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[MUSIC]

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Hey, guys.

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Welcome to HipHughes history.

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I'm so excited to be with you here today

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as we approach another

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subject in American history.

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Today, we're gonna learn about muckraking.

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How cool of a word is that?

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And I'm gonna tell you why I'm so excited

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to teach you this word,

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because it's a word that isn't just

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taught in context of American history.

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And we're gonna do that,

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short and sweet and simple,

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and you're gonna be like, "Oh, my God.

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I understand it."

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But it's something that I think is

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important for today,

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for all of the world's citizens to know

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about, because muckraking

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really is the WD-40 of change.

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So, strap on your boots, man.

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Put on your goggles.

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Put your hat to learning on.

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I don't care what the hell you do,

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but get ready, because here it comes.

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Fore!

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Learning.

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(Communication breakdown.

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It's always the same).

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All right, muckraking, man.

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What a visual word.

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Muckraking is a very simple concept.

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The idea is that you first

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need to gather up some muck.

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So, you grab a rake and you rake up

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the muck and you find some type of problem

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in America or in the world,

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like this stinky cloth,

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and then you serve it up to people.

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Maybe you put it into a book.

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Maybe you put it into a hip hop song.

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Maybe you put it into a movie.

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But whatever you're doing, you're trying

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to let people know about this problem.

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And then, of course, the awesome effect is

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when people start finding out about child

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homelessness, or about sex abuse,

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or about unsafe working conditions, or

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whatever it is,

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they're gonna start stomping their

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feet and raising their fists.

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It is really the WD-40,

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like I said before, of populism,

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of getting the voice spread,

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so people can start to bang and yell

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and scream and demand change.

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Think of the Industrial Age,

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and let's go to historical context now.

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And in the Industrial Age, we

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taught you that the government's hands

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are basically up,

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the idea of laissez-faire economics,

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that we have rapid economic growth and

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allow that occur naturally in capitalism.

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Get the government out of the way and just

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watch the wheels of capitalism churn out

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jobs and profit and

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new products and innovation.

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Now, the negative effect of

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that Adam Smith model of capitalism

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is that you basically have some negative

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effects in the short term, and probably

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some people would argue in the long term.

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But when the government's not watching,

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profit sometime is gonna override safety.

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So, you might have products going

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out to the consumers that are unsafe.

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You might have people that are working

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in conditions that are very dangerous.

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You may have child labor.

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You may have pollution and, you know,

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air that you can't breathe

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and all of these negative effects.

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So, what the muckraker is

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doing is he's going, "Yo!

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Problem."

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And then, of course, we look

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for the change, for the effect.

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So, let's take a look at three or four

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examples that you're definitely

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gonna see on your exam.

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Or if you're studying American history,

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they're gonna come up, um, all the time,

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and let's see if we can't nail them

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to a plank and move on with our lives.

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So again, historical context, right?

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First start in the 19th century,

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late 19th century, and talk,

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if you're doing an essay or if

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you're trying to get this in your head,

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about the problems of the industrial age,

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of the gilded age.

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Mark Twain called it the gilded age,

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because on the surface, you know,

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it looks, it looks top-notch.

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But if you dig under the surface,

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you're gonna find that we have lots

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of problems, especially when

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it relates to poor people.

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Whether that's the urban problem,

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urbanization and immigration,

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or it's a rural problem of farmers

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and railroads and

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a lack of competition and,

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you know, those types of issues.

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So, here are your three or

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four kind of novels, books.

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And remember, today,

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it could be any type of media that

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is informing people of a problem.

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But the ones that pop up on the exam all

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the time are gonna be number one,

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Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."

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Without a doubt, that's the one

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that I see most often on exams.

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Upton Sinclair was actually a socialist,

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and socialism probably has

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a lot of negative connotations today.

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But socialism is the idea

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of some type of communal aspect of society

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where we take care of a problem together.

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Complete socialism would be called

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communism, where the government owns

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private property and businesses

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and yada, yada, yada.

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But, you know, if you look at something

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like a school system or a library or

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a fire department, that in a sense

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is socialism, because we're all chipping

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in and we're all paying for something

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and we all, you know,

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enjoy the benefits of that.

