Lecture Notes

On the first page of his lecture notes, Riis jotted down his argument in favor of the welfare of children who lived in American cities during the Progressive Era. He wrote down that the most important need for children among all are their mothers and used his words to praise mothers in general for their hard work and compassion in raising their own children. As a Progressive Reformer who worked directly with families and young children, Jacob Riis was fully aware of the significance of motherhood and the need to uphold traditional family values during the Progressive Era.

On the second page of his lecture notes, Riis wrote down a point to make in his speech in which he commended Philadelphia's chapter of the Children Aid Society for being the first ones to bring about Progressive Reform that benefitted the city's children. This particular reform seemed to have significantly reduced the number of children who were in dire need of the organization's services over a five-year period.

The third page of Jacob Riis' lecture notes focused on the importance of the home. At the time he wrote down these notes, Riis argued that the home began to be safeguarded from squalor and decline by Americans whose social conscience was dormant for decades. However, protecting the home comes with great cost. Other notes that Riis jotted down included his belief that the best kind of home was one where life is worth living and that national life was imperiled by the plight of the home just as the home was imperiled in American cities in turn.

In the fourth and final page of his lecture notes, Riis made note of the fact that a state would not be deemed safe even if city children were to live on a farm instead of in tenements. He mentioned that the reform that he and his fellow reformers worked towards served as a source of hope wherever they worked with and for children; it also was the image of God present in the same children who the reformers yearned to give a chance. In addition, according to Riis, a child would have preferred to be bad instead of good because the care that the reformers provided was good, and his or her biggest need was a god-fearing home. Lastly, Riis concluded that the complaints that Progressive Era-adults heard of Progressive Era-children vastly differed from those that were made of the said adults when they themselves were younger.