Muckraking And Poverty In The Gilded Age: The Gilded Age

During the late 19th century, leading into the 20th century, The Gilded Age was in full swing. The exploitation and graft of the time motivated a group of investigative journalists, entitled muckrakers, to emerge. These muckrakers sensationalized the social, economic, and political corruption in America and brought the issues to the public eye. In looking at a common story threaded through the history of muckraking- poverty- one can see the style of muckraking, and the way it affects society has dramatically changed over time. At their start, muckrakers were effective, as they targeted the white, middle class population; a population capable of enacting changes. Yet, as multimedia news has arisen, individuals all of socioeconomic backgrounds have access to news, and due to bias broadcasting people are becoming jaded to the news. Hence, the reputation and credibility of modern muckrakers is growing increasingly weak.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the country started to go through a political and economic change. As Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, he became the first progressive president, and therefore the first president to truly control the economy. Although Roosevelt began to break apart

Most muckraking publications happened in either magazines, such as McClure’s Magazine, or novels, such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair’s novel revealed the horrors of the meat industry, and the poverty of the workers. The book sparked anger and concern regarding the safety of factories, and eventually aided in the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act, although from a financial standpoint it had little affect at the moment. The book ends with multiple chapters praising socialism and how it is the only fair form of economy due to the extreme poverty of the working class and corruption in politics. To demonstrate the poverty of the people, Sinclair writes things such