In my essay I will discuss the importance of Muckrakers and how they lived their lives. I also plan to discuss what they were and how they evolved around the world. Muckrakers had a tremendous impact in the world back then which plays a big part in today’s world. I will discuss how Muckrakers exposed living conditions and started changing things around the world.
The modern term of the Muckrakers are investigative journalism and investigative journalists which today are often called “muckrakers”. The muckraker was used in the Progressive Era in 1900-1917. They wrote about the corruption and injustices in order to make better changes in society. Muckrakers were coined by the progressive president who’s known as Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Theodore
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Roosevelt borrowed the term from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress that was used to dig up filth and muck. The muckrakers helped to understand and reform things in the world. Throughout the time period there were a lot of influential muckrakers in the Progressive Era.
They had a high interest ability that arouse to the public and made them fight for a change. The Muckrakers had one area that became a strong influence on the business world. They also arouse the interest and awareness of social concern that was not an unprecedented situation. Muckrakers were companies that dominated the industries they were apart of for business activities they were involved in.
Muckrakers had a high significant historical role, during the nineteenth – century nations of American readers. Through the time period of 1920 and 1930 the muckrakers had a huge number of paper printers that rose quickly. They gained more freedom to publish their controversial topics since the newspapers were becoming less dependent of afflictions with the political parties. There was a trend going on that the editor’s favored stories of crimes and scandals because they had a higher selling rate.
During the muckrakers lives some didn’t succeed in their journalism. Sometimes they had motives that differed from their actual effects of their work. They also influenced other readers of their lives with how they viewed other aspects of the American society. Some muckrakers couldn’t live with the apprehension and disgrace from society about how their journalism
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went. Muckrakers exposed a lot of corruption grabbing the public’s attention and sometimes bringing change to readers.
They also focused on their own reporting skills and often work to expose political corruption. Some muckrakers were members of the press that expose the abuses of business which they had to investigate the corruption in order to expose the problems in the American life. The muckrakers had to recall some efforts of early reformers who had caused corruption in printing. Muckrakers had many different problems expose to them that they notice very quick which were; the lack of education, the rise in crimes and effects on alcohol abuse, rights of women and the right for Women’s Suffrage, and the rights of workers and their living conditions.
The muckraking journalism changed things around the world in many propounding ways. For example, “The Jungle” found in Sinclair’s journal that encouraged federal intervention into the meat – packing business and the food business generally. It came with many great opportunities that came with the making of illegal profits. One major area that the muckrakers changed around the world was business. They were the type of people that change the world with really connecting through
media. The muckrakers were the first known people to promote new profound nationalistic ways. Throughout the public muckrakers began a direct look toward the political, social, and economic business. Most people thought that muckrakers were biased and overreacting people. Muckrakers became well known for their crusades through the eras of “Personal Journalism and “Yellow Journalism. They viewed themselves as reformers that were politically engaged in doing their jobs. Lastly, the term “muckraker” was really referred to a writer that only investigates and tells the truth. Most people investigated the early influences of muckrakers and their journalism. The world saw muckraking as a good method to fight against industrial powerhouses. People at first didn’t take muckraking serious but once they saw the good in it they were more interested. Muckraking is something that played a big role in society back then which people took very serious and still do.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's, change in American society was very evident in the economy. An extraordinary expansion of the industrial economy was taking place, presenting new forms of business organization and bringing trusts and holding companies into the national picture. The turn of the century is known as the "Great Merger Movement:" over two thousand corporations were "swallowed up" by one hundred and fifty giant holding companies.1 This powerful change in industry brought about controversy and was a source of social anxiety. How were people to deal with this great movement and understand the reasons behind the new advancements? Through the use of propaganda, the public was enlightened and the trusts were attacked. Muckraking, a term categorizing this type of journalism, began in 1903 and lasted until 1912. It uncovered the dirt of trusts and accurately voiced the public's alarm of this new form of industrial control. Ida Tarbell, a known muckraker, spearheaded this popular investigative movement.2 As a journalist, she produced one of the most detailed examinations of a monopolistic trust, The Standard Oil Company.3 Taking on a difficult responsibility and using her unique journalistic skills, Ida Tarbell was able to get to the bottom of a scheme that allowed the oil industry to be manipulated by a single man, John D. Rockefeller.
At the start of the 20th century, journalists had begun to play an important role in exposing wrongdoings within politics and society. These journalists, often called muckrakers, used their journalism to focus on political flaws and corruption in city governments. Several popular publishers adopted this form of journalism, which became widely popular
Upton Sinclair’s classic The Jungle analyzes a variety of concerns varying from politics to working conditions in America's capitalist economy. Sinclair highlights key issues for the Progressive Era reform, while he uncovers significant corruption taking place with the country’s rapid industrialization. He was labeled a “muckraker” for exposing the system that privileges the powerful. Upton Sinclair states that the paramount goal for writing his book was to improve worker conditions, increase wages, and put democratic socialism as a major political party. The book shocked the public nation by uncovering the unhealthy standards in the meatpacking industry it also resulted in a congressional investigation.
