Corruption In The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a period where great wealth and industrialization was presented to the world, but under the surface and away from the eyes of the public lay poverty, crime, racism, and corruption. However, through scrutiny and investigation by “muckrakers” (journalists), these problems became revealed in what was known as the Progressive Era. During this time, reformers worked towards fixing the underlying issues of 19th century society. One major problem of the time was corruption; votes were manipulated, money stolen, and monopolies established on political systems and governments. Many reformers focused on this topic, with different opinions and techniques, and two major ones were Lincoln Steffens and Hiram Johnson. During the Gilded Age and into the Progressive Era, politics were dominated by the corrupt practices of politicians and interested parties. Ranging from 1860 to 1890, the Gilded Age was a direct result of the rise of industrialization. Many fortunes were made off factories and railroads, and urban populations tripled within 30 years. However with such rapid
Born in 1866 and educated at Berkeley, Steffens was one of the first radical journalists to document the widespread corruption of the American political system and present it to the public. While many muckrakers at the time believed corrupt politics were rooted in the corrupt businessmen who ran them, Steffens claimed that the public and their complacency was the problem. In his book The Shame of Cities (1904), he writes that the American public is “responsible” to fix the problems, but despite that, Americans “let them [corrupt officials] boss the party and turn our democracies into autocracies.” Steffens believed that to cure corruption, Americans needed to end complacency and act together against the leaders in an almost revolutionary