Progressive Era America and the Muckrakers
Abrahamson, David, James Boylan, Thomas B. Connery, and Jan Whitt. “The Jungle at 100: A Century of the Journalism of Reform.” Journalism History 34:3 (Fall 2008): 163-173.
Alger, George. “The Literature of Exposure.” Atlantic Monthly (August 1905): 210-213.
Applegate, Edd. Muckrakers: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers and Editors. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Aucoin, James L. “The Investigative Tradition in American Journalism.” American Journalism 14 (1997): 317-329.
Barry, Peter N. “The Decline of Muckraking: The View from the Magazines.” PhD dissertation, Wayne State University, 1973.
Beasley, Maureen. “The Muckrakers and Lynching: A Case Study in Racism.” Journalism History 9:3/4 (Autumn-Winter 1982): 86-91.
Bloomfield, Maxwell. “Muckraking and the American Stage: The Emergence of Realism, 1905-1917.” South Atlantic Quarterly (Spring 1967).
Bradshaw, James Stanford. “The Journalist as Pariah: Three Muckraking Newspaper Novels by Samuel Hopkins Adams.” Journalism History 10: 1/2 (Spring-Summer 1983): 10-13.
Brasch, Walter. Forerunners of the Revolution: Muckrakers and the American Social Conscience. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990.
Buenker, John D. Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform. New York: Scribner, 1973.
Burt, Elizabeth. “Conflict of Interests: Covering Reform in the Wisconsin Press, 1910-1920.” Journalism History 26:3 (Autumn 2000): 95-107.
Cassady, Edward E. “Muckraking in the Gilded Age.” American Literature 13 (May 1941): 134-41.
Cassedy, James. H. “Muckraking and Medicine: Samuel Hopkins Adams.” American Quarterly 16:1 (1964): 85-99.
Chalmers, David M. “The Muckrakers and the Growth of Corporate Power: A Study in Constructive Journalism.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 18 (April 1959): 295-311.
Chalmers, David M. The Social and Political Ideas of the Muckrakers. New York: Citadel Press, 1964.
Chalmers, David M. The Muckrake Years. New York: Van Nostrand-Reinhold, 1974
Colburn, David R. and George E. Pozzetta, eds., Reform and Reformers in the Progressive Era. Westwood, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.* See especially chapter 4, “Muckraking the Muckrakers: Upton Sinclair and His Peers,” by Judson A. Grenier.
Connolly, James J. “The Public Good and the Problem of Pluralism in Lincoln Steffens’ Civic Imagination.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4:2 (April 2005): 125-147.
Cramer, Janet M. “Women as Citizens: Race, Class, and the Discourse of Women’s Citizenship, 1894-1909.” Journalism Monographs 165 (March 1998).
Cross, Whitney R. “The Muckrakers Revisited: Purposeful Objectivity in Progressive Journalism.” Neiman Reports 6 (July 1952): 10-15.
Crunden, Robert M. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982.
Davis, Kristin E. “Muckraking Expose and the Shaping of Progressive Era Political Culture.” PhD dissertation, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, 2000.
Denham, Bryan. “Magazine Journalism in the Golden Age of Muckraking: Patent-Medicine Exposures Before and After the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.” Journalism and Communication Monographs 22:2 (Summer 2020): 100-159.
Dorsey, L.G. “Theodore Roosevelt and Corporate America, 1901-1909: A Reexamination.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 25:4 (Fall 1995): 725-739.
Endres, Kathleen L. “Women and the ‘Larger Household:’ The Big Six and Muckraking.” American Journalism 14 (1997): 262-282.
Endres, Kathleen L. “Muckraking: A Term Worth Redefining.” American Journalism 14 (1997): 333-335.
Evensen, Bruce J. “The Evangelical Origins of the Muckrakers.” American Journalism 6 (1989): 5-.
Faulkner, H.U. The Quest for Social Justice. New York: MacMillan, 1931.
Fetner, Gerald L. “The Washington Correspondent in the Progressive Era: The New York Times’ Charles Willis Thompson.” American Journalism 28 (Spring 2011): 23–47.
Feurberg, Gary H. “Principles of Muckraking.” PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 1970.
Filler, Louis. The Muckrakers: Crusaders for American Liberalism. Yellow Springs, Ohio: The Antioch Press, 1964.
Filler, Louis. Progressivism and Muckraking. New York: Bowker, 1975. (bibliographic resource)
Filler, Louis. The Age of the Muckrakers. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1976.
Forcey, Charles. The Crossroads of Liberalism: Croly, Weyl, Lippmann and the Progressive Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Franke, Warren T. “Investigative Exposure in the Nineteenth Century: The Journalistic Heritage of the Muckrakers.” PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1970.
