Muckrakers & Reformers Primary Sources
Historical documents. What clues can you gather about the time, place, players, and culture?
The "Other" Half
The full text of How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis' groundbreaking 1890 exposé on American tenements, is available online for your reading pleasure.
Muckrakers
Theodore Roosevelt's famous 1906 speech on "The Man with the Muckrake." We have an entire learning guide devoted to this one.
Drinking and Degeneracy
A 1913 temperance pamphlet attempts to draw a connection between social "degeneracy" and the prevalence of alcoholism.
Singing Out Against Alcohol
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union Band Song, composed by Minne M. Moede in 1914.
A Black Suffragette Speaks Out
Prominent Black feminist Mary Church Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women, reported on "the progress of colored women" at the NAWSA 50th anniversary meeting in Washington, D.C., on February 18th, 1898.