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Journalists |
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William Randolph Hearst: Competitor with Joseph Pulitzer in the circulation wars in the age of yellow journalism. Publisher of The New York Journal. The paper fanned the flames of war and urged readers to "Remember the Maine" near the beginning of the Spanish-American War. He is quoted with the saying "war makes for great circulation." Hearst used the expansion of his newspaper chain to further his political ambitions. (Click here to see a presentation on Hearst.) | |||
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Joseph Pulitzer: Publisher of The New York World, Pulitzer was a crusader for the immigrants, the poor and the working class. Sensational headlines such as "Baptized in Blood" competed with Hearsts' sensationalism from The New York Journal. (Click here for more information on the Roosevelt libel lawsuit against Pulitzer and The New York World.) | |||
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R. F. Outcault: Creator of "The Yellow Kid" and Buster Brown Comics. "The Yellow Kid" not only symbolized the circulation wars between Pulitzer and Hearst, but also generated the first comic merchandising; key rings, statues and other Yellow Kid paraphernalia predated Happy Meals by decades. | |||
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Lincoln Steffens: New York Post reporter and managing editor of McClure's Magazine. Steffens' investigations usually exposed local government corruption and are found in his series "The Shame of the Cities" (1904). "The Struggle for Self-Government" (1906) told of investigations of state politicians. He joined other muckrakers like Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker to form the American Magazine. | |||
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Ida Tarbell: Tarbell published articles in McClure's Magazine criticizing Rockefeller, president of Standard Oil, and his monopoly in the oil business. Rockefeller responded to these attacks by describing her as "Miss Tarbarrel". | |||
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Upton Sinclair:
A muckraker and novelist who is known for his best seller "The
Jungle" (1906) that described the unsanitary practices
of a Chicago meatpacking company. The book led to changes in the
law with the passing of the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) and the
Meat Inspection Act (1906). |
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Ray
Stannard Baker: Muckraker known for investigating labor relations
and race relations such as Jim Crow laws, lynching and poverty. His
articles originally published in Atlantic Monthly were turned
into the book, "Following the Color Line" (1908). Excerpt from an article entitled "What is Lynching?": "But the mob wasn't through with its work. Easy people imagine that, having hanged a Negro, the mob goes quietly about its business; but that is never the way of the mob. Once released, the spirit of anarchy spreads and spreads, not subsiding until it has accomplished its full measure of evil." |
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Nellie Bly: A pseudonym for Elizabeth Cochrane, a reporter whose journalistic style told the stories of ordinary people. Her information was often obtained by going undercover. She is most well known for faking her own insanity just to get into New York's insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. (Click here for more on Nellie Bly.) | |||
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Roosevelt
was the first U.S. president to have his career and life captured
on film. When President McKinley was assassinated at the Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, Vice-President Roosevelt took office. Known for his "big stick" policy in international affairs, Roosevelt has been quoted saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." After re-election in 1905, Roosevelt worked on bringing a peace settlement to the Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt also acquired the right for the U.S. to build a canal in Panama and visited the country being the first time a president had ever visited a foreign nation. Roosevelt coined the phrase "muckraker" to describe investigative journalists who fueled the progressive era crusades. |
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| President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. | ||||
| Click here for more about Roosevelt's environmental achievements. | ||||
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Inventors
and scientists were busy. Edison was creating moving pictures and
harnessing electricity while the Wright Brothers were spreading their
wings. It was the dawn of many new technologies. Industry was booming. At the same time, millions of immigrants were arriving on U.S. soil. Most of these immigrants were working in factories. Technological breakthroughs in transportation, communication, mechanization, and science helped develop an industrialized society. Corporate consolidations ruled and the working conditions of men, women and children as laborers were harsh and brutal. Boys 12- to 14-years-old were working in dangerous conditions in the coal mining industry. New storefront theaters, dubbed nickelodeons, were a wildly successful innovation and form of entertainment. Appearing first in 1905, nickelodeons featured movie shows all day long, in contrast to the vaudeville theaters. A forerunner of newsreels was actuality films. The first nickelodeon was built in Pittsburgh in June 1905. Soon nickelodeons began to appear in cities around the country. By 1908, there were approximately 8,000 nickelodeons in the U.S. Frequent showings allowed people to stop in almost anytime. Later, however, bigger theaters were built so that larger audiences could see longer films projected on a big screen. |