Gandal, Keith. The Virtues of the Vicious: Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane, and the Spectacle of the Slum. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Graf, Rudiger. “Truth in the Jungle of Literature, Science, and Politics: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Food Control Reforms during the Progressive Era.” Journal of American History 106:4 (March 2020): 901-922.
Grenier, Judson A. “Muckraking the Muckrakers: An Historical Definition.” Journalism Quarterly 37 (Autumn 1960): 552.
Gernier, Judson A. “The Origins and Nature of Progressive Muckraking.” PhD dissertation, University of California-Los Angeles, 1965.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Gorton, Stephanie. Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America. New York: Ecco, 2020.
Gottlieb, Agnes Hooper. “More Than Muckraking: Women and Municipal Housekeeping Journalism.” American Journalism 14, no. 3–4 (1997): 330–32.
Guarneri, Julia. “Progressive Political Culture and the Widening Scope of Local Newspapers, 1880-1930,” in Media Nation: The Political History of News in Modern America, eds. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).
Harrison, John M., and Harry Stein, eds. Muckraking: past, present, and future. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973.
Hart, Patricia S. “Little Magazines and Little Wanderers: Building Advocate Networks for Adoption During the Progressive Era.” American Journalism 29:1 (2012): 32-59.
Hicks, Granville. “David Graham Phillips, Journalist.” Bookman 73 (May 1931): 257-266.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. paperback edition. New York: Vintage, 1955. See especially Chapters 4 and 5 on the Progressive Era.
Hogan, J. Michael, ed. Rhetoric and Reform in the Progressive Era. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003.
Holt, Hamilton. “The Literature of Exposure.” Independent 60 (22 March 1906): 690-699.
Hulden, Vilja. “Employer Organizations’ Influence on the Progressive-Era Press.” Journalism History 38 (Spring 2012): 43–54.
Journalism History Roundtable. “The Jungle at 100: A Century of the Journalism of Reform.” Journalism History 34:3 (Fall 2008): 163-173.
Juergens, George. “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press.” Daedalus 114:1 (Fall 1982): 113-133.
Keller, Morton. Affairs of State: Public Life in Late 19th Century America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977.
Keller, Morton. Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Kennedy, Samuel V. “The Last Muckraker: Samuel Hopkins Adams.” PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 1993.
Kielbowicz, Richard B. “The Limits of the Press as an Agent of Reform: Minneapolis 1900-1905.” Journalism Quarterly 59 (Spring 1982): 21.
Kittle, William. “The Interests and the Magazines.” Twentieth Century 2 (May 1910).
Landers, James. “Hearst’s Magazine, 1912-1914: Muckraking Sensationalist.” Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013): 221-232.
“The Literature of Exposure.” The Independent (26 March 1906).
Littlefield, Christina, and Falon Opsahl. “Promulgating the Kingdom: Social Gospel Muckraker Josiah Strong.” American Journalism 34:3 (Summer 2017): 289-312.
Madison, Charles A. Critics & Crusaders: A Century of American Protest. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1947.
Marchiselli, Chani. “Perilous Pop: Ragtime, Jazz, and Progressive Social Thought in the Early 20th Century Press, 1900–1930.” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2009.
Marmarelli, Ron. “William Hard as Progressive Journalist.” American Journalism 3 (1986): 142–53.
McBride, Genevieve G. “No Season of Silence: Uses of Public Relations in 19th and Early 20th Century Reform Movements in Wisconsin.” PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1989.
McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920. New York: Free Press, 2003.
Miraldi, Robert. “The Journalism of David Graham Phillips.” Journalism Quarterly 63 (1986): 83-88.
Miraldi, Robert. “Fictional Techniques in the Journalism of David Graham Phillips.” American Journalism 4 (1987): 181–90.
Miraldi, Robert. “Scaring Off Muckrakers with the Threat of Libel.” Journalism Quarterly 65:3 (Fall 1988): 609-614.
“The Muck-Rake vs. the Muck.” The Arena (June 1906).
Myatt, James Allen. “William Randolph Hearst and the Progressive Era, 1900-1912.” PhD dissertation, University of Florida, 1960.
Neuzil, Mark R. “Muckraking and the Progressive Movement: The Interaction of Journalism and Society, 1902-1911.” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1993.
Neuzil, Mark R. “Hearst, Roosevelt, and the Muckrake Speech of 1906: A New Perspective.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 73:1 (Spring 1996): 23-39.
Nordstrom, Justin. Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Parmenter, William. “The Jungle and its Effects.” Journalism History 10:1/2 (Spring-Summer 1982): 14-17, 33-34.
Peters, John D. “Satan and Savior: Mass Communication in Progressive Thought.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6:3 (September 1989): 247-263.
