hello and welcome to another US History online lesson today we're going to continue with our unit on the Progressive Era by examining the muck rers so what is a muckraker well a Muk raker is a journalist could be someone writing an article could be someone writing a book could be someone taking pictures could be someone drawing cartoons and all in an effort to bring awareness to the dirt or the muck in society their goal is to bring it to the attention of public officials in government in hopes of trying to address some of these problems and it's also bringing awareness to American people that may not know about some of these problems the name Muk raker was given to these journalists by President Theodore Roosevelt because they were always bringing up the muck in American society in fact you've already learned about one of the muck rakers Thomas Nast in his efforts to expose political corruption the first muck raker that we're going to talk about today is Frank Norris Frank Norris wrote a book called The Octopus in 1901 which is a fictional account about the struggle that farmers were engaged in with railroad monopolies during the age of industrialization and it helps lead to the breakup of these monopolies like what takes place in the Supreme Court case Northern Securities versus the US in 1904 another influential muckraker was LS Hine Lewis Hine was a photojournalist that was able to capture child labor he was able to show kids working in coal mines and in factories in every other working condition imaginable this helped pave the way for child labor laws in different states and across the country as a whole idar Bell was a writer that was able to expose the ruthless business tactics of the Standard Oil Company in a series of articles in McClure's magazine published together in 1904 these articles were so damaging that they led to the Supreme Court case Standard Oil vers the US in 1911 the same Supreme Court case that would split up the Standard Oil Company of John Rockefeller in his book How the Other Half Lives written in 1890 Danish immigrant Jacob Reese was able to expose the living conditions of the urban poor focusing primarily on tenements all in an effort to show the middle class CL literally how the other half lives he was able to do this in photos and through story and as a result New York City passed building codes to promote safety and health last and certainly not least is the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair in 1906 in the book The Jungle it investigates the dangerous working conditions and unsanitary procedures in the meat packing industry of Chicago this will lead to a couple of different pieces of legislation to reform the food industry the first coming in 1906 was the Pure Food and Drug Act which required all food and medicines to have labels with ingredients side effects and other things this act still exists and is regulated by the FDA the Food and Drug Administration and it also led the way for the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 which requires all meat products to be inspected by the government before during and after processing so there you have it this gives you a glimpse at just some of the work of some of the muck rakers during the Progressive Era we'll explore the works of these five more in class next time we'll focus on social reforms including what happens when you take away America's alcohol