The Rise & Fall of Muckraking in McClure's Magazine

           Samuel Sidney McClure attended Knox College, where he met John Sanborn Phillips, who would eventually become co-founder of McClure’s Magazine. Knox gave McClure and Phillips a background in progressive reform.

           When McClure’s Magazine was founded in 1893, the publishing world was undergoing changes that would allow for the magazine to prosper. With the spread of public schools, most of the population was literate. The U.S. Post Office began offering second-class mailing privileges and free rural

delivery, allowing subscribers to get magazines quicker and cheaper.

           Technological advances in printing also allowed for a growing availability of publications. The development of cheaper paper, the linotype machine, the rapid cylinder press, and the halftone photoengraving process allowed for a well-produced, colorful magazine. This all happened at a time when advertising began to boom as a source of revenue for publications.

           By 1895, McClure’s circulation had increased phenomenally. The cheap price, 10 cents, appealed to subscribers, who also enjoyed well-written articles, prolific advertising, and abundant and colorful illustrations.

           From the beginning, it was quality fiction writing that gained the magazine prestige. McClure’s success led to contacts with English literary agents and their writers. The writing in the magazine was strongly connected with social concerns. The focus on realism and immediacy in the writing during the magazine’s early years would lay the groundwork for the magazine’s evolution into the premier muckraking publication.

           S.S. McClure had an uncanny ability to sense the needs of his readership. In Alan Nourie’s book, American Mass-Market Magazines, Lincoln Steffens, one of the magazine’s investigative reporters, characterized McClure as “‘the wild editor’… the receiver of the ideas of his day.” It was McClure’s journalistic savvy that led to the landmark issue of  January 1903. The famous muckraking issue became a milestone in journalism history.

           In January 1903, McClure’s Magazine would hit the newsstands with three powerful exposes and an editor’s note that emphasized their significance. The issue contained Ida Tarbell’s second installment of The History of the Standard Oil Company, Lincoln Steffens’ The Shame of Minneapolis and Ray Stannard Baker’s The Right to Work.

Ida Tarbell, one of the most influential writers at McClure’s, would create in her series the fixed pattern for the exposes the magazine is recognized for. Her investigation was grounded in a thorough history of Standard Oil; her indictments against Rockefeller were driven by fact. She indicted Rockefeller and his associates for systemically regulating the price of crude and refined oil. She explained how the company did this through controlling the refineries’ output and the pricing and means of transportation for the oil. Her articles proved that Rockefeller was determined to destroy all competition. She showed that if he succeeded, he would monopolize a basic commodity.

               The article was of considerable importance when the U.S. government pursued anti-trust legislation against the Standard Oil Trust, which was broken up in 1911.

It was McClure who advised Steffens to do investigate journalism. The advice came to fruition in Steffens’ series of articles, The Shame of the Cities. The series incorporated Steffens’ reports with his observations of urban political corruption throughout America. He tried to bring about political reform by appealing to the emotions of readers. His writing sought to outrage and “shame” the readership, providing examples of municipal corruption.

           Steffens’ first two articles exposed the corruption in Minneapolis and St. Louis, respectively. His provocative articles evoked such emotion that other cities, unexplored by Steffens, began launching grand jury investigation to sniff out political corruption.

           Baker was the third crusader in the trio of muckrakers at McClure’s peak. While Tarbell and Steffens focused on particular subjects, Baker’s investigative pieces ranged in topic. His article The Right to Work examined relations between organized labor and their employers. While another article, The Railroads on Trial, investigated the management of American railroads.

            McClure expected muckrakers to shock readers into demanding social reform. The formula for success included overwhelming facts, identification of the culprit to give the story a face, and absorbing narratives using techniques of short-story writers, a style most had a background in.

          Three years after the historic January 1903 edition of McClure’s, the decline in muckraking came. On April 15, 1906, Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech, known as “The Man with the Muck Rake.” The speech would lead to a decline in muckraking and progressivism. (Ironically, this is the speech that would coin the term “muckraker.”)

         In his speech, Roosevelt cited John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. He recalled the description of the “Man with the Muck rake,” and how he could look no way but down into the filth he raked off the floor.

          Below is an excerpt from Roosevelt’s speech:

                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. But the man who never does any-

               thing else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with

               the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent

               forces for evil.

          The readership, in response to Roosevelt's address, grew tired of the pessimism in the investigations of muckrakers. The public viewed their numerous calls for reform far-fetched.

           In addition to losing the interest of the readership, McClure’s personal life began to interfere with his business. McClure feared his affair with poet Florence Wilkinson would tarnish the progressive reputation of McClure’s Magazine. In an attempt to salvage the magazine’s reputation, and lessen his guilt, he looked to create a business empire to alleviate the social ills of the day.

          The idea of expansion alienated journalists at McClure’s. They feared McClure was attempting to create a sort of newspaper trust. In June 1906, Tarbell, Steffens, and Baker left with John Sanborn Phillips, former co-founder of McClure’s Magazine, to create The American Magazine. The American Magazine continued a focus on social issues, but also covered human interest stories and fiction pieces.

Read about other topics in Crusading and Investigative Journalism.

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 REFERENCES

• Aucoin, James L. The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2005.
  • This book documents the tradition of exposes in American journalism. It discusses the social conditions that allowed for muckraking to prosper.

• Miraldi, Robert. Muckraking and Objectivity. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
  • This book describes the on-going battle between fiction and news in the muckraking articles featured in magazines. It talks about the subjectivity of McClure, who sought commercial success while publishing the investigative pieces, and the journalists, most of which were fiction writers seeking literary recognition.

• Nourie, Alan, and Barbara Nourie. American Mass-Market Magazines. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990, 247-252.
  • This article, “McClure’s Magazine,” gives a complete history of McClure’s magazine. It discusses S.S. McClure’s education in progressive reform. It cites the articles and the authors whose investigative articles would lead to social reform.

• Wood, James. Magazines in the United States. 2^nd ed. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1956, 131-146.
  • The chapter, “Social Consciousness of Magazines: The Muckrakers,” explores the roots of McClure’s magazine. It gives a brief background of publisher S.S. McClure and how the magazine started. It analyzes the formulaic approach to the magazine's muckraking exposes and how they were used for social reform.
• "The Man wih the Muck Rake." Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt. 2006. 25 Nov 2008 <http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trmuckspeech.html>.
  • This web site provides a transcript of Theodore Roosevelt's speech "The Man with the Muck Rake." The speech was given on April 15, 1906.