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correct, way to think or paint or write or, as we saw above, even worship in
church. Whereas novels had been highly sentimental and had clear moral
sides of good vs. evil, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, writers such as Upton Sinclair
and William Dean Howells began to portray life as it really was, with pov-
erty, conflict, and a wide range of human emotion. Artists who were used to
painting natural scenes—a bowl of fruit, an animal in the wild, a hunter or
fisherman—began to show images of the “other side” of life, men begging for
coins, people living in the streets, children working in a factory. Thomas
Eakins and others created the idea of “Ash Can Realism,” a stark departure
from the romanticized work of Classic and Impressionist artists, one that
showed the dark and dirty side of life in the cities and towns of America.
Philosophers and other thinkers of the era gave rise to the school of pragma-
tism, most notably associated with William James. These men did not seek
absolute truth or a formula that would always be applied to human problems,
but thought ideas should be judged by how well they actually worked when
put into practice, not simply by some theoretical standard. James’s best known
student was John Dewey, who brought about a huge change in American
education. Instead of just learning by rote and forcing students to memorize
“facts” [much like today’s standardized and CORE testing] Dewey advocated
“learning by doing,” going outside to learn about nature rather than reading
it in a book, having direct contact with the subjects being taught rather than
only being lectured by a teacher, letting individuals learn on their own and
encouraging free thinking, creativity, and imagination.
Some lawyers and judges likewise pursued such goals with a new, prag-
matic type of jurisprudence. Instead of just arresting and sentencing people
according to codes, some legal officials began looking into the circumstances
that led people to commit crimes. Perhaps a young man had stolen food or
fuel but the judge discovered it was because he lived in poverty and was tak-
ing care of his family... he might be sentenced to community service, or
attending school, rather than jail. When lawyers tried cases about child labor
or establishing maximum work hours for women, they often used research
conducted by professors that showed the actual effect—less poverty, fewer
health problems, a better family life—of such laws, and many judges agreed
and upheld such progressive legislation. Whether it was muckrakers exposing
the meat industry, social justice advocates trying to help the poor or get chil-
dren out of the factory, women demanding the right to vote, artists taking on