Social Inequality

Social Inequality in the Progressive Era

The Progressive Era was filled with social inequality, while many different vices within society were being worked on. Racial segregation was in effect, particularly in the South, and discrimination was evident throughout the country as a whole. Workers had bad conditions, long hours, and low pay; consequently, there were many strikes among laborers and calls for reform. Women struggled for equal rights; it is during this time that their movement for suffrage was gaining momentum. While pursuing reforms, the

concentration of wealth remained with the few, and such efforts at reducing inequality succeeded only to a limited extent in changing the greater social and economic landscape.

Major Leaders

Jane Addams

Jane Addams was a prominent social reformer known for her founding of Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago in which she provided essential services like education, healthcare, and job training to impoverished immigrants, actively campaigning for better living conditions and social reforms for the working class in rapidly industrializing cities. The work of her advocacy made her a leading example of progressive activism as she addressed the issues faced by the urban poor within the industrializing nation of America.

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis was one of America's first photojournalists, a journalist who uses photographs to tell a news story. Known for his How the Other Half Lives, a book of photographs showing in shocking detail the squalid conditions and misery of poor residents of New York City's largely immigrant neighborhoods. His captivating storytelling and graphic depictions of the tenements and alleyways where New York's immigrant families resided were meant to captivate, educate, and inspire his audience to take action.

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington advocated for black progress through vocational education and economic self-reliance, primarily by focusing on developing industrial skills and agricultural knowledge rather than opting for the more aggravated approach directly, challenging Jim Crow laws and voting restrictions. He founded and led the Tuskegee Institute, a school that emphasized vocational training for African Americans, and later gave his Atlanta Compromise speech, where he further advocated for his accommodation policy.

Key Events

Key Laws promoting social inequality during The Gilded Age

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was one of several discriminatory U.S. laws that curbed Chinese immigration. American experience with Chinese exclusion then spurred later moments advocating for immigration restriction against other "undesirable"/ "ineligible for naturalization" groups such as Middle Easterners, Hindu and East Indians.
Dawes Severalty Act (1887): This law aimed to assimilate Native Americans by redistributing tribal lands into individual ownership. However, it led to the loss of tribal land and further deepened the social and economic inequalities faced by Native Americans as they were forced to relocate and assimilate to American culture, against their native customs.

Key Laws that attempted to curb social inequality during The Gilded Age

Interstate Commerce Act (1887): Aimed at regulating railroad monopolies; however, did little to protect workers or address wage inequalities directly. Although the law was mildly successful in reducing the power of big business.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): Sought to divide/break up monopolies and restore business competition in America. While it was intended to curtail the power of big corporations, it was initially weak in application and failed to properly address workers' rights and the wage inequalities present. Moreover, the law occasionally targeted labor unions, further exacerbating any present issues.

Court decisions that supported the social inequality of The Gilded Age

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Upheld the constitutionality of race and segregation by promoting a "separate but equal" doctrine that legitimized the social and economic inequality of African Americans.
Civil Rights Cases (1883): A collection of five cases that the Supreme Court ruled on that declared parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The finally ruling allowed private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race, deepening racial inequality.
United States v. E.C. Knight Co. (1895): Limited the government's capability to divide monopolies under the Sherman Anti Trust Act by permitting combinations of manufacturers. By weakening the Act, it allowed the concentration of corporate power to continue, which often perpetuated economic inequalities between business owners and workers.

Evaluation of progressive reform

Progressive reform attempted to give attention to social inequality; when laws, court decisions, and the reformers themselves are taken into account, it becomes very clear that the success of the effort was anything but uniform. Antitrust laws and labor laws checked corporate power and improved working conditions, but all too often they proved ineffectual in the service of the downtrodden, especially African Americans and women. Court decisions like Plessy v. Ferguson institutionalized racial segregation, thus pointing out what reformism was incapable of doing in the face of systemic discrimination.

Reformers like Jane Addams, Jacob Riis, and Booker T. Washington went even further to change the nation. Addams operated settlement work at Hull House, providing social services to immigrants and the poor that underlined the need for grassroots effort in fighting urban poverty. Riis dramatized the deplorable living conditions of New York City tenements and made published eye-opening views with his camera and pen to raise public awareness and spur housing reform. Whereas Booker T. Washington's method of educating and training African Americans in vocational skills had been gradualist, taking its cue from a sharply segregated society, his relatively conservative attitude in confronting racial inequality meant that his voice was one in a continuum of responses to the 'race question'.

While gains were made, the broad effect of Progressive reform was seriously circumscribed by a failure to challenge the most deeply ingrained systems of inequality. Wealth disparities prevailed, and racial and gender inequalities largely went delegate by national legislation.

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