The document provides biographical information on American reformer and suffragist Frances Willard. It states that Willard became president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1879 and remained president for 19 years. Under her leadership, the WCTU lobbied Congress and petitioned for laws promoting women's rights. Willard played an instrumental role in the passage of the 18th and 19th Amendments, prohibiting alcohol and granting women the right to vote. Her vision also expanded to include issues like education, workers' rights, and public health.

1. Frances Willard
September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898
Frances Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's
suffragist. The temperance movement wanted to remove the influence of liquor
from American society by banning all alcohol. Willard became the president of
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1879, and remained president for 19
years. While leader of the WCTU, she developed the slogan "Do everything" for
women, motivating the members to lobby Congress, petition for laws, preach,
publish, and educate on behalf of women.
Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the 18th
and 19th
Amendments
to the United States Constitution. Prohibition of alcohol (18th
) and Woman’s right
to vote (19th
) were ideas strongly supported by progressive Americans.
Frances Willard’s vision expanded to include federal aid ($$$) to education, free
school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the
poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong
anti-rape laws, and protections against child abuse.
 Reformer - a person who is
working to change a
problem in society.
 Temperance - movement
that wanted to outlaw and
eliminate drinking alcohol.
 Suffrage - the right to vote.
 Suffragist - person who
fought for the right to vote.

2. Ida B. Wells
July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931
Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, and an early
leader in the civil rights movement. She was aided in her efforts by her husband,
newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett. Wells was also active in the women's
rights movement as well as the women's suffrage movement, helping to establish
several women's organizations. Ida Wells was most famous for documenting the
practice of lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to
control or punish blacks who competed with whites.
After traveling through Britain and America teaching about the problem of
lynching in the United States, Ida Wells settled in Chicago. Her goal was to work
towards improving conditions for its rapidly growing black population. African-
American’s were moving out of the South to Northern industrial cities in the Great
Migration in search of jobs and a better life. Competition for these jobs and
housing caused a rise in social tensions because of the rapid changes.
Throughout her life Wells was extremely adamant in her demands for equality
and justice for African-Americans and insisted that the African-American
community win justice through its own efforts.
 Lynching - when a person is
attacked by a mob that then
hangs them with a noose.
 Temperance - movement
that wanted to outlaw and
eliminate drinking alcohol.
 Suffrage - the right to vote.

3. Ida Tarbell
November 5, 1857 – January 6, 1944
Ida Tarbell was an American teacher, author, and journalist. She was one of the
leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era. Muckrakers did work known in
modern times as investigative journalism – closely examining a topic and then
reporting the results in the news.
Ida Tarbell wrote many noteworthy articles and biographies for McClure's
Magazine. She is best known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil
Company. In her book, Ida Tarbell exposed the inner workings of John D.
Rockefeller’s infamous oil corporation. She began her investigation when her
editors at McClure's Magazine asked for a story about one of the trusts.
Ida Tarbell's reporting and writing on Standard Oil is famous for two reasons. It
was the first corporate reporting of its kind and it attacked the business
operations of the best-known CEO in the country at the time – Rockefeller.
Americans were shocked that such an important and prominent person could
lead a company that used such unsavory business tactics.
The History of the Standard Oil Company helped speed up the collapse of
Standard Oil, which came about in 1911 when the Supreme Court of the United
States found the company to be violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. The decision
split the company into 34 smaller oil companies.
 Muckraker - a person who
worked to expose the
problems of industrialization.
 Expose - to uncover and show
the problems.
 Unsavory - unpleasant or
corrupt.
 Tactics - methods or way of
doing business.

