Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Muckraker assignment

There may be a class assignment on muckrakers that is coming due. I have had two students come to the desk (one yesterday, one today) looking for scholarly articles and books on muckraking journalists from the late 1800s and early 1900s. One student was specifically interested in how their writings changed American politics. Using the America: History and Life database we were able to find a good number of relevant journal articles. Historical abstracts also yielded some results. The catalog showed that we have several useful books, including:

Muckraking! : the journalism that changed America / HN65 .M83 2002

Reform and reformers in the progressive era / HN64 .R422 1983

Poison penmanship : the gentle art of muckraking / PN4726 .M55 1979

Muckraking: past, present, and future E743 .M82

If a student is looking for a particular writer, you can also search in Literature Resource Center, which has articles and entries on a number of journalists from the time period.




2 comments:

Rita said...

Some individual journalists who helped influence public policies include;

Ida B. Wells who wrote about lynching and helped bring it to the nation's conscience

Ida Tarbell who wrote about Standard Oil's business practices

Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle helped bring about food and safety regulations.

Rita

Rita said...

I came across this source today which was in the Internet Librarian earlier this year:

Ida B. Wells, 1862-1931
Background material about black journalist and activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Features a brief biography discussing her civil rights and feminist activities, an overview of her anti-lynching pamphlets, the full text of one anti-lynching publication, and video clips of a professor describing Wells' life and activities. Part of the Illinois During the Gilded Age website from the Northern Illinois University Libraries.
URL: http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/idabwells/