Read more
Muckrakers were investigative journalists during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s) who shone a light on corrupt business and government leaders as well as major social problems like racism.Ida B. Wells wrote graphically about the horrors of lynching in the South. Her newspaper office was burned to the ground, and she was forced to move to Chicago after her own life became imperiled. Jacob Riis photographed immigrant children who lived among the garbage dumps underneath the wharves in New York City. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, revealing the unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry. Ida Tarbell wrote about the monopolistic practices of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, which destroyed small businesses, including her father's.Their reporting generated concern among members of the public and lawmakers, and in some cases, led to laws that addressed the problems they were covering. In other cases, problems were exposed but the groundswell of emotion led to little change.
About the author
Author of twenty-eight books and hundreds of professional articles, Arthur L. Finkle teaches on the graduate and undergraduate faculty of Kean University. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Rotary Club, and Trenton-Princeton-Bucks Jewish Historical Society and the Greater Jewish Cemetery Project.
