The muckrakers were a group of journalists during the Progressive Era period (1890s-1920s) that would search and expose corruption, lies and scandals in politics and corporate monopolies.
Examples of Muckrackers: Ray Stannard Baker, David Graham Phillips and Ida M Tarbell, among others.
They impacted in US history because they changed the way to do journalism (from yellow sensationalist journalism and objective journalism, to investigative journalism) and because they were politically engaged and wanted to change society by exposing wrong, so the government and the corporations wouldn´t find it so easy to deceive and manage the public opinion.
Muckrakers were the investigators and writers of the Progressive period (1890-1920) who wrote against injustice and corruption.
Explanation:
Muckrakers were American reporters and writers who wrote about the poor, and about the horrible corrupted condition of American society during 1890-1920.
Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 fabricated the term “muckrakers” for the first time. Some of the muckrakers or journalists were – Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Ida Wells and many more who published their writings in magazines like- Cosmopolitan and McClure’s.
They faced several challenges in order to bring about a change in society through their works.
The letter was written by Lin Zexu, an important official in the Qing Dynasty, to Queen Victoria of Britain. He wrote in response to the growing opium trade in China. For nearly 300 years, the Chinese had desired nothing from the Europeans but silver.
