance - movement

that wanted to outlaw and

eliminate drinking alcohol.

Suffrage - the right to vote.

Suffragist - person who

fought for the right to vote.

Ida B. Wells July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, and an early

leader in the civil rights movement. She was aided in her efforts by her husband,

newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett. Wells was also active in the women's

rights movement as well as the women's suffrage movement, helping to establish

several women's organizations. Ida Wells was most famous for documenting the

practice of lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to

control or punish blacks who competed with whites.

After traveling through Britain and America teaching about the problem of

lynching in the United States, Ida Wells settled in Chicago. Her goal was to work

towards improving conditions for its rapidly growing black population. African-

American’s were moving out of the South to Northern industrial cities in the Great

Migration in search of jobs and a better life. Competition for these jobs and

housing caused a rise in social tensions because of the rapid changes.

Throughout her life Wells was extremely adamant in her demands for equality

and justice for African-Americans and insisted that the African-American

community win justice through its own efforts.

Lynching - when a person is

attacked by a mob that then

hangs them with a noose.

Temperance - movement

that wanted to outlaw and

eliminate drinking alcohol.

Suffrage - the right to vote.

Ida Tarbell November 5, 1857 – January 6, 1944

Ida Tarbell was an American teacher, author, and journalist. She was one of the

leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era. Muckrakers did work known in

modern times as investigative journalism – closely examining a topic and then

reporting the results in the news.

Ida Tarbell wrote many noteworthy articles and biographies for McClure's

Magazine. She is best known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil

Company. In her book, Ida Tarbell exposed the inner workings of John D.

Rockefeller’s infamous oil corporation. She began her investigation when her

editors at McClure's Magazine asked for a story about one of the trusts.

Ida Tarbell's reporting and writing on Standard Oil is famous for two reasons. It

was the first corporate reporting of its kind and it attacked the business

operations of the best-known CEO in the country at the time – Rockefeller.

Americans were shocked that such an important and prominent person could

lead a company that used such unsavory business tactics.

The History of the Standard Oil Company helped speed up the collapse of

Standard Oil, which came about in 1911 when the Supreme Court of the United

States found the company to be violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. The decision

split the company into 34 smaller oil companies.

Muckraker - a person who

worked to expose the

problems of industrialization.

Expose - to uncover and show

the problems.

Unsavory - unpleasant or

corrupt.

Tactics - methods or way of

doing business.

Jacob Riis May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914

Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, a muckraking journalist,

and a documentary photographer of daily life. He is known for using his

photography and journalism skills to help the impoverished in New York City.

Those impoverished poor people living in New York were the subject of most of

his writings and photography. His most famous work – How the Other Half Lives:

Studies Among the Tenements of New York – was published in 1890.

While living in New York, Riis was exposed to extreme poverty. He became a

police reporter to write about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to

improve the foul living conditions of the poor by exposing their abysmal situations

to the middle class. These middle-class lawyers, doctors, and professors

responded with outrage and calls for action to improve the horrible conditions.

Additionally, Jacob Riis is considered one of the fathers of photography due to his

discovery of the use of flash in photography which allowed low-light and

nighttime photography.

Reformer - a person who is

working to change a problem

in society.

Muckraker - a person who

worked to expose the

problems of industrialization.

Impoverished - poor.

Abysmal - really bad

conditions.

Jane Addams September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935

Jane Addams was a pioneer social worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago,

public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader for woman’s suffrage (the right to

vote). Other than Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, she was

the most well-known reformer of the Progressive Era.

The main purpose of Hull House was to provide social & educational opportunities

for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants) in the

surrounding neighborhood. There were classes in literature, history, art, domestic

activities (such as sewing), and many other subjects. The successful social work at

Hull House helped Jane Addams turn the attention of progressives nationwide to

issues of concern such as the needs of children, public health, and immigrant

rights.

Jane Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to

uplift their communities. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be

awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Suffrage - the right to vote.

Reformer - a person who is

working to change a problem

in society.

Progressives - people who

worked to solve the problems

of the Gilded Age.

Lincoln Steffens April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936

Lincoln Steffens was a New York reporter who launched a series of articles in

McClure’s Magazine that would later be published together in a book titled The

Shame of the Cities. He is famous for investigating corruption in municipal

government in American cities.

In The Shame of the Cities, Steffens sought to bring about political reform in

urban America by appealing to the emotions of Americans. His articles focused on

the political machines of different cities throughout America, exposing the

dishonest methods city leaders used to get rich and powerful. In Missouri,

Steffens’ writing helped elect a progressive governor who went on to fight corrupt

state government officials.

Steffens angered many of the people he wrote about, but his gift and passion for

investigating corruption, poverty, and human failures influenced many Americans

to join the progressive cause. Steffens was deeply and genuinely concerned with

issues of social justice and human rights. He wanted all people to enjoy a

reasonable standard of life, with freedom and dignity.

Launched - began,

started

Dignity - respect, formal

standing.

Municipal - city

Progressive - idea that

progress could be made

to fix the problems of the

Gilded Age.

