Transcript Chapter 16 Notes

Problems at the Turn of the
Century
 muckraker: a
journalist who wrote
about social, environmental, and
political problems Americans faced in
the early 1900s
• Teddy Roosevelt gave them the name
because “"raked the mud of society.“
 Rise
of industry = rise of urbanization:
the growth of cities- Drawn in by jobs
and amusements
 U.S. becoming an urban, industrial
society with an increasingly diverse
population
 Mechanization = more production
 More production= new methods of
selling goods
• Montgomery Ward and other catalogs
• Department Stores
 People lived in slum tenements
• New York's Lower East Side, for example, housed
450,000 people in 1900. =than 300,000 people per
square mile.
 Poor
living conditions because of poor
infrastructure: the facilities or
equipment required for an organization
or community to function, including
roads, sewage and power systems, and
transportation
 Lack of fire protection and sanitation
 Factory
work boring, strenuous, and
dangerous
 Unsafe products
• No Gov. regulations
• Meat- the Jungle
• Medicine- Coca Cola
 Reduction
of Natural Resources
• Ranching, farming, logging
• extractive industries: businesses that take
mineral resources from the earth
 Coal, oil, etc.
 Pollution
• Factories, animal waste, household sewage

political machines: an organization consisting
of full-time politicians whose main goal was to
retain political power and the money and
influence that went with it
• Tammany Hall: a political machine in New York City-
Boss William Tweed
• patronage: the practice of politicians giving jobs to
friends and supporters
• Rigged elections, money from entertainment, helped
people for votes, Corruption

Pendelton Act-an 1883 federal law that limited
patronage by creating a civil service
commission to administer exams for certain
nonmilitary government jobs
 During
the late 1800s, the gap between rich and
poor grew wider
 African Americans
• Not many gains since civil war
• Found ways to not allow them to vote
• Many moved North
 Women
• Worked outside the home
• Attended college
 Families
• Public education expanded but many can’t go b/c need
children to work
• temperance movement: a reform movement calling for
moderation in drinking alcohol- Seen as way to improve
family life