The Muckrakers Who What Why Where When picture

The Muckrakers • Who? • What? • Why? • Where? • When? • (picture)

Lincoln Steffens & Thomas Nast Municipal (city) Corruption

Who? • Thomas Nast, cartoonist (18401902)

What? • Nast’s cartoons helped to remove the Tweed Ring & Tammany Hall from power in New York City

• A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to "Blow Over. " - "Let us Prey. " From Harper's Weekly dated September 23, 1871. Engraving shows Tweed and his associates as vultures, with bones picked clean labeled the city treasury, law, justice, liberty and rent payers

Why is this important? • The Tweed Ring controlled NYC politics for years and stole millions of taxpayer dollars • Nast’s cartoons brought the Tweed ring down • When Tweed fled to Spain, he was caught because people recognized him thanks to Nast’s cartoons

Where?

When? • The Tweed Ring lost in the election of 1871.

Who? Lincoln Steffens • Born, San Francisco 1866, died 1936

What? • Through his articles and books, such as The Shame of the Cities and The Struggle for Self-Government; Steffens exposed corrupt political machines in St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.

The Shame of the Cities

Why? • Steffen’s work paved the way for the break-up of these political machines as well as important municipal legislation. • When? • 1902 -1911 editor of Mc. Clure’s Magazine

Where?

Question • How many specific problems can you recall from our earlier lessons on urban poverty at the turn of the century?

Urban Problems • • Crowded tenements Homelessness Orphans Soul-crushing poverty Crime Pollution Fires

Who? • Jacob Riis; 1849 -1914

What? • Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives and accompanying pictures exposed urban poverty.

• 1889 his pictures and articles seen by N. Y. Governor T. Roosevelt • The tenements he exposed were shut down • His book led to efforts to help the urban poor Why?

Where?

When? • 1890

Turn to someone and tell them what you can remember about The Standard Oil Company using as few words as possible

Who? • Ida Tarbell; 1857 -1944

What? • Tarbell published "The History of the Standard Oil Company" in Mc. Clure’s magazine • Her articles were extremely wellresearched, detailed, and easy to read. • They became very popular

Why? • Her articles raised public awareness of Rockefeller’s ruthless monopoly. • Tarbell’s efforts led to the eventual breakup of the Standard Oil monopoly in 1911.

Where? • Her articles were read across the country

• Standard Oil was broken up by When? the government in 1911

How dangerous is food? What isn’t safe to eat? • How do you know?

Upton Sinclair & Food Safety

Who? • Upton Sinclair: Born in Baltimore 1878, died 1968

What? • Wrote a “novel” about immigrants working the Chicago stockyards in 1905 called: The Jungle

The Jungle • There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.

• This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. The Jungle

Why? • President Theodore Roosevelt read the book and was horrified.

Why? continued • As a result of Sinclair’s book and the President’s reaction, Congress passed both the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Why Pure Food & Drug Act? • Patent medicines • Medicines claiming to cure every illness were sold by unlicensed traveling salesmen. • The medicines often contained dangerous amounts of alcohol or drugs

Influence of patent medicines • Coca-Cola & 7 up were created by pharmacist s and used to contain cocaine and lithium

WHO? JOHN MUIR –

WHAT? • CONSERVATION – PRESERVE NATURE – WROTE BOOK, OUR NATIONAL PARKS

RESULT? GOVERNMENT SET ASIDE LAND TO PRESERVE

WHO? JOHN SPARGO –

WHAT? • CHILD LABOR

HOW? • BOOK - THE BITTER CRY OF THE CHILDREN

RESULTS? • CHILD LABOR LAWS

Quick Review • When I say Tarbell, You say… Broke up Standard Oil!

Quick Review • When I say Riis, You say… Urban Poverty!

Quick Review • When I say Nast, You say… Municipal Corruption! Boss Tweed!

Quick Review • When I say Sinclair, You say… FDA! Food Safety!

Quick Review • When I say Steffens, You say… Municipal Corruption!

Quick Review • When I say MUIR, You say… CONSERVATION