The Truth Shall Be Known: Muckrakers In The Progressive Era

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The Truth Shall be Known Behind all the social media we have seen today and heard about, there must be a story behind them all. For the good or for the better. Muckraking journalists helped to point out the wrongs in the society and politics at the end of the nineteenth century because of the start of the Progressive Era exposed abuse of power, child labor, and to help change the US National policy today. Influence modern muckrakers to expose today’s issues like sterilization in female prisons and Ferguson. Muckrakers in the Progressive Era were journalist that wanted to show everyone the dirty secret of wealthy companies that kept secrets from the people. This influenced other muckrakers to help expose other issues that people never saw and …show more content…

They hired immigrants who didn’t have the skill to work with machines that are foreign to them. The work environment was filthy, the floors were covered by body parts of the pig and blood everywhere (“Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle…”). The materials like sledgehammers and knives that are used to cut the pig were also spread out on the floor, creating safety hazards for the workers. Some of the workers were children over fourteen years old. The workers were paid pennies per hour, working long hours, and the workers who are skilled are paid fifty cents per hour (“Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle…”). The immigrant workers could not continue to work in the meat-packing industry because of the unhealthy conditions, the consequence was that they couldn’t afford to pay their rent (“Upton Sinclair’s The …show more content…

Many workers were sick because the working area was filthy, they had to eat their lunch beside the pig that they are cutting (“Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle…”). The Jungle also exposed what’s really inside the canned meat the Chicago meat-packing industry processes. Many did not know that the meat were piled up on the floor before processing the meat in cans, the floor were covered by urine, sputum and even dead rodents (“Upton Sinclair’s The