Muckrakers (and the Age of Progressivism)

Muckrakers were early investigative journalists who exposed corruption and abuse by the newly emerging giant corporations and local political machines. For public relations, the focus was on the negative exposure of the corporations headed by the legendary robber barons such as J. D. Rockefeller, William Vanderbilt, and J. P. Morgan. The corporate response to the muckrakers resulted in a growth spurt for public relations in the early 1900s. Muckrakers showed that the newly emerging mass media—newspapers and magazines—could turn public opinion and public policy against the seemingly all-powerful corporate giants. These corporate giants began hiring public relations practitioners to present their side in the court of public opinion.

Today, television still dominates the news media landscape and provides many forums for investigative journalism. Many of these stories lead to problems and even crises for organizations. A few examples include when CBS exposed the danger of the drug Rezulin, when ABC battled the grocery chain Food Lion over food safety, and when NBC challenged GM on truck safety. While this is often called muckraking, there is a significant difference between investigative reporters of today and yesteryear. Most of the muckrakers were part of a larger social movement to effect change during a very turbulent social time in United States history, the Progressive movement. It is instructive to begin any discussion of the muckrakers by presenting the social backdrop of progressivism.

The age of progressivism or the Progressive Era ran from 1895 to 1920 as a reaction to the changing social structure of the United States. This time period saw the rise of urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. Before 1930, the majority of the U.S. population lived in rural areas. In fact the United States had very few cities with populations more than 100,000. By 1930, the majority of the American people lived in urban areas, and there were 93 cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Suddenly small-town living was replaced by city living—with its related problems of sanitation and crime. The United States was adapting to a new way of living: urban life.

The rise of cities was accompanied by the shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy. People no longer worked in small shops or farms. They worked in large factories. The work was hard, as people often worked more than 12 hours a day in extremely unsafe working conditions with low wages. The cities provided a large pool of labor, so it was easy to replace workers who were injured or agitating for better working conditions. [Page 548]Immigration was helping to further increase the number of people in the cities. However, immigration patterns were changing. Before 1890, most immigrants were from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavia—from northern Europe. After 1890, most of the immigrants were from southern and central Europe. These new immigrants were often exploited because they were different and lacked political power.

Cities such as Chicago became a breeding ground for discontent. Segments of the population lived and worked in terrible conditions while having little recourse to change it. There were fears in the United States that socialism would take roots among the discontented and result in revolution, perhaps violent, or wide-scale adoption of socialist principles. One sign was the effort to unionize the workers.

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