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Period: to
Woman’s Christian Temperance
allow women a public platform to participate in issues of the day. Under the leadership of Frances Willard, the WCTU supports a national Prohibition political party and, by 1890, counts 150,000 members. -
Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis’s book How the Other Half Lives documents in words and pictures the squalid living conditions in New York slums. Riis’s exposé supports the accusation by many Progressives and Socialists that American capitalism fosters inequality. -
child labor
millions of children under 16 worked full time, often in factories, mines or on farms. -
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle
In 1906, writer Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a stark exposé of labor exploitation and unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants. The novel, based on Sinclair’s own research in Chicago slaughterhouses, spurs a call for regulations in the industry. That same year, Sinclair runs for Congress as a Socialist.
