muckrakers definition us history

muckrakers definition us history

The Role and Impact of Muckrakers in U.S. History

1. Introduction to Muckrakers and Their Historical Context

This article addresses a question about the muckraking era that has long been a subject of speculation but has been only rarely addressed as an analytical problem: Did the muckrakers make a substantive contribution to the reform of governance and business practices? The present findings, based on both specialized publications and the mainstream journals of the era, indicate that the muckrakers aroused a widespread and open-ended public interest in their indictments, thereby laying the groundwork for later progressive reforms. The most influential works, in fact, were sensational tracts, which achieved an uncommon level of recognition for the era. Their successes have implications regarding the significance of such movements and the muckraker’s place in history.

The early 1900s in the United States saw widespread growth in the power of big businesses and the growing gap in wealth between the poor and the rich. The press of this era included a group of journalists, known as muckrakers, who wrote exposés of leaders of industry and political bosses. These investigative reporters published serialized articles and books, rather lurid in their style, about unsafe working conditions, unsanitary meat packing practices, railway rate discrimination, land monopolies, and countless other such issues. H.L. Mencken maintained that the “muckraker” was the “one clear train in the debris.” Muckrakers were dedicated to taking on a wide variety of issues, but they were attacked by mainstream observers as negative and relentless. In this article, we present a brief history of the muckrakers and their work, including both their successes and the criticisms they have faced. Prior work by various authors on the muckraking era is also discussed.

2. Key Muckrakers and Their Contributions

She, like many other muckrakers, believed that social progress could only be achieved through getting an aroused public to wage war on its ills. She wrote that the most important trait a muckraker could have is an understanding of human nature, which she defined as the ability to not only recognize a problem but to also see how it fit into the larger social order and how it exacerbated other problems. After her series on Lincoln, Tarbell became a staff writer for McClure’s, usually writing one or more articles and a column in each issue. After her article on John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Trust in 1902, which led to the breaking up of the company, she became financially very comfortable, earning between $5,000 and $15,000 a year. During her career, she spent a great deal of time researching her articles, maintaining a big library full of books and articles that she deemed important.

Benjamin Orange Flower and his partner Amos R. E. Pinchot founded The Independent in 1896. The Independent was something of a family affair. Pinchot’s sister, Rosamund, was on the staff, and both Pinchot children would grow up to make their own contributions to reform. Their brother, Gifford, who would later serve both Presidents Roosevelt as head of the Forest Service, was also likely a contributor at times, usually under a pseudonym. Pinchot donated $20,000, and The Independent became the unofficial vehicle for the fledgling Progressive Party. By far the most important individual to ever write for The Independent was Ida M. Tarbell. Tarbell began her writing career in 1891 with a series of articles in McClure’s magazine about Abraham Lincoln. They were the first of her many series of articles or books on societal problems.

3. The Influence of Muckraking Journalism on Social and Political Reforms

Muckrakers were not, and had no intention of being leaders or actors of any kind. They wanted to criticize, to write about evil to work off their feelings of filth and corruption. The muckrakers would have been astonished to have been told this. Nonetheless, as they were neither leaders nor actors, but observers with pen and paper, it is more remarkable that they moved so far and accomplished so much. Far more animated and vivid than either traditional historians or professional educators, the muckrakers, in one brisk burst of energy, carried Americans down a short stretch of the evolutionary road. Their influence upon the course of American history at the turn of the century was surprisingly great.

The muckrakers exerted a widespread and profound influence on the range of reforms that took place on the national, state, and local levels. Their greatest impact was in reforming the railroads and the trusts, but they also made contributions to the erosion of bossism in municipal and state politics. Moreover, the movement towards widespread literacy created readers in large numbers, and it gave direction to writing in newspapers and magazines. Even when the movement ended, the Streeters were still in the slums and brothels of the nation’s large cities, following up the leads of the muckrakers. There was, moreover, a lasting benefit of less direct nature. The muckrakers deepened the thinking of many and sharpened the weapons that would be used by the intellectuals of the nextingly powerful development, brought the muckrakers to a swift close.

4. Criticism and Controversies Surrounding Muckrakers

The involved member of a large banking house that heavily supported muckraking magazines frequently discussed Theodore Roosevelt with du Pont. Back home, he read this comment in the Wilmington, Delaware, Morning News: “The President is threatened by one of his friends from Wall Street.” Du Pont wrote back: “He is not threatened from Wall Street. He owes Wall Street a job. He is threatened by these muckraking magazines which Roosevelt himself has admitted to have created.” Taft’s argument was precisely the same. That he could not take much action against corporate wrongdoing was not his fault. The muckrakers and Toledo’s social problems were primarily responsible for making his presidency such a disappointment to most Progressives.

There were and continue to be two opposing views about what the Progressive muckrakers tried to do. These conflicting interpretations relate mainly to their criticisms of the monopoly corporation and of an excessively dangerous capitalism. Beginning with 1906, when the muckrakers were in their most influential period, and continuing throughout much of the century, conservatives emphasized that several of the most notorious magazines and newspapers attracted too many and too scurrilous muckraking articles. Roosevelt especially regretted it because moderate muckrakers—at least they were muckrakers at one time—were now relentless critics of new policies he had initiated.

5. Legacy of Muckrakers in Shaping Modern Investigative Journalism

The final contribution of the muckraking movement was the identification of the function of the press in a democracy, both essentially and functionally. A free press was defined by the muckrakers as an independent press, effectively implementing its public responsibility to report and to curtail injustice, particularly in the community. In terms of the determinants of media content, the predominant concept was accurate, fair, and responsible reporting for services and for social progress – that is, cautious, consistent, and credible publications with valuable and meaningful viewpoints and supports for the citizenry in a democracy. The muckrakers determined the press serve the public and promote public interest: with a social imperative dedicated to the general welfare as well as to legitimate private interests not detrimental to social progress and honor. Newspaper proprietors hold public trusts as well as private licenses; beside profit and power, there can be no privileged sponsorship, and no impartial, tolerable, or reasonable expressions of accuracy and freedom. And the instruments of mass communication are to be available to and represent all people; they have immense social obligations and responsibilities in a democracy.

The contemporary models of professional and public-service journalism in the United States and much of the world have been influenced by the American muckrakers. Investigative journalism has become a direct extension of the protest muckrakers. Investigative reports are such an integral part of the concerns of professional journalists that the phrase “investigative journalism” is used to convey the worthiness and public importance of such an extensive line of inquiry. Investigative journalism, whether it explores private or government wrongdoing, reflects the persistence and consciousness of a free press revealing what is defined as abuses or improprieties affecting the credit and well-being of the community and its constituencies. However, the reform muckrakers, not the malefactors of great wealth, serve as the fundamental historical source for the modern concept of investigative journalism, reporting, and comment devoted to revealing and correcting iniquities in the community or nation.