The Role Of Muckrakers In The Progressive Era

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Progressives in the 1900s mainly sought for one thing, and that was for their own idea of "progress." However, in order to progress both in society and in the world, a people must first seek to fix the problems within itself. Muckrakers served their purpose in the Progressive Era by giving the people what can be considered as a diagnosis, becoming a vital part in this movement. They highlighted problems in the food industry, corruption in trusts and city governments, and called for the sanitation of urban areas – which all led to reform in these respective areas.
Muckrakers can be described as investigative journalists and authors who write to expose the issues of the people they observe. The origins of the term "muckraker" come from a speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. He speaks of the allegory written by Bunyan, "Pilgrim's Progress," and one of the characters in it, the Man with the Muck-rake, "who could look no way but downward … who was offered a … 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." With the character explained, Roosevelt continues with his speech, saying, …show more content…

There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed … 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 … I hail as a benefactor … every man who … makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely

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