Muckrakers

 

Who were they?

    writers that informed their readers about "dirty" politics and poor

        conditions in the slums and factories

    Teddy Roosevelt referred to them as "muckrakers"

 

Why did they write these stories?

    Middle class readers loved reading these stories which sold magazines

 

What were some of the things the muckrakers wrote?

    1881: Henry Demarest Lloyd wrote articles for the Atlantic Monthly

        which exposed corruption and greed of Standard Oil

 

    McClure's Magazine: founded by Irish

        immigrant Samuel McClure became a mainstay for other

            muckrakers:

 

         Lincoln Steffens: Tweed Days In St.Louis (Tweed Ring in NYC)

         Ida Tarbell: History of the Standard Oil Company   

        

    Other 5 and 10 cent magazines soon followed the lead of McClure's:

         Collier's  

        Cosmopolitan

 

    Often the magazine series would be published as a book after initial

            exposé

 

    Other books included:

         Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives  (photojournalism of

                tenements)

         Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities (big city politics)

         Theodore Dreiser: The Financier, and The Titan novels about

             industrialists

         Frank Norris: The Octopus (power of railroads)

                     The Pit: (grain speculation)

         Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (Chicago meatpacking industry)

 

Why did muckraking decline?

 

    It became too difficult to outdo previous stories

    Publishers that expanded faced pressure  from banks and business to

        tone down stories

    By 1910, many businesses developed a new department: Public

        Relations to deal with their public image

   

What was the impact of the muckrakers?

    exposed problems to everyday Americans and prepared the way to fix

    problems