Muckrakers

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used muckraking to get a point across. However, events during the 1890s most directly paved the way for the critiques and exposures of existing conditions. This period was able to reach a limited upper class and the were able to expand appeal to the average middle class citizen (Reiger 49-50).
One reason for the outspread of muckraking was the explosion of journalism. From 1870-1909 the number of daily newspapers circulated boomed from 574 to 2,600 and the number of subscribers from 2,800,000 to 24,800,000. With this increase, newspaper owners and editors needed new bait to reel in its subscribers. The newspaper editors wanted to replace ordinary town gossip with gossip about the latest events of the city. Therefore, in newspapers they placed the most shocking events and kept the rural mind drooling for more. As newspaper circulation grew, the large newspaper depended much less on political parties and could now even challenge them. Newspapers played on the new human interest, ...

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built a very reasonably sized circulation through popular fiction and historical representation. Ida Tarbell, the most popular reporter of the magazine, investigated Standard Oil originally as a way of honoring this great American business. However, Tarbell started to discover the unhappiness of the workers. She decided to research more deeply into the Standard Oil Company. Her research provided her with the story of a company whose ideas were based on "primary privileges." These primary privileges allowed the company to operate under special permission, but more importantly operate immorally. This investigation was eventually printed in 1902 and is now considered the work that started ...

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