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Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis (1849–1914) was an immigrant from Denmark who worked as a police reporter for the New York Tribune, New York Evening Post and New York Sun in the 1870s–1890s. For those papers and magazines of the day, he published a series of exposes on slum conditions in the Lower East Side of Manhattan which led to the establishment of the Tenement House Commission. In his writing, Riis included photographs presenting a truly disturbing picture of the living conditions in the slums. -
Ida Tarbell
Ida Tarbell (1857–1944) was born in a log cabin in Hatch Hollow, Pennsylvania, and dreamed of being a scientist. As a woman, that was denied her and, instead, she became a teacher and one of the most powerful of the muckraking journalists. She began her journalism career in 1883 when she became the editor of The Chautauquan and wrote about inequality and injustice. -
Florence Kelly
Florence Kelley (1859–1932) was born to affluent North American 19th-century Black activists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and educated at Cornell College. She joined Jane Addams' Hull House in 1891, and through her work there was hired to investigate the labor industry in Chicago. As a result, she was selected to be the first female Chief Factory Inspector for the State of Illinois. She tried to force sweatshop owners to improve conditions but never won any of her filed lawsuits. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was born into enslavement in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and grew up to become a teacher and then an investigative journalist and activist. She was skeptical of the reasons given for Black men being lynched and after one of her friends was lynched, she began researching white mob violence. In 1895, she published "A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States 1892–1894,"providing clear evidence that lynchings of african americans was common -
Ray Stannard Baker
Ray Stannard Baker (1870–1946) was a Michigan man who enrolled in law school before turning to journalism and literature. He began as a reporter for the Chicago News-Record, covering strikes and joblessness during the Panic of 1893. In 1897, Baker began working as an investigative reporter for McClure's Magazine. -
Lincoln Steffens
Lincoln Steffens was born into wealth and was educated at Berkeley, then in Germany and France. When he returned to New York, he discovered his parents had cut him off, requesting that he learn the "practical side of life." He became a managing editor for McClure's, and in 1902 wrote a series of articles exposing political corruption in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. A book compiling his articles was published in 1904 as "The Shame of the Cities." -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was born into relative poverty in New York, although his grandparents were wealthy. As a result, he was very well educated and began writing boys' stories, and later wrote several serious novels, none of which were successful. In 1903, however, he became a Socialist and traveled to Chicago to gather information about the meatpacking industry. His resulting novel, "The Jungle," gave a wholly unsavory look at abysmal working conditions and contaminated and rotting meat.