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And at the same time,

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it kind of operates as, you know,

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an escalating staircase to opportunity.

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So, Upton Sinclair is writing about that.

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He's writing about workers' lives

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and socialism and trying to, you know,

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change capitalism to give workers more of

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a control and ownership over their lives.

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Unfortunately for his mission, for his

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objective, he chose a slaughterhouse.

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So, if you're gonna write about workers

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and you want people to be like, "Oh,

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the poor workers," don't

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choose a slaughterhouse.

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Because when people read

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"The Jungle," they weren't really reading

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about the lives of the immigrant workers.

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They were reading about

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what related to them.

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I think it was Upton Sinclair who stated,

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and I'll get the quote wrong, that,

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"I aimed for their hearts and I

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hit them in their stomachs."

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So, The Jungle,

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really about slaughterhouses.

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It has passages in it about contaminated

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meat and feces and rats and just kind

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of the, you know, the brutal,

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unsanitary conditions that are

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going on in slaughterhouses.

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So, of course, there is an immediate

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public reaction to this book,

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which is basically, "Ewe.

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Do something."

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And this is the big kind of idea,

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that muckraking,

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through populism and through, you know,

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disseminating this information,

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is gonna light a fire.

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[SIRENS BLARING]

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And that fire is

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underneath the feet

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of the federal government.

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Isn't that right, Noam Chomsky?

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And that if you get that fire hot enough,

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and of course,

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muckraking is an accelerant,

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because it's gonna make the flames go even

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higher, you eventually

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will get the government...

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to do something.

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Now, Upton Sinclair wants the government

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to own that factory,

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but that's not what Teddy Roosevelt's

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gonna do in the early 1900s.

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He is going to pass, not pass a law,

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but sign a law, Congress of course passes

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laws, to regulate that industry,

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the meat industry.

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So, the laws that you would

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put in an essay would,

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you know,

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simply be the Meat Inspection Act,

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which is gonna create, you know,

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a regulatory body that's

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gonna inspect the meat.

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And Hughes was a vegetarian, I'm not

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even going there, but that's the concept.

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And then we get the FDA,

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the Food and Drug Act,

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or the Pure Food and

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Drug and Labeling Act,

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which is going to put the ingredients

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on the side of your food so you know what

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you're consuming, that you have a right

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as a consumer to have that information.

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If capitalism isn't delivering

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that because people are ignorant or they

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don't know about it, as a group,

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a communal group,

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we can force the government or put

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pressure on the government

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to regulate that industry.

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Not to own that industry, but to make

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that industry safe for consumers.

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So, cross that off the list, man.

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Upton Sinclair the socialist,

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the jungle slaughterhouses, "bub bub bub bub bubba

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effect"

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meat Inspection Act and the FDA.

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All right, let's do a couple more.

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I know we can do a couple more.

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You're still awake.

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Say cheese.

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Jacob Riis, "How the Other Half Lives."

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This shows you that it doesn't have to be

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a book in the novel sense.

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Jacob Riis is a photographer,

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a journalist photographer that is

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informing people of conditions

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in the urban slums.

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I'm not sure if it was Jacob Riis

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that invented it,

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but I know it has something to do

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with the invention of indoor photography,

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which is gonna allow Jacob Riis to go kind

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of, not just into the city,

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but into the insides of the cities,

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into the tenement houses,

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to take pictures like you see right now,

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which are really gonna force Americans

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to take a close look

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at how the other half lives.

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That's what the book is called,

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"How the Other Half Lives."

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And this is gonna lead to, really,

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pressure to have the government clean up

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cities, to have,

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not just city management movements,

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but to, you know, sewer systems.

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And we get settlement houses, Jane Addams,

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which is not necessarily the government,

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but that there is an effect here.

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So, Jacob Riis, "How the Other Half Lives,"

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and the federal government,

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and at least the state and local

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governments, are gonna start dealing

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with the problems of the effects

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of urbanization, over crowdedness,

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because of the influx

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of immigrants and cheap labor.

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All right, Jacob Riis,

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"How the Other Half Lives."

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Let's do a couple more.

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Oh, The Octopus.

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This is a very visual one, guys.

