Muckraking. The public was becoming increasingly more informed during the Progressive Era. Muckraking, the predecessor of investigative journalism, would play an important role in reporting social problems. The Muckrakers had a huge impact on the changing social landscape and investigated anything they believed was corrupt and needed reform, such as unsanitary conditions and housing. Two famous muckrakers, Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis, wrote books that would expose two of the biggest scandals of the Progressive Era: The Jungle. One of the most famous muckrakers, Upton Sinclair, published The Jungle in 1906, and it immediately became an international best-seller. Sinclair, who had joined the Socialist Party in 1903, originally wrote The Jungle for the socialist magazine, The Appeal to Reason (Constitutional Rights Foundation). He spent time in Chicago's meatpacking district so he could really see what was going on. What Sinclair witnessed was frightening. He saw sausages that had traveled to and from Europe, poisoned bread, and dead mice placed in the hopper that ground the sausage. Instead of smoking the sausage, they preserved the meat with borax and used gelatin to color it (Sinclair 168-169). Although Sinclair wrote The Jungle to show his readers the evils of capitalism, people were more appalled by the disgusting and unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry. The Jungle caused such an outcry that President Roosevelt tried to force the government to enforce health and sanitation standards in the country. food industry. After Congress failed to pass a meat inspection bill, Roosevelt released the findings of the Neill-Reynolds report. The Neill-Reynolds report found that the meatpacking industry was as horrendous as Sinclair claims... middle of paper...coal miners got no change in how coal was weighed or a official recognition of the UMW, progressives won this battle because their voice had been heard. Roosevelt's arbitration in this matter linked the public interest to state power, and in the process offered a progressive example for labor relations (McGerr 124). Child labor. The 1890 census showed that more than one million children, between the ages of ten and fifteen, were working in America. By 1910 that number rose to two million (Davis). Children as young as five could be found in glass factories, canneries, and home industries. Their workday could last up to eighteen hours and they would be paid only a fraction of what an adult would earn. Yetta Adelman, a Polish garment worker, said: “I was twelve years old but I had none. Compared to a child [born] here in the United States, I was twenty years old (McGerr 18).”