Muckrakers
Journalists and writers began to expose the ills that had plagued the United States during the end of the nineteenth century. If unemployment, unsafe working conditions, overpopulation, and political corruption were the muck, these journalists and writers were the muckrakers. Many of the muckrakers used sensationalism to expose the ills of society.
Journalist Ida Tarbell exposed the problems created by the Standard Oil Trusts. She used outlets such as McClure’s Magazine to get her work published for the masses to read. Journalist Lincoln Steffens was also a writer for McClure’s who exposed political corruption by writing a series of articles about the abuses of political machines and machine bosses. Using titles such as “The Shame of the Cities,” he aroused people to demand reform.
| Writer Upton Sinclair published the novel The Jungle in 1906. The novel exposed the unhygienic and unsafe working conditions of the meatpacking industry; this led to the Meat Inspection Act of the same year. |  Ida Tarbell |
 Upton Sinclair | An excerpt from The Jungle: “With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and another working in a sausage factory, the family had a first-hand knowledge of the great majority of Packingtown swindles. For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it or else to chop it up into sausage. With what had been told them by Jonas, who had worked in the pickle rooms, they could now study the whole of the spoiled-meat industry on the inside, and read a new and grim meaning into that old Packingtown jest—that they use everything of the pig except the squeal.” |
 Jane Addams |
Jane Addams was born in 1860 to a wealthy family, but she spent her life fighting for the rights of the working class and poor. Amongst her many accomplishments, she founded Hull House. Sometimes referred to as settlement houses, Hull House and other places like it provided aid to workers and their families by offering lowered rents and classes in home economics. Hull House is located n Chicago, Illinois. |