Stories that Changed America: Muckrakers of the 20th Century - Softcover

Jensen, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 158322517X ISBN 13: 9781583225172

Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2002

Synopsis

Exuberantly written, highly informative, Jensen's Stories That Changed America examines the work of twenty-one investigative writers, and how their efforts forever changed our country. Here are the pioneering muckrakers, like Upton Sinclair, author of the fact-based novel The Jungle, that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to sign the Pure Food and Drug Act into law; "Queen of the Muckrakers" Ida Mae Tarbell, whose McClure magazine exposés led to the dissolution of Standard Oil's monopoly; and Lincoln Steffens, a reporter who unearthed corruption in both municipal and federal governments.
You'll also meet Margaret Sanger, the former nurse who coined the term "birth control"; George Seldes, the most censored journalist in American history; Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck; environmentalist Rachel Carson; National Organization of Women founder Betty Friedan; African American activist Malcolm X; consumer advocate Ralph Nader; and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters whose Watergate break-in coverage brought down President Richard Nixon.
The courageous writers Jensen includes in this deftly researched volume dedicated their lives to fight for social, civil, political and environmental rights with their mighty pens.

About this title

About the Author

DR. CARL JENSEN is a professor emeritus of Sociology and Communications Studies at Sonoma State University in California and the author of Censored-The News That Didn't Make the News and Why from 1976 to 1996, and 20 Years of Censored News, in 1997. He founded Project Censored, the internationally recognized media research project, in 1976.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-A professor emeritus of communications at Sonoma State University, Jensen produces an annual summary of the news stories that were most neglected (or censored) by the mainstream media. From his work as director of Project Censored came the popular compilation, Twenty Years of Censored News (Seven Stories, 1997). This new volume collects a century's worth of American muckraking, focusing on such noted authors as Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, I. F. Stone, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein. The author provides brief biographical and background information, along with samples from the writers' most influential work. This format serves readers interested in the broad topic of investigative journalism, as well as students doing research on a particular writer or writers. The prose is straightforward, the tone engaging, and the vocabulary nonacademic. Although some of Jensen's 21 selections are questionable (Malcolm X and J. William Fulbright are seldom thought of as muckrakers), all of his subjects have altered the political, social, and cultural course of our nation's history with their words. Many teens will be fascinated by these dedicated individuals who demonstrated by their courageous work that, without freedom of the press, democracy cannot be sustained.

Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 158322517X
• ISBN 13: 9781583225172
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272