McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers

Harold S. Wilson

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780691620862, 9780691046006
• eBook ISBN: 9781400872305
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

McClure's was the leading muckraking journal among the many which flourished at the turn of the century. Both a literary and political magazine, It introduced exciting new writers to the American scene (Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, A. Conan Doyle) and fearlessly championed the important causes of the day (from betterment of conditions in the coal mines to antitrust measures).

This is the story of McClure's lifespan, beginning in Ohio when Samuel McClure gathered around himself a talented group of editors and writers (among them Willa Cather. Frank Norris. Stephen Crane, O. Henry. Hamlin Garland) and continuing to the magazine's last days in New York City. The growing concern of the staff about American urban and commercial life led to such exposes as Ida Tarbell's History of Standard Oil and Lincoln Steffens' Shame of the Cities. McClure's was a channel for those determined to combat the ills of society, and one of the first voices of the emerging Progressive Party.

Originally published in 1970.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• I. The Imprint of Abolitionism
• II. An Apprenticeship in the Publishing World
• III. "My Blood Is Like Champagne"
• IV. The Making of a Magazine
• V. A Magazine of Reporters
• VI. "McClure's Is Edited with Clairvoyance"
• VII. The Genesis of Muckraking
• VIII. The Second Decade: The Problem of Lawlessness
• IX. The Great Schism and Afterwards
• X. Government by Magazine
• XI. The State of the State
• XII. The Structuring of Power-The Way Out
• XIII. The Finale of Laissez-Faire
• XIV. "Society the Juggernaut; Man the Devotee?"
• XV. "Two Revolts Against Oligarchy"
• Bibliographical Notes
• Index