Muckrakers
reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt
Muckrakers was a term for the group of people who wrote books and newspaper articles in the United States around 1900. Most of their books were about showing how bad things were during the "Gilded Age" in America. Some things they wrote about were the power of big business, unclean practices in factories, and the condition of poor people. The books the Muckrakers wrote led to changes in America during the Progressive Era, such as the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the breakup of the Standard Oil company.
The following people were among the Muckrakers:
- Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle, a book about meat-packing factories in Chicago
- Jacob Riis, who took photographs of poor people's living conditions in New York City
- Ida Tarbell, who wrote books about John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil
- Lincoln Steffens, who wrote The Shame of the Cities, about corruption in local governments
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