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Education: The Progressive Era
Spanning from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1920s, the Progressive Era left a lasting impact on the United States and New York City. During these years the nation experienced an increase in reforms meant to alleviate the suffering of the working classes. In order to accomplish this goal, Progressives believed the government needed to accept greater responsibility for its citizens' well-being.
The Progressive ideals of greater government involvement and regulation was a reaction against the policies of the Gilded Age. During this period in American history, wealthy business owners and corporations accrued vast fortunes, often at the expense of working class people. Many believed something had to be done.
Following the Civil War, The Gilded Age contributed to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States. While both of these processes created enormous wealth for some, it also worsened the plight of many people. Urbanization and industrialization transformed both the physical landscape and the experiences and expectations of Americans.
During the Progressive Era, many municipal services, like the police and fire departments, were established or expanded. School reform and increased access to sanitary living conditions improve the lives of poorer Americans. To many, the Progressive Era provided a much needed antidote to the societal ills of Gilded Age urbanization and industrialization.
New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2e & 11.5.
Mulberry Bend
The Progressive Movement responded to the worst effects of urbanization and industrialization. One of the most notorious parts of New York in the late 19th century was Mulberry Bend in the neighborhood of Five Points. For many decades this neighborhood ranked among the most densely populated and crime-infested in New York. Mulberry Bend, in particular, was a notorious breeding ground for gang activity and crime. It was the living conditions of places like Mulberry Bend which motivated the Progressive Movement.
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Riverside Houses
With the rapid increase in industry came the need for more housing. During the second half of the 19th Century, hundreds of tenement apartments were constructed in major cities throughout the United States. The owners of these buildings constructed them quickly with poor designs. They quickly became overcrowded. Most apartments consisted of just a few rooms that were often shared by more than one family. Many lacked windows, and most buildings only provided common outhouses in the courtyard. The wretched living conditions of these people was documented and reported on by many famous journalists and photographers like Jacob Riis.
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Eldridge Street Police Station
Photos like this one, taken by Jacob Riis helped to spread awareness of the poor living conditions of the working classes. The women pictured here were even too poor to live in a tenement. They spent their nights in a police station. During this time, the city's police stations opened up room for lodging to New York's homeless.
People like Riis were called Muckrakers. They were journalists who exposed America's societal ills and helped to fuel the reforms of the Progressive Era. Thanks to the reporting of people like Jacob Riis, city governments across the United States began to improve the number and quality of housing to alleviate overcrowding and homelessness.
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Gotham Court
One of the most shocking aspects of industrialization to someone today was the use of child labor. Many children of poor immigrant families were forced to work to help support their families. From very young ages, these young people went to work in different factories or sweatshops. Sweatshops originated in tenement apartments. In these small spaces, workers, including young children, worked for several hours a day doing tedious work.
Many of these sweatshops existed to create clothing for the garment industry. Children would get paid only pennies for each stitch or piece of clothing made. Perhaps the worst aspect of child labor was the fact that most of these children were unable to attend school. Many of the Progressive Reformers understood that without an education, these children would never rise out of poverty. Part of the Progressive Era reforms helped to make school mandatory and more accessible to all people.
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Children's Aid Society
The Children's Aid Society was established in 1853 to help respond to the growing destitution, or poverty, of children in New York. While the organization was started before the Progressive Era it helped to advocate for many Progressive Era reforms. As early as the 1850s, the Children's Aid Society offered schooling for immigrant children. By the 1870s the organization sent nurses out into the tenements to provide needed medical care to the poor children and their families. As more women needed to enter the workforce to help support their families, the Children's Aid Society provided free daycare. All of the work done by this organization represents Progressive attempts to address the evils of industrialization.
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Children's Aid Society Boys Lodging House
Recognizing the reality that many of the children they cared for needed to work to help support their families, the Children's Aid Society established night schools to educate these poor immigrant children. These schools, like the one located at the Children's Aid Society's lodging house on Seventh Avenue, provided educational opportunities.
As you might imagine, it could prove difficult to stay up during class after having worked all day! While not ideal, night school programs offered these children opportunities that they would not have had otherwise.
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New York City Hall
A crucial part of the solution to the overcrowding that came with industrialization and urbanization in the United States was improvements to transportation. With better transportation people could live farther away from the industrial centers of a city. In New York City, the opening of the Subway System in 1904 alleviated some of the overcrowding in the tenements. It was now more affordable to live uptown in neighborhoods like Harlem, or across the East River in Brooklyn and Queens and commute to work in Manhattan. While many newly arrived immigrants still moved into the tenement housing in Lower Manhattan, second-generation Americans and some immigrants managed to move into newer and less-crowded housing in the outer-boroughs. The subway, while not an obvious part of the Progressive Movement, did make important contributions to the quality of life for many New Yorkers.
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144-07 Rockaway Boulevard
As mentioned, the process or urbanization transformed New York and many other cities in the United States. From the 1860s through the Progressive Era, New York's population continued to grow. More and more people left their families and lives in the country to find new economic opportunity in the nation's cities. In fact, the 1920 census reported for the first time in the nation's history that a majority of Americans lived in urban areas.
The advent of new transportation methods, like the subway in New York, further expanded the nation's urban footprint. Pictured here is the neighborhood of South Ozone Park in 1912. With the expansion of subway and trolley lines, the rural scenery of neighborhoods like Ozone Park transformed into the urban and densely populated communities that they are today.
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FDNY Engine 273
As cities grew so did the need for expanding municipal services. During the Progressive Era it became standard practice for governments to regulate the health, safety, and well-being of the people. Services, which used to be provided by private organizations or volunteers became official departments or government agencies.
As cities grew and industry increased, the threat of fire became more serious. In 1865, New York established the Metropolitan Fire Department. In 1870, the department was renamed the Fire Department of New York (FDNY). As the population of New York grew during the Progressive Era, FDNY service followed the expanding city population.The city-run FDNY replaced the volunteer fire departments that existed in many communities throughout the city because they were more effective and Progressives did not want to leave such essential services up to untrained volunteers.
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Public Bath House at The Battery
Progressive Era reformers also believed the government should do more to promote sanitary living conditions. It was during this same time that the Germ Theory, which stated that microscopic organisms which grew in unsanitary conditions caused disease. Progressives reasoned that improved sanitation would lead to improved health. To help people stay clean the cities across the country began offering access to free public baths. In an age before widespread indoor plumbing, many people could not bath regularly.
The original bath houses, like the one pictured here, were temporary structures built on and along New York's rivers. As pollution increased however, it was no longer sanitary to bath using the river water. Beginning in the second half of the 19th Century and continuing throughout the Progressive Era, New York constructed several bath houses that made bathing accessible to thousands of New Yorkers.
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Battery Weed
The Progressive Era left long-lasting effects on New York City and the nation. During this period, national and local leaders promoted policies that broke up monopolies, increased the safety and well-being of the working classes, and conserved and protected the natural environment. President Roosevelt, for example, established the National Park Service, which protected natural landmarks and spaces. Decades later, the effects of this Progressive Era policy were still being felt when the Gateway National Recreation Area was established in New York City. This allowed places like Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island and Fort Tilden in Rockaway to become protected parkland.
Many other policies and initiatives started during this era continue to influence the city and nation alike. The city continues to expand essential services, like the fire and sanitation departments. New York operates eleven public hospitals, offers public housing for low-income people, and continues to provide free education to over one million students. Fire safety regulations, child labor laws, and minimum wage rules which first started in New York continue to protect working-class people throughout the city and nation.
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