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| A nickleodean theater | ||||
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| Labor conditions | ||||
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1900 –Thomas Edison's Execution Movie: A detailed reproduction of the execution of the assassin of McKinley carried out from the description of an eyewitness. Motion pictures were becoming popular from the single-viewed kinetoscopes at first, then films projected for mass audiences. Edison's company, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., produced films showing famous people, news events, disasters, people at work, and other leisure activities. (Click on the picture to see the video about McKinley's death and his assassin.) | |||
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1901: Guglielmo Marconi transmits first radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean. (Listen.) | |||
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1903 – "The Great Train Robbery:" One of Edison's most famous films produced in 1903. An eight-minute action film based on Butch Cassidy, this flick was enormously popular. It was one of the first films to tell a coherent story. When the audiences got bored with "real" events, Edison and his company began producing action, drama and comedic films. (Click on the picture to see the Great Train Robbery.) | |||
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1906 – Disaster of the decade: San Francisco earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906. Moving pictures were captured several weeks after. The first "newsreels" captured moving pictures only days after. Photos were captured only days after. (Click on the picture to see the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake.) | |||
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1907– First Trial of the Century: The story of Evelyn Nesbit and the murder of architect Stanford White. Nesbit was a promiscuous showgirl married to millionaire Henry K. Thaw, who in a jealous rage, shot White, the man who had supposedly seduced Nesbit. The coverage of the trial was full of lurid details and made for a spectacular crime story in the papers. | |||
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1908: Thomas Edison invents electric light and speaks of the "Age of Electricity." (Listen.) | |||
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The
era before and during the 1900s is known as the age of yellow journalism
and muckraking where newspapers and magazines reigned as mass media.
It was an age of sensational headlines and lurid stories. Journalists
of this age also were determined to expose the corruption of government,
unfair treatment of factory workers and the privileges of the upper
class. Newspaper publishers Hearst of The New York Journal and Pulitzer of The New York World were in a circulation war fighting for the same new target audience – immigrants, who were still pouring in to the New World from Eastern Europe. Advertising grew and promoted a culture of consumption. Magazines such as McCall's Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post took advantage of advertising to increase their circulation and still keep subscription prices low. General interest and ladies magazines flourished. Magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Vogue began targeting niche markets: homemakers and fashion-oriented women. Between 1890 and 1905 the circulation of monthly periodicals went from 18 million to 64 million. McClure's Magazine, owned by Samuel McClure, was an established general interest magazine that moved into the business of muckraking, exposing the faults of expansion and industrialization. |
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| An edition of The New York Sunday Journal featuring a cover story on "The Yellow Kid" | ||||
| Spartacus Educational - Web site featuring muckraking with links to specific muckrakers and other pertinent people of the era. | ||
| Biography on Hearst - Web site featuring muckraking with links to specific muckrakers and other pertinent people of the era. | ||
| Coal Mining in the gilded age and the Progressive Era - History site with more information about child laborers in the 1900s. | ||
| Theodore Roosevelt: Life and Times on Film - Library of Congress online exhibit complete with multimedia clips. | ||
| The R. F. Outcault Society's Yellow Kid Web Site - History of "The Yellow Kid," the rise of comic strips, and the life of Outcault. Contains links to "Yellow Kid" gallery. | ||
| San Fransisco Earthquake - Detailed information, links to pictures and movies about the disaster. | ||
| Evelyn Nesbit and the Trial of the Century - Narrative of more details regarding the first trial of the century. | ||
| History of Edison Films - Library of Congress exhibit with detailed description and links to clips of Edison's early filmmaking. | ||
| The age of Yellow Journalism- The Yellow Kid | ||
| New media in a new age- The 1900s | ||
| Willaim Randolph Hearst- Review PowerPoint presentations online | ||
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Professor
Rick Musser :: rmusser@ku.edu
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