Mother Jones 1837-November 30, 1930

Mother Jones was born Mary Harris in Ireland & raised in Canada. She was a

teacher who moved to Chicago after she married George Jones in 1861. She lost

her home, dress shop, and all her belongings in the Great Chicago Fire.

A growing interest in labor union issues and in radical politics led Mary Harris

Jones to become an activist in her late 50s. She became known as Mother Jones

due to her grandmotherly, white-haired appearance. Looks can be deceiving.

Mother Jones was not a typical old lady – she was a radical labor organizer. She

worked mainly with the United Mine Workers union, where she often organized

strikers’ wives to help fight for better conditions.

Mother Jones dedicated her life to helping American workers by creating unions.

Jones believed union organizations were the only way that workers could gather

strength to make up for the power of their employers. Moreover, she believed

unions were the only way workers could achieve better pay, shorter hours, and

safer working conditions.

In 1903 Mother Jones led a children’s march from Kensington, Pennsylvania, to

New York to protest child labor and bring the issue to President Roosevelt’s

attention. In 1905, Mother Jones was among the founders of the Industrial

Workers of the World. (IWW the “Wobblies”)

Radical - extreme,

trying to change

traditional beliefs.

Susan B. Anthony February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a

pivotal role in the early Women's Rights Movement to introduce women's

suffrage into the United States. It might sound like a bad thing, but suffrage

means the right to vote. Susan Anthony was co-founder of the first Women's

Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and she helped start the

women's rights journal The Revolution.

She was an important advocate for women's rights, leading the way for women to

be acknowledged and allowed to participate in the American government. In

1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman

Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization dedicated to gaining women's

suffrage.

"Failure is impossible" were the words she left her fellow women upon her death,

giving confidence to the next generation of women on their long, discouraging

struggle towards equality. Fourteen years after Susan B. Anthony's death,

following tireless campaigning, women’s right to vote was guaranteed by the

Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.

Prominent - leading, important

Suffrage - the right to vote.

Suffragist - person who fought

for the right to vote.

Advocate - a person who

speaks or writes in support or

defense of a person, cause,

etc.

Amendment - change or

addition to the Constitution.

Upton Sinclair September 20, 1878 – December 25, 1968

Upton Sinclair was an American author who wrote almost one hundred books in many genres. He became popular in the first half of the 20th century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and also the Meat Inspection Act.

The Jungle A fictional story based on the real-life treatment of workers in a Chicago meatpacking factory, The Jungle was published in serial form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason from February 25, 1905 to November 4, 1905. The combined articles were later published by Doubleday in 1906 as a novel.

Shortly before writing the book, Upton Sinclair had spent about six months investigating the Chicago meatpacking industry. The Jungle was based on his investigations. The intent of the novel was in Sinclair's words to “set forth the breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and women for profit.”

The novel was about a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis Rudkus who worked in a meat factory in Chicago called Durham's. Along with his teenage wife and their extended family, the story shows how they were mistreated by Jurgis's employers and the wealthier elements of society. Upton Sinclair’s descriptions of both the unsanitary conditions and the inhumane conditions experienced by the workers shocked and galvanized readers.

Acquiring - to gain or get.

Expose - to uncover and

show the problems.

Exploit - to take advantage

W.E.B. DuBois February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963

W.E.B. DuBois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, author and editor. Born in western Massachusetts, DuBois grew up in a tolerant community and experienced little racism as a child. After graduating from Harvard (where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate), he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Racism and discrimination were the main targets of DuBois's passion. He strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. WEB DuBois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation for African Americans, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the talented tenth and believed that African Americans needed to have access to advanced education to develop its leadership.

DuBois was a productive author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was an influential work in African-American literature. He even wrote the first scientific essay in the field of sociology. DuBois published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. As editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis, DuBois published many scholarly articles.

{Ever wondered what W.E.B stands for? William Edward Burghardt!}

Tolerant - accepting of

others, ideas, etc.

Lynching - when a person

is attacked by a mob that

then hangs them with a

noose.

John Muir April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914

John Muir was an advocate of preserving America’s wilderness. America’s natural

resources were being used and abused at an alarming rate. More than half of the

nation’s forests had been cut down by the late 1880s. Factories were dumping

waste and pouring smoke into the environment. John Muir became the leader of

the conservation movement.

Muir spent years wandering alone through thousands of miles of untouched

mountains and forests of the West. He found his favorite place in California’s

Sierra Nevada mountain range – Yosemite Valley. John Muir wrote articles for

magazines and gave speeches supporting the conservation of America’s

wilderness. He became the president of the Sierra Club in 1892, an organization

devoted to nature.

President Teddy Roosevelt went camping in Yosemite with Muir and returned

from the trip full of Muir’s conservation ideas. President Roosevelt was able to

use the power of the government to set aside land for 5 national parks, 18

national monuments, and 148 million acres of national forest – all protected from

dangerous misuse by industrialists.

Conservation – the

preservation of nature and

the environment.

Advocate – a supporter.