Muckrakers: Exposing Problems During the Progressive Era
Lincoln Steffens
Lincoln Steffens was born in San Francisco, California, on 6th April, 1866.
The son of a wealthy businessman, he studied in France and Germany
before graduating from the University of California, where he developed
radical political views.
In 1892 Steffens became a reporter on the New York Evening Post. Later he
became editor of McClure's Magazine, where he became associated with
the style of investigative journalism that became known as muckraking.
One of Steffen's major investigations involved exposing local government
corruption. A collection of Steffen's articles appeared in the book The
Shame of the Cities (1904). This was followed by an investigation into state politicians, The
Struggle for Self-Government (1906).
Steffens’ work led many people to fight for an end to political corruption. These reformers,
inspired by Steffens, introduced new ideas like the city commission system, where a group of
people all shared power governing the city—this would avoid giving too much power to a
corrupt mayor. Other reforms inspired in part by Steffens include the secret ballot. Reformers
hoped that by keeping voting secret people would not be bribed to vote for one politician or
another.
Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - March 26, 1914), a Danish-American
muckraker journalist and slum and school reformer, was born in Ribe,
Denmark. He came to America in 1870 and wrote for the New York Evening
Sun newspaper.
As a pioneer investigative journalist, he went undercover working at a meatpacking factory. He is most famous for his book How the Other Half Lives,
which uses images and words to force the public to confront the conditions of
NYC tenement slums. Riis’s work led to him to become great friends with
President Theodore Roosevelt and shocked the public, leading to reforms that
cleaned up cities and made housing safer.
Riis was once revered with what almost might be called "rock star reformer" status by social
scientists for his work in reforming the New York tenements, but more recent looks at his work
have been clouded by the racial prejudice he
displays towards certain ethnic groups that he
studied. Quotes from How The Other Half Lives
such as "...I state in advance as my opinion,
based on the steady observation of years, that all
attempts to make an effective Christian of John
Chinaman will remain abortive in this generation;
of the next I have, if anything, less hope."
Excerpts like this have stained his reputation as a
human being, but there is no denying the impact
of his work in combating the subhuman
conditions of the tenements of 19th and 20th
century New York.
Ida Tarbell
Among the muckrakers of the Progressive Era, none surpassed the careful
reporting, clever pen, and moral outrage of Ida Tarbell. She took on the
nation’s most powerful trust- Standard Oil- and its creator- the nation’s
wealthiest man, John D. Rockefeller- wealthiest man, John D. Rockefellerin 18 installments of McClure’s magazine.
Ida Tarbell developed her moral outrage at the Standard Oil trust through
personal family experience. Soon after her birth in 1857 on a farm in
Pennsylvania, oil was discovered in nearby Titusville. Her father, Franklin
saw an opportunity to make money in this promising new field. He became
the first manufacturer of wooden tanks for the oil industry and established a successful business.
In time, however, the Standard Oil Company began to force other oil suppliers out of business.
Standard Oil became Franklin’s only client, and refused to pay his prices. The business failed
and Franklin’s partner committed suicide. Ida Tarbell could never forget her father’s pain or its
cause.
Beginning in 1903, Tarbell began writing a series for McClure's magazine called “The History of
the Standard Oil Company,” all of which was later republished as a book. In her work, she
outlined and documented the cutthroat business practices behind John Rockefeller's massive oil
empire. Rockefeller was outraged, but the public outcry against him and Standard Oil could not
be stopped. Congress launched an investigation and in 1911, the Supreme Court ruled that, in
accordance with the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Standard Oil Trust must be broken up—
Rockefeller’s largest company was dissolved (although he stayed wealthy). Tarbell became
famous as the reporter who had successfully taken on John D. Rockefeller. Finally, three years
later in 1914, Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act, giving the government more power to
attack monopolies.
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was an American author who wrote over 90 books in
many genres, often advocating Socialist views, and achieved
considerable popularity in the first half of the twentieth century. He
gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle (1906). Sinclair hoped to
illustrate the horrible effects of capitalism on workers in the Chicago
meatpacking industry. The Jungle detailed workers sacrificing their
fingers and nails by working with acid, losing limbs, catching diseases,
and toiling long hours in cold, cramped conditions. Sinclair’s main goal
for the book was to demonstrate the inhuman conditions of the factory
worker under capitalism, hoping that reforms improving working
conditions and wages would soon follow.
The rage that rang throughout America was not, however, a response to
the workers' problems, as Sinclair had hoped. Sinclair also uncovered the
contents of the products being sold to the general public. Spoiled meat
was covered with chemicals to hide the smell. Skin, hair, stomach, ears, and nose were ground
up and packaged as head cheese. Rats climbed over warehouse meat, leaving piles of excrement
behind.
Sinclair said that he aimed for America's heart and instead hit its stomach. Even President
Roosevelt, who coined the derisive term "muckraker," was propelled to act. Within months,
Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act to clean up meatpacking plants and control what went into foods Americans ate.