4. Jacob Riis
May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914
Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, a muckraking journalist,
and a documentary photographer of daily life. He is known for using his
photography and journalism skills to help the impoverished in New York City.
Those impoverished poor people living in New York were the subject of most of
his writings and photography. His most famous work – How the Other Half Lives:
Studies Among the Tenements of New York – was published in 1890.
While living in New York, Riis was exposed to extreme poverty. He became a
police reporter to write about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to
improve the foul living conditions of the poor by exposing their abysmal situations
to the middle class. These middle-class lawyers, doctors, and professors
responded with outrage and calls for action to improve the horrible conditions.
Additionally, Jacob Riis is considered one of the fathers of photography due to his
discovery of the use of flash in photography which allowed low-light and
nighttime photography.
 Reformer - a person who is
working to change a problem
in society.
 Muckraker - a person who
worked to expose the
problems of industrialization.
 Impoverished - poor.
 Abysmal - really bad
conditions.

5. Jane Addams
September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935
Jane Addams was a pioneer social worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago,
public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader for woman’s suffrage (the right to
vote). Other than Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, she was
the most well-known reformer of the Progressive Era.
The main purpose of Hull House was to provide social & educational opportunities
for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants) in the
surrounding neighborhood. There were classes in literature, history, art, domestic
activities (such as sewing), and many other subjects. The successful social work at
Hull House helped Jane Addams turn the attention of progressives nationwide to
issues of concern such as the needs of children, public health, and immigrant
rights.
Jane Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to
uplift their communities. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
 Suffrage - the right to vote.
 Reformer - a person who is
working to change a problem
in society.
 Progressives - people who
worked to solve the problems
of the Gilded Age.

6. Lincoln Steffens
April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936
Lincoln Steffens was a New York reporter who launched a series of articles in
McClure’s Magazine that would later be published together in a book titled The
Shame of the Cities. He is famous for investigating corruption in municipal
government in American cities.
In The Shame of the Cities, Steffens sought to bring about political reform in
urban America by appealing to the emotions of Americans. His articles focused on
the political machines of different cities throughout America, exposing the
dishonest methods city leaders used to get rich and powerful. In Missouri,
Steffens’ writing helped elect a progressive governor who went on to fight corrupt
state government officials.
Steffens angered many of the people he wrote about, but his gift and passion for
investigating corruption, poverty, and human failures influenced many Americans
to join the progressive cause. Steffens was deeply and genuinely concerned with
issues of social justice and human rights. He wanted all people to enjoy a
reasonable standard of life, with freedom and dignity.
 Launched - began,
started
 Dignity - respect, formal
standing.
 Municipal - city
 Progressive - idea that
progress could be made
to fix the problems of the
Gilded Age.

7. Mother Jones
1837-November 30, 1930
Mother Jones was born Mary Harris in Ireland & raised in Canada. She was a
teacher who moved to Chicago after she married George Jones in 1861. She lost
her home, dress shop, and all her belongings in the Great Chicago Fire.
A growing interest in labor union issues and in radical politics led Mary Harris
Jones to become an activist in her late 50s. She became known as Mother Jones
due to her grandmotherly, white-haired appearance. Looks can be deceiving.
Mother Jones was not a typical old lady – she was a radical labor organizer. She
worked mainly with the United Mine Workers union, where she often organized
strikers’ wives to help fight for better conditions.
Mother Jones dedicated her life to helping American workers by creating unions.
Jones believed union organizations were the only way that workers could gather
strength to make up for the power of their employers. Moreover, she believed
unions were the only way workers could achieve better pay, shorter hours, and
safer working conditions.
In 1903 Mother Jones led a children’s march from Kensington, Pennsylvania, to
New York to protest child labor and bring the issue to President Roosevelt’s
attention. In 1905, Mother Jones was among the founders of the Industrial
Workers of the World. (IWW the “Wobblies”)
 Radical - extreme,
trying to change
traditional beliefs.

