The growing cities and giant companies had real problems: slums, child labor, unsafe factories, impure food, corrupt city governments. Around 1900 a new kind of journalist set out to expose them, and readers of cheap new magazines such as McClure's paid attention.
Key idea
Muckrakers exposed problems: Jacob Riis (city slums, 1890), Ida Tarbell (Standard Oil, 1904), Lincoln Steffens (city corruption), Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, meatpacking, 1906). In 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.
| Muckraker | Work | What it exposed |
|---|---|---|
| Jacob Riis | How the Other Half Lives (1890) | Tenement slums in New York, with photographs |
| Ida Tarbell | The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) | How Rockefeller's company crushed rivals |
| Lincoln Steffens | The Shame of the Cities (1904) | Bribery and machines in city governments |
| Upton Sinclair | The Jungle (1906) | Immigrant workers' lives and filthy conditions in Chicago meatpacking |
Why it works
The name came from Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1906 compared reporters who saw only filth to a man in an old story who raked muck instead of looking up. He meant it partly as a warning, but the writers took the name with pride. Their work fed a broad Progressive movement of reformers, many of them middle-class, who believed experts, facts and government action could fix the problems of industrial life. After the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York killed 146 garment workers in 1911 (one of the exit doors had been locked), New York passed dozens of factory safety laws.
Sinclair, a socialist, wanted readers to care about the workers. Readers were most upset about what went into their sausages. Sales of meat fell, President Roosevelt sent inspectors, and within months Congress passed both 1906 laws. Sinclair later wrote, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Work it through
Worked example: From exposé to law
Trace the chain from The Jungle to the new laws.
- 1906: The Jungle describes the meatpacking plants.
- Readers are outraged about food safety; meat sales fall.
- Roosevelt orders an investigation, which confirms much of it.
- June 30, 1906: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act are signed.
Answer: Exposé, public outrage, investigation, law: the Progressive pattern.
Common mistake
Many students think Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose unsafe food. He meant to show the hard lives of immigrant workers and to argue for socialism; readers reacted most to the meat. A second slip: muckrakers held no office. They were writers whose facts pushed officials to act.