19th century New York City, home to social reformers and labor union leaders, manifested that having the ideals of the working class– integrity, diligence, and a little luck– would help you move up in the ranks. Several men including Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, and Horatio Alger published newspapers and books gave a more welcoming and promising portrayal of social darwinism. Other writers like Stephen Crane, however, chose to depict the unfavorable consequences of survival of the fittest. New York, at the times, was as powerful and prosperous, as it was corrupt and impoverished. Mark Twain deemed this era the Gilded Age because although social darwinism shaped Americans to work towards material earnings, these things were merely gilded.
New York City’s economy surely benefitted from robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan. Some of the wealthiest names in the country lived in New York. Eventually, the city had the capacity to greatly impact American economy due to the spur of business and innovation. Growing up on a farm and working hard to become a successful businessman, Rockefeller would seem to embody the working class ideals. However he soon owned a monopoly over the oil industry and people like this caused the gap between the rich and the poor. On the surface, New York was the center for growth and opportunity, but in reality, a large majority of its inhabitants were impoverished and the political leaders of the city were corrupt.
William M. Tweed was one such leader. Through immoral modes of getting votes such as bribery, Tweed was able to put several of his men in noble government positions. He never became mayor, but he worked on the campaigns for nominees of the Democratic Party and Tammany Hall. In this way, positions for office were dictated by Tweed. He controlled the system. Not only did he bribe voters, but he also gained the favor of businessmen who provided Tweed supporters with work and Tweed made money off of them as well. Riots between the Protestants and the Catholic Irish immigrants surfaced New York; they were deemed “the Tammany Riot” because Tweed often bribed immigrant for their vote. Tweed’s corruption surfaced when his bookkeeper died and the new bookkeeper exposed Tweed’s ways. He was arrested and died in jail at the age of 55.
This instance showed New Yorkers that corruption plagued their political system. Jacob Riis was the one to show the city that poverty was unfortunately just as prominent. An immigrant from Denmark, Riis came to the Five Points via the New York Tribune and took photographs of the living conditions in that area. In 1890, he published his renowned book, How the Other Half Lives. The book depicts lives of immigrants and poor people in slums, not prostitutes and criminals like they were previously made out to be. Riis’s work called for social reform. The mayor at the time implemented public bath houses and better sanitation. Education reforms required children under the age of twelve to attend school. Women’s rights was another area for improvement. Josephine Lowell took part in boycotts and worked to provide a standard of working conditions for the overworked women in stores.
New Yorkers realized that there was power in numbers and labor unions were a way to fight for their rights together. Samuel Gompers formed the Cigarmakers’ Union in 1877 and led organized strikes. Unfortunately, no matter how much Gompers wanted to keep labor unions and politics separate, protesters backed Henry George for mayor because his policies included labor reform. However, the democratic nominee won the election due to Tweed’s rigged voter system.
Perhaps the most effective labor union was the Newsies. The fact that the group consisted of young people who were able to negotiate with the big newspaper companies brought light to the children being the future of progressivism in New York.
