Many Americans insisted on moralizing poverty and housing conditions.

One of the responses to the revelations was to build company towns, like Pullman, Illinois which provided decent housing and amenities to workers in the Pullman train car factory. This project appears to have been successful initially, but a debilitating strike caused by high rent and low wages destroyed the town and other companies were no longer willing to follow this model (Ibid. At 134). Still a bigger obstacle to widespread reform was the ubiquitous American reverence for private property rights. Notwithstanding the early New York measures, Americans were loath to deny the landlords unfettered control over their private property (Ibid. At 135).

Although the progressive era as a whole saw great advancement in public health and safety requirements, there was only marginal success regarding housing reform. Many reforms that affected how people lived were undertaken in the name of public...
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