Muckrakers and Reformers

Ida Tarbell

A leading muckraker and magazine editor, she exposed the corruption of the oil industry with her 1904 work "A History of Standard Oil."

Ida Wells

An African American journalist and newspaper editor, and leader in the civil rights movement. Documented the extent of lynching in the United States. Active in the women's rights and suffrage movement. Helped found the NAACP. Founded National Association of Colored Women.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Argued for equality for blacks. Created NAACP. Believed in using education for blacks to get opportunities. Also believed in using lawsuits to force equality.

Frances Willard

Founded the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Instrumental in pushing for the 18th amendment that prohibited the manufacturing and sale of alcohol. Also campaigned for woman's suffrage, and reformation of the prison systems.

Muckraker

Journalists of the Progressive era who attempted to expose the evils of government and big business. Many wrote of the corruption of city and state political machines, and of the factory and living conditions of workers.

John Muir

Know for influencing Teddy Roosevelt into creating large areas of conservation known today as the National Park System

Upton Sinclair

Muckraker who shocked the nation when he published The Jungle, a novel that revealed gruesome details about the meat packing industry in Chicago.

Lincoln Steffens

Muckraking journalist who exposed the corruption of political machines in the cities in his book *The Shame of the Cities*.

Reformer

Person who wants to improve society, and does things to make it better.

Booker T. Washington

Prominent black American, born into slavery, who believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society. Was head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. His book is "Up from Slavery."

Susan B. Anthony

Social reformer who campaigned for women's rights, the temperance movement, and was an abolitionist. She helped form the National Woman Suffrage Association.

Jane Adams

Social reformer who worked to improve the lives of the working class. Founded Hull House in Chicago, the first private social welfare agency in the U.S., to assist the poor, combat juvenile delinquency, and help immigrants learn to speak English.