Ida Tarbell, another noted muckraker, wrote a number of articles for McClure's, some of which were gathered in her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company. Muckraking appeared in fiction as well. David Graham Phillips, 4 who began his career as a newspaperman, went on to write muckraking magazine articles and eventually novels about contemporary economic, political, and social problems such as insurance scandals, state and municipal corruption, shady Wall Street dealings, slum life, and women's emancipation. Perhaps the best-known muckraking novel was Upton Sinclair's 5
Around the same time, journalists started to go undercover to experience first hand just how corrupt the system had become. One of the most influential mudruckers is Upton Sinclair, who went undercover in a meat packing factory and recorded his analysis of the conditions. Built off of the backs of immigrants, it is the very same people that are poorly mistreated but are the reason for the country's booming economy. Yet, a century ago, these migrant workers who devoted their health and time to the factories received a poor man’s salary. They worked long, strenuous hours in horrible conditions and would often get injured during the process.
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
Others saw these muckraking methods as perfectly acceptable for fighting against the industrial powerhouses. Either way, these muckrakers worked hard to arouse sentiment in the hearts of the public (Reiger 1). Muckraking actually began long before the years of 1900-1902, when the muckraking movement is credited to have begun. Jesus was probably the first muckraker. Years later, Martin Luther exposed the corruptness of the Catholic Church.
Through muckraking they were able to enlighten the people of the need for change, and with the help of the people demand and support reform.
At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.
The Progressive Movement The progressive movement of the early 20th century has proved to be an intricately confounded conundrum for American historians. Who participated in this movement? What did it accomplish, or fail to accomplish? Was it a movement at all? These are all significant questions that historians have been grappling with for the last 60 years, thus creating a historical dialogue where in their different interpretations interact with each other.
Muckrakers, journalists who exposed social, economic and political evils, controlled media and therefore had profound influence over the th...
The old proverb “the Pen is mightier than the sword” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy) still holds significance in protecting of public rights. Words such as freedom, and liberty engendered the idea for democracy. Such words formed into sentences and paragraphs enlightened the public to take action against tyranny and corruption. Freedom of the press is what ensured the general masses of their public rights. The exemplary case in which the freedom of the press played a role was the endeavors of Woodward and Bernstein to unravel the corrupted politics behind the Watergate Scandal. The movie All the President’s Men depicts the proceedings of the Watergate scandal, the scheme to attack the crux of democracy: “ the open election”. Also how the two journalists of the Washington Post progressed to unveil the relationship between the Watergate Burglary and the White House. On one hand, the movie represents the role of the media in its obligation to convey the truth to the masses. On the other hand, the movie reflects political corruption and conspiracy. The accomplishment of Woodward and Bernstein presents the importance of the interaction between the media, the government, and the general masses of society. The role of the media is not only to intervene between the State and the public, but also to take account of public ideas and to apply those ideas to new policies. Also, the media acts as a safeguard to prevent the corruption of the State. Thus, the Watergate scandal signifies the significance of the media as an intermediary between the government and the public mass.
During the early 1900’s and late 1800’s precipitated the first true form of American media. The daily newspapers have been a part of the United States for some time, but during 1880’s and 1890’s reports such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst began to transform the newspaper in order for it to become the first major stepping stone in mass media. These publishers, especially Hearst, took advantage of the American involvement in foreign affairs. Hearst convinced his audience that sinking of a U.S ship during the Spanish-American War obliged a military response. Although Hearst was not the initial cause of the war, there was proof that he had the power to distort information, images and options. By World War 1, the media involvement increase by a tremendous amount.
Progressives in the 1900s mainly sought for one thing, and that was for their own idea of "progress." However, in order to progress both in society and in the world, a people must first seek to fix the problems within itself. Muckrakers served their purpose in the Progressive Era by giving the people what can be considered as a diagnosis, becoming a vital part in this movement. They highlighted problems in the food industry, corruption in trusts and city governments, and called for the sanitation of urban areas – which all led to reform in these respective areas.
In order to understand new media, one must first have a solid background of the old media. The old media traces its origins back to the “elite or partisan press [that] dominated American journalism in the early days of the republic” (Davis 29). With the advent of the penny press around 1833, the press changed its basic purpose and function from obtaining voters for its affiliated political party to making profit (Davis 29). With more available papers, individual companies competed with each other with “muckraking journalism”—investigative journalism exposing corruption—and “yellow journalism”—sensationalist journalism that completely disregarded the facts (Davis 30). The press continued to evolve its journalistic approaches and next shifted to “lapdog journalism,” r...