1. Muckrakers

2. The Progressive Movement
Started around the year 1900
Think about what “Progressive” sounds like.
Progress, moving forward, etc.
People who participated in the Progressive Movement saw things in America that they thought should change

3. Muckrakers
People who wrote about bad things going on in America to expose corruption to the public.
Called that by Teddy Roosevelt who said they were “raking the muck” from America.
Muckrakers were the driving force for change in America

4. Some Important Muckrakers: Upton Sinclair
Wrote a book The Jungle (1906) about the meat packing industry. He exposed unsanitary treatment of the food and unsafe conditions for the workers
After people read his book
and created an uproar,
(including the President)
the Pure Food and Drug Act
was created to make and
enforce laws to keep food
sanitary.

5. Some Important Muckrakers: Upton Sinclair
The Jungle talked about
workers hands getting
caught in meat grinders,
rats and other vermin
falling into vats and being
packaged with the meat,
workers getting fired after
being injured on the job,
And more

6. Some Important Muckrakers: Jacob Riis
Wrote about New York City
slums mainly in newspapers,
but he also wrote a book called
How the Other Half Lives.
He was also a photographer,
and captured many startling
photos to go with his writings

7. Photography by Jacob Riis

8. Some Important Muckrakers: Nellie Bly
Her real name was Elizabeth Cochrane
She often wrote about child labor and working women
Once she pretended to
be insane to write an
undercover story about
the New York asylum on
Blackwell’s Island

9. Nellie Bly’s writing about the asylum:
Bly discovered that patients were fed vermin-infested food and physically abused by the staff.
She also found out that some patients were not psychologically disturbed but were suffering from a physical illness. Others had been maliciously placed there by family members. For example, one woman had been declared insane by her husband after he caught her being unfaithful.
Bly's scathing attacks on the way patients were treated at Blackwell's Island led to much needed reforms.

10. Who did Progressivism help?
Workers
Immigrants
Women
Children
Minorities
Healthcare
Even though muckrakers didn’t change things themselves, they got info to people who could.