Background on Muckrakers

Over the past week we have been working on our muckraking project. I figured it would be fitting to post some information on who the muckrakers were and what they did. The muckrakers were a group of US journalists who made it their duty to expose corruption and politics in the early 20th century. The name muckrakers came from Theodore Roosevelt in a speech in 1906 where he compared these journalists to a man so focused a raking muck that he couldn't even look up to see the bigger picture. Roosevelt argued that these journalists spent so much time finding the evils in society that they never the vision of America's potential. The muckrakers published a plethora of articles that exposed corruption in a series of political aspects in America. These journalists are most commonly associated with the Progressive Era of America, however they held influence until World War One. Their works tried to raise awareness about things such as chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and social issues such as child labor. Muckrakers helped bring issues like these to light so that the people could act and be informed on what is going on in their society.