Muckrakers

Muckraker

A journalist, author and/or photographer whose work is designed

to expose corruption and abuse of power in politics and big business

Jacob Riis- Immigrants

Jacob Riis

Author of “How the Other Half Lives”- creating awareness of immigrant living conditions in the tenements of urban

ghettos.

Jane Addams- Settlement Houses

Jane Addams- Helped New Immigrants

Her most famous settlement house, which helped immigrants assimilate to life in the United States was named the

“Hull House”Also was a peace activist during WWI

and a Suffragette

Lewis Hine- Child Labor

John Spargo- Bitter Cry of the Children

Child Labor LawsDue to the work of Hine, Spargo and other

Muckrakers individual states began passing child labor laws

Upton Sinclair- The Jungle

Impact of Sinclair’s “The Jungle”

Commerce Department InvestigationMeat Inspection Act- leads to improved regulation over meat sold to the public

Pure Food and Drug Act- creates the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which

forces companies to list ingredients in their food they sell and drug companies to list

side effects of the medicines they sell

Frank Norris and Lincoln Steffens

Ida Tarbell

Because of Ida TarbellJohn D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company is sued for violating the Sherman Anti Trust Act

And in May of 1911, 2 months after the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the

Supreme Court forces the Breakup of Standard Oil (Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Chevron,

Conoco, etc)Bill Gates and Microsoft were sued for

violating the same law in the late 1990s

Are Muckrakers a Valuable Part of a Democracy?