The Muckrakers Era.

A muckraker is an individual who seeks to expose or reveal the real or apparent corruption of businesses or governments to the public. The term originates from members of the Progressive movement in America who wanted to expose the corruption and scandals in government and business. Muckrakers often wrote about impoverished people and took aim at the established institutions of society.

History: Muckrakers were a significant part of reform in the United States because of the freedom of the press provided for by the First Amendment of the Constitution. They played a huge role in the social justice movements for reform, and the campaigns to clean up cities and states, by constantly reporting and publicizing the dark corners of American society.

Beginnings: Investigative Journalism in the late 19th Century

The period of the 1890s saw the growth of the Progressive movement in the United States. Investigative journalists were an important force in the progressive movement, and one of the most powerful mediums for these investigative journalists and writers arose in the 1890s with the rapidly increasing sales of cheap magazines.

Writer and photographer Jacob August Riis published his expose, How the Other Half Lives, in 1891, thoroughly detailing the substandard conditions (such as lack of light, poor air circulation, etc.) in the slums and tenement buildings of New York City.

Origin of the Term "Muckraker"

The period 1900-1902 saw an increase in the kind of reporting that would come to be called "muckraking." By the 1900s, magazines such as Cosmopolitan, The Independent, Munsey's and McClure's were already in wide circulation and read avidly by the growing middle class.

The term "muckraker" was first used in a speech on April 14, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt: “In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; Who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.” This first reference to "muckrakers" is believed to have been with the Hearst magazines and newspapers in mind.

Roosevelt saw benefits and disadvantages to muckraking activity. He declared that although these men did good work when they scraped up the ‘filth’ of America, "the man who did nothing else was certain to become a force of evil.” On the other hand, he said, "I hail as a benefactor…every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in turn remembers that that attack is of use only if it absolutely truthful”.

The term eventually came to be used to depict investigative journalists who exposed the dark corners and all the corruption of American public life, especially in corporate America.

As mentioned before, the Muckrakers were part of the social justice movement during the Progressive era. During this time period, these journalists, through their research and constant exposure of the wrongdoing by officials in American public life, gave fuel to protests that led to investigations and later on reform of not only Corporate America but the American Government. The Muckrakers’ journalistic efforts helped reform and regulate Wall Street and aspects of big businesses. The muckrakers also shed light on an array of social issues, such as the issues with urban housing and horrible living conditions in highly populated cities, medical patents, child labor laws, child prostitution, and even women’s rights.

Lecture 6

LITERATURE OF THE “LOST GENERATION” (20-30s of the 20^th century)

Questions:

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