Poitras, Marc, and Daniel Sutter. “Advertiser Pressure and Control of the News: The Decline of Muckraking Revisited.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 72 (2009): 944-958.
Piott, Steven L. American Reformers, 1870–1920: Progressives in Word and Deed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Ponder, Stephen E. “News Management in the Progressive Era, 1898-1909.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1985.
Reaves, Sheila. “How Radical Were the Muckrakers? Socialist Press Views, 1902-1906.” Journalism Quarterly 61 (1984): 763-70.
Reilly, Hugh J. Bound to Have Blood: Frontier Newspapers and the Plains Indian Wars. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.
Reynolds, Robert D., Jr. “The 1906 Campaign to Sway Muckraking Periodicals.” Journalism Quarterly 56 (1979): 513-520, 589.
Rieger, Cornelius C. The Era of the Muckrakers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932.
Rodgers, Ronald. “The Social Awakening and the News: A Progressive Era Movement’s Influence on Journalism and Journalists’ Conceptions of Their Roles.” Journalism History 46:2 (June 2020): 81-105.
Rosnner, Lori Amber, and Jodi L. Rightler-McDaniels, eds. Political Pioneer of the Press: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019.
Rudiger, Graf. “Truth in the Jungle of Literature, Science, and Politics: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Food Control Reforms During the Progressive Era.” Journal of American History 106:4 (March 2020): 901-922.
Sarasohn, David. “Power Without Glory: Hearst in the Progressive Era.” Journalism Quarterly 52 (Autumn 1976): 474.
Schneirov, Matthew. The Dream of a New Social Order: Popular Magazines in America, 1893-1918. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Schramm, LeRoy H. “Organized Labor and the Muckrakers, 1900-1912.” PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1972.
Schultz, Stanley K. “The Morality of Politics: The Muckrakers’ Vision of Democracy.” Journal of American History 52 (December 1965): 527-547.
Sedgewick, Ellery. “The Man with the Muckrake.” American Magazine 62 (May 1906): 111-112.
Semonche, John E. “The American Magazine of 1906-1911: Principle vs. Profit.” Journalism Quarterly 40 (1963): 36-44.
Semonche, John E. “Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Muck-Rake’ Speech: A Reassessment.” Mid-America 46:2 (April 1964): 114-125.
Seymour Jr., Thaddeus. “A Progressive Partnership: Theodore Roosevelt and the Reform Press.” PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1985.
Shapiro, Herbert, ed. The Muckrakers and American Society. Boston: Heath, 1968.
Sinclair, Upton. “The Muckrake Men.” Independent 65 (3 September 1908): 517-519.
Stein, Harry H. “American Muckraking and the Muckrakers: The 50-year Scholarship.” Journalism Quarterly 56 (Spring 1979): 9-17.
Stein, Harry H. “American Muckraking of Technology since 1900.” Journalism-Quarterly 67: 2 (Summer 1990): 401-409.
Steinberg, Salme H. Reformer in the Marketplace: Edward W. Bok and the Ladies Home Journal. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
Stinson, Robert. “McClure’s Road to McClure’s: How Revolutionary Were 1890s Magazines.” Journalism Quarterly. 47 (Summer 1970): 256-62.
Stoker, Kevin, and Brad L. Rawlins. “The Light of Publicity in the Progressive Era: From Searchlight to Flashlight.” Journalism History 30:4 (Winter 2005): 177-188.
Swados, Harvey. Years of Conscience. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1962.
Swibold, Dennis. “The Education of a Muckraker: The Journalism of Christopher Powell Connolly.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 53:2 (June 2003): 2-19.
Thornton, Brian. “Muckraking Journalists and Their Readers: Perceptions of Professionalism.” Journalism History 21:1 (Spring 1995): 29-41.
Thornton, Brian. “Moral Force of Just the Facts: The Debate Over the Standards of Journalism in the Muckraking Era.” New Jersey Journal of Communication 3:2 (Fall 1995)L 83-102.
Tichi, Cecilia. Exposes and Excesses: Muckraking in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Weinberg, Arthur and Lila Weinberg, eds., The Muckrakers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.
Weinberg, Steve. Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller. New York: Norton, 2008.
Welton, Edward L. “Mark Sullivan’s Progressive Journalism, 1874-1925: An Ironic Persuasion.” PhD dissertation, Emory University, 1970.
Wilson, Christopher. The Labor of Words : Literary Professionalism in the Progressive Era. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Wilson, Harold. McClure’s Magazine and the Muckrakers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.
Wilson, Harold. “Circulation and Survival: McLure’s Magazine and the Strange Decline of Muckraking Journalism.” Western Illinois Regional Studies 11:1 (1988): 71-81.
Yochelson, Bonnie, and Daniel Czitrom. Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn of the Century New York. New York: New Press, 2007.
Skip to content