Muckrakers Article

What is the central idea of this text?

• Wealthy business people like John D. Rockefeller used unethical and unfair business practices to make more money.

• How the Other Half Lives was a book of photographs by Jacob Riis that inspired many people to help immigrants living in New York City.

• As the U.S. industrialized, the work of muckrakers like Ida Tarbell and Jacob Riis helped bring awareness to big issues and improve society.

• Investigative journalism is a very important part of society today, and modern journalists help bring awareness to important problems.

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Millions of people moved to cities in the late 1800s to work in factories as many parts of the U.S. economy became industrialized. What did these big changes lead to?

• a decrease in the popularity of Investigative journalism

• more unsafe working and living conditions for many people

• business people lost money and their businesses got smaller

• more people doing work by hand instead of depending on machines

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The text lists different ways that muckrakers uncovered and exposed injustices. What is one way that muckrakers did this work?

• They grew their businesses quickly by paying politicians.

• They created monopolies to get rid of competition.

• They analyzed primary source documents for research.

• They bought magazines and newspapers.

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Read the following sentences from the text. "Illegal monopolies are businesses that have gained complete control over a service or product. Because they have complete control, monopolies are able to set prices for their product at whatever level they want. Sometimes, they set their prices very low so other companies cannot compete with them. After they get rid of their competition, monopolies raise their prices back up. This hurts other companies and the people who buy their products, but it helps the monopoly." What conclusion can you draw from this evidence?

• Competition between companies helps control the prices of products and creates a fairer system for people who buy products.

• Illegal monopolies do not have any power to set prices because there is too much competition between them.

• Smaller companies are easily able to compete with illegal monopolies because they sell products at lower prices.

• Monopolies never change the price of their products because they always want to have the highest prices.

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Based on the text, why might Jacob Riis have used photography and an emotional writing style in his book about life in the tenements?

• to reach out to U.S. politicians who only look at photographs when creating new laws and policies that affect American society

• to learn about new fire safety laws that were created for buildings built after the late 1800s

• to document the names and addresses of every single immigrant living in New York City

• to get more Americans to feel an emotional connection with the people he was describing, and to convince those with power to help fix the living conditions

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As used in this excerpt, what does the word "documented" most closely mean?

• touched

• recorded

• ignored

• spoke about

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Choose the answer that best completes the sentence below. Ida Tarbell's series on the Standard Oil Company exposed unethical business practices. _______, the U.S. government eventually broke up this monopoly into smaller companies.

• However

• As a result

• Above all

• Meanwhile

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What were living conditions like for many New York City immigrants in the late 1800s?
Use your own ideas and ideas from the text to support your answer.

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Describe one way muckrakers helped improve society in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Use your own ideas and ideas from the text to support your answer.

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Muckrakers played a very important role in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the U.S. was experiencing big changes. Based on the text, is investigative journalism still important to society today? Support your argument with details from the text. (This response should be 7-12 sentences)