Public outrage over Sinclair’s book strengthened the hand of Progressive reformers within the federal government such as Harvey Washington Wiley, the chief chemist at the United States Department of Agriculture, who had long been at work advocating for legislation to protect consumers. The outrage that the book caused has often been singled out as the main reason for the passage of legislation to protect consumers. Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle (1906), based on his newspaper reporting, exposed the inner workings of the meat packing industry. Investigative journalists, such as the socialist Upton Sinclair, played an important role in this movement. Progressive reform in the early decades of the twentieth century depended upon journalism as an important tool to raise public awareness of serious societal problems. President Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man with the Muck-Rake,” 1906 There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, business, or social life." "There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them.
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