Influential People of the Progressive Era
...hborhoods. He wrote about their inability to find better housing and jobs. As a moralist, he wrote passionately about awful working conditions in factories. Lincoln Steffens is often credited with starting the practice of muckraking with his article “Tweed Days in St. Louis” that appeared in the October 1902 issue of McClure’s. He excited readers as he revealed the actions of many evildoers. Margaret Sanger, a public health nurse, introduced birth control to immigrant women who were having an excess number of children. This opposed the Comstock Laws, which banned contraceptive literature and devices. Unafraid of police resistance, Sanger published the pamphlet Family Limitation and opened the first birth control clinic in the country in 1916. She gained the support of the middle class and also the endorsement of the American Medical Association, which accepted contraceptives in 1937. Robert LaFollete, a lawyer and congressman from Wisconsin, became the governor of his home state in 1900. He stood for higher taxes for corporations, political reform, and stricter utility and railroad legislation. LaFollete believed that party candidates should be decided through popular elections rather than conventions. Progressivism was introduced to Congress when Robert LaFollete was elected to the Senate in 1906. Along with other progressive republicans, he was greatly opposed to American interference in European conflict in 1914. He ran for president in the 1924 election, but was defeated by Calvin Coolidge. His autobiography tells the story of his life, including his break with the Wisconsin R...