Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair - Muckrakers

During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, many difficult issues affected human life. Reformers of the time such as Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair,. tried to expose wrongdoing and corruption along with the quality of food and shelter in urban areas through writing. These individuals were known as “muckrakers”.The progressive movement tried to reform the laws associated with these problems and they wanted to resolve many of the quality of life issues. There are many reformers, progressive citizens, and politicians, who worked to improve conditions in America.

The late 19th & early 20th century were times of great technological change, leading to great improvements and many problems. Many of those problems came from the industrial revolution and politicians not believing the federal government should interfere in private business. Document 5 shows an excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle written in 1906. He discussed how there were rats, bugs and spoiled meat being sold to the citizens. The quality of food was probably a 3 out of 10 on today's standards. That is really bad. There were unbelieveable things in the food people were sold to eat and they could get people very sick. Upton Sinclair could’nt make changes all on his own, so he exposed these horrible meat packing industries secrets to the U.S. by writing The Jungle. He exposed how some of the things that went into the food was ground up rat and rat hairs, human hairs, old meat that were left over parts, even parts of people such as fingers and toes. After publishing this book document 6 shows how President Roosevelt got involved. The picture shows him “muck”raking the disgusting meat. He then took action and investigated the “meat scandal”. This led to an act being passed called “The Meatpacking Act” which not only regulated the meat production but also helped regulate working conditions for the employees.

Along with Upton Sinclair, Jacob Riis was also a reformer with a goal, his goal was to stop all the deplorable living conditions and housing due to the increased and rapid urbanization. In document 3, Jacob Riis had once said…”Suppose we look into one [a rear tenement]... be a little careful, please! The hall is dark and you might stumble over the children pitching pennies back there… Here is a door. Listen! That short, Hacking cough, that tiny, helpless wail, what do they mean? The child is dying with measles. With half a chance it might have lived, but it had none. “ This is Jacob's way of saying how badly overcrowded, terribly built and mostly unsanitary the housing and treatment of people living in tenements was. Life in a tenement was so dirty and polluted that the pictures in document 4, show blackness, most likely soot, on the wall. The people lived in those tiny cramped rooms, clothing near