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Muckraking and the Journalism of Exposure. “Who you callin ’ yeller?”. Key Developments. photography Civil War correspondents foreign journalists came to US to cover war telegraph – Associated Press wire… news syndication
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Muckraking and the Journalism of Exposure “Who you callin’ yeller?”
Key Developments • photography • Civil War correspondents • foreign journalists came to US to cover war • telegraph – Associated Press wire… • news syndication • first bldgs. in NYC bigger than churches were the newspaper buildings
“Muckraking” and Progressive movement. • Industrialization, immigrant influx; conditions are ripe for exploitation • rich feel threatened by immigration and growth • slums, crowding, foreigners…OH MY!
Progressives: education + civics instruction + language skills = it’s all good • attack on political machines • anti-corruption campaigns…politics of principle! • economic reform…higher wages + better conditions = it’s all good • attack on human vice – gambling, prostitution, drinking, etc.
Who’s going to take on Tammany and Boss Tweed? If gov’t. isn’t going to do it, who will? • news moved toward investigation and observation… • “Progress is possible if facts can be known!” • “Muckraking” furthered by new magazines…Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s. Cheap and with high circulation
Charles Elutherius Egan Bright-eyed optimism Nicola Pavia Tissues in sleeve Old Immigrants v. New
Jacob Riis Danish-American photographer, journalist, and social reformer (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914)
New York City in 1870 • 1870-1900 ~ 12 million immigrants • 70 % entered through New York City • 700 % increase in urban populations • Personal experience motivates him to work for social change
Muckrakers From Roosevelt’s speech in 1906: • [Referring a character in John Bunyan's 1678 work Pilgrim's Progress:]....the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck-rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor. • There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful."
Jacob Riis: Career, con’t • First American photographer to use flash • Began giving lantern-slide lectures in 1888 • 1889 Scribner's Magazine published Riis's photographic essay on city life • This becomes How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York(Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890) “Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate, of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat.“ ~ from Riis’s Introduction
Riis’s strategy: appeal to the middle class, Victorian conscience • Neighborhoods • Dwellings • Mothers and children • Emphasized humanity of poor • Presented poor as capable of responding to reforms • De-emphasized the individual in favor of total setting • Not sentimental
Mulberry Street Police Station, Waiting for the Lodging to Open 1892
One of four pedlars who slept in the cellar of 11 Ludlow Street