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Frank Norris wrote "The Octopus,"

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I believe late 1800s, early 1900s.

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I'm gonna say early 1900s.

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Why does 1906...

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Someone's gonna Google it now.

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But Frank Norris wrote the book,

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but The Octopus about,

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really, farmers and railroads.

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This is at the time the Grange,

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easy way to remember the Grange,

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you go, "Home, home on the Grange."

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That should at least put

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you into farmer land, man.

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The Grange is basically a cooperative

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or a group of farmers that are pooling

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their resources because they're dealing,

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you know, with huge banks and huge

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railroad companies that aren't

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really serving their interests.

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So, Frank Norris is gonna let people know

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about this problem,

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about railroads and basically non-competitive

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the noncompetitive industry

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devices they're using to screw the farmer.

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And this is gonna lead to the passage

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of a federal law, The Octopus,

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and visually I think of a railroad because

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you have the octopus, like the hub is

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the central station and then

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there's all the eight [LAUGHTER]

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eight tentacles, which would

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kind of represent the railroad.

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And, you know, the idea is that those

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tentacles, careful, Hughes,

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is going to squeeze out the competition

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and, you know, that's very unfair.

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So, we're gonna get

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the federal government again.

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Get the idea?

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Right?

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Under the feet?

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And then we get the Hepburn Act.

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Say it with me, the Hepburn Act.

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And this is, in a sense,

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an anti-capitalistic law.

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It says to the railroad companies,

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"There's a limit, baby.

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You can't charge more

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than ba-da cha-ching."

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And in capitalism, of course,

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the idea is you should be able to charge

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as much as you want,

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and if people don't use your product,

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then you're gonna have to lower

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your price or go out of business.

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But the idea here,

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and Frank Norris is showing,

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is there isn't competition,

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that the railroad companies are taking

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advantage of their position in society.

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Remember, the railroads got built

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through economic nationalism.

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The federal government gave huge tracts

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of lands away as a subsidy

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in order to get the railroad built.

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So, the community,

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the people already have a buy-in.

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You know, we already have a buy-in because

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it was our government that gave that land,

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so we want some fairness.

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So, Frank Norris,

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The Octopus, the Hepburn Act.

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You guys can do that.

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Look, there's other ones, man.

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Ida Tarbell,

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"The History of Standard Oil."

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I would consider Mark Twain

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to be a muckraker.

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You know,

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it's all over in the early 1900s.

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And this is really what's going to set

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into motion the progressive era,

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starting with Teddy Roosevelt and going

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into Woodrow Wilson before

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the start of World War I.

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Look, man, we could talk about this

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forever, but we have to

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kinda close this baby down.

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But remember that there are

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muckrakers today.

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I tell my kids, and we talk about it

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all the time, there's two kinds of music.

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There's bubble gum music

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and there is muckraking music.

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So, whatever genre of music that you

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listen to, someone out there is singing or

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rapping or yelling about some type

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of issue that's important that they want

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to inform you about,

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not so you can go into a closet and close

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your eyes and forget about it,

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but so you can stomp your feet,

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so you can light your fires and get

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your government to do something.

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So, there you go, guys.

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Muckraking, right?

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Isn't that fun to say?

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You dirty muckraker [LAUGHTER].

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All right, go down below and you're gonna

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see that you can not only subscribe

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00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:19,287
to Hip Hughes, which, if you don't do,

391
00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:20,850
I'm just gonna have to come and pummel

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00:12:20,883 --> 00:12:23,207
you, but other edu gurus that I

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00:12:23,240 --> 00:12:24,240
want you to subscribe to.

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00:12:24,273 --> 00:12:26,367
My friends that are doing science and math

395
00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:27,840
and Spanish and Japanese

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00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:29,640
and all kinds of cool channels.

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00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:32,287
And then, just other awesome edu channels

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00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:33,320
that I've listed below,

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00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:35,880
like Vi Hart and Smarter Every Day and

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00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:39,800
MinutePhysics and my brain's exploding

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00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:41,967
and "Oh my god, Noam Chomsky,"

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00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:43,000
what are we gonna do?

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00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:44,000
This is awesome!

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00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:46,520
YouTube, learning, I love it.

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