8. Susan B. Anthony
February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906
Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a
pivotal role in the early Women's Rights Movement to introduce women's
suffrage into the United States. It might sound like a bad thing, but suffrage
means the right to vote. Susan Anthony was co-founder of the first Women's
Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and she helped start the
women's rights journal The Revolution.
She was an important advocate for women's rights, leading the way for women to
be acknowledged and allowed to participate in the American government. In
1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman
Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization dedicated to gaining women's
suffrage.
"Failure is impossible" were the words she left her fellow women upon her death,
giving confidence to the next generation of women on their long, discouraging
struggle towards equality. Fourteen years after Susan B. Anthony's death,
following tireless campaigning, women’s right to vote was guaranteed by the
Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.
 Prominent - leading, important
 Suffrage - the right to vote.
 Suffragist - person who fought
for the right to vote.
 Advocate - a person who
speaks or writes in support or
defense of a person, cause,
etc.
 Amendment - change or
addition to the Constitution.

9. Upton Sinclair
September 20, 1878 – December 25, 1968
Upton Sinclair was an American author who wrote almost one hundred books in
many genres. He became popular in the first half of the 20th
century, acquiring
particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed
conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that
contributed in part to the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and also the Meat
Inspection Act.
The Jungle
A fictional story based on the real-life treatment of workers in a Chicago
meatpacking factory, The Jungle was published in serial form in the socialist
newspaper Appeal to Reason from February 25, 1905 to November 4, 1905. The
combined articles were later published by Doubleday in 1906 as a novel.
Shortly before writing the book, Upton Sinclair had spent about six months
investigating the Chicago meatpacking industry. The Jungle was based on his
investigations. The intent of the novel was in Sinclair's words to “set forth the
breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and
women for profit.”
The novel was about a Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis Rudkus who worked in
a meat factory in Chicago called Durham's. Along with his teenage wife and their
extended family, the story shows how they were mistreated by Jurgis's employers
and the wealthier elements of society. Upton Sinclair’s descriptions of both the
unsanitary conditions and the inhumane conditions experienced by the workers
shocked and galvanized readers.
 Acquiring - to gain or get.
 Expose - to uncover and
show the problems.
 Exploit - to take advantage

10. W.E.B. DuBois
February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963
W.E.B. DuBois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, author
and editor. Born in western Massachusetts, DuBois grew up in a tolerant
community and experienced little racism as a child. After graduating from
Harvard (where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate), he became
a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was
one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Racism and discrimination were the main targets of DuBois's passion. He strongly
protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and
employment. WEB DuBois insisted on full civil rights and increased political
representation for African Americans, which he believed would be brought about
by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the
talented tenth and believed that African Americans needed to have access to
advanced education to develop its leadership.
DuBois was a productive author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk,
was an influential work in African-American literature. He even wrote the first
scientific essay in the field of sociology. DuBois published three autobiographies,
each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. As
editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis, DuBois published many scholarly articles.
{Ever wondered what W.E.B stands for? William Edward Burghardt!}
 Tolerant - accepting of
others, ideas, etc.
 Lynching - when a person
is attacked by a mob that
then hangs them with a
noose.

11. John Muir
April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914
John Muir was an advocate of preserving America’s wilderness. America’s natural
resources were being used and abused at an alarming rate. More than half of the
nation’s forests had been cut down by the late 1880s. Factories were dumping
waste and pouring smoke into the environment. John Muir became the leader of
the conservation movement.
Muir spent years wandering alone through thousands of miles of untouched
mountains and forests of the West. He found his favorite place in California’s
Sierra Nevada mountain range – Yosemite Valley. John Muir wrote articles for
magazines and gave speeches supporting the conservation of America’s
wilderness. He became the president of the Sierra Club in 1892, an organization
devoted to nature.
President Teddy Roosevelt went camping in Yosemite with Muir and returned
from the trip full of Muir’s conservation ideas. President Roosevelt was able to
use the power of the government to set aside land for 5 national parks, 18
national monuments, and 148 million acres of national forest – all protected from
dangerous misuse by industrialists.
 Conservation – the
preservation of nature and
the environment.
 Advocate – a supporter.