Journalism’s Effect in the 19th and 20th Centuries
The issue of women’s suffrage led women to join the field of journalism because this would be the way they would be heard. One of the first women’s suffragist reporters was Eleanor Booth Simmons. She was fired from her job as a nurse at a hospital, and then chose to go ahead and write about the conditions of the hospital. This rebellion got her a job at the Tribune, which was one of the first papers that supported the woman’s rights movement (Hudson 525). Simmons and another popular suffragist reporter: Emma Bugbee, marched with the other women protestors of the movement, and interviewed them to get their message out in their articles (Jones 536). The women who were fighting for the right to vote, and their equality were heard because of the women who were in the journalism field. These stories helped get others to join in the protest for women’s rights, and eventually, women received the right to vote and began moving towards being treated more equally because of the opportunities they had to have their voices heard through the media.
When the issue of slave labor was at its peak, publications were being created solely as a vehicle to discuss this controversial issue of not only slavery, but also the treatment of minorities and the conditions of labor they faced. One of the first anti-slavery editors, Elihu Embree, converted his paper into a monthly anti-slavery publication titled The Emancipator. Benjamin Lundy also had one of the earliest abolitionist publications (The Genius of Universal Emancipation), which has been sited for keeping the movement going when people were starting to lose passion for the cause (Sloan 143). He came up with the concept of the Union Humane Society, which encouraged members to do everything in their power to end the segregation (Jones 455). Also, members were to work towards gaining rights for freed blacks, and to free the slaves who were illegally being kept “prisoner” (Sloan 143). William Lloyd Garrison’s: The Liberator, harshly attacked slaveholders for what they were doing, and Garrison developed a national popularity for his opinions. He also developed an anti-slavery society of his own (Spartacus.schoolnet). Journalists stood strong in their beliefs that minorities and slaves should be as free as the rest of the people, and have all the rights that white people had. Even when these journalists were attacked by pro-slavery mobs, they stood their ground and came back to fight some more. They were not going to back down until we were all free and equal. Some publishers were severely injured and some even were killed by these mobs. The anti-slavery publications gained support from other Americans and made people aware of the unfair, and illegal conditions these slaves were being forced to work under. When the 13th Amendment was passed, these journalists succeeded in what they set out to do, and many of them went on the advocate on other pressing issues. They used their papers to expose the harsh conditions that minorities were facing, and change came about because of this.
The issue of the temperance movement (prohibition) involves the restriction of alcohol. Many journalists supported this movement. After the 13th Amendment had passed, William Lloyd Garrison chose temperance to be his new cause and speak about it in The Liberator, again, using his journalistic power to reach the masses in support of this movement. Frances Willard, a journalist, and schoolteacher, supported the points of temperance in her work at The Chicago Daily Post. She also went on to create the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to persuade all of the states into preventing the sales of alcohol (Spartacus.schoolnet). I have found that there is not a lot of history of journalists who were involved in the temperance movement. It seems that journalists were more involved in the unions and groups that were speaking out on this issue, rather than using their papers to start a revolution. The issue of temperance was covered in the newspapers, but the papers didn’t have as great of an effect as they did for issues like slavery or women’s rights.
Socialism and labor were much talked about issues in the United States. Socialist ideas represented workers owning the means of production, rather than by a group of rich, powerful people who would control everything. Writers, publishers, and editors participated in this movement quite a bit, and in any way they could. Victoria Woodhull, a publisher, participated by publishing The Communist Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The pamphlet was a prediction of communist society in England, which would be important for socialism, because it displayed what people did not want to happen. This pamphlet was popular in the United States, though it got Marx and Engels into quite a bit of trouble in England. Woodhull later went on to be successful and was nominated for the presidential candidate for the Equal Rights party.
There were three main socialist journals at the time. Julius Wayland created Appeal To Reason in 1897. The publication was more of a collection of works written by Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and William Morris on the socialist topic. The journal also included pieces written by Jack London, Mary “Mother” Jones, Upton Sinclair, and Helen Keller. Its circulation eventually reached 150,000, which was the fourth most popular weekly of the time (Jones 445). Many people read the publication and heard the viewpoints from many successful writers.
Writer, Upton Sinclair, wrote a novel about the meat packing industry titled: The Jungle. It was an immediate success, and eventually became a best seller all over the world. The novel revealed to everyone, the poor labor conditions in the meat packinghouses in Chicago (Spartacus.schoolnet). This novel alone had a great effect on not only labor, but the socialist movement as well. It was the distinctive example of something going on right at that moment that had a great effect on people, and encouraged Americans to stand for socialism, whereas people could control their working conditions and not be forced by others to work under such poor labor conditions as they currently were.
I don’t believe journalists were affected by not always being a great part of the mainstream publications. For example, as far as slavery and minority equality goes, I don’t think smaller publications were worse off than the more mainstream publications. William Lloyd Garrison only had a circulation of about 3,000 but his views were so strong that people knew him, and knew his views even if they had never read his work (Spartacus.schoolnet). This issue was a very important one, and I think the smaller publications that stood for the same cause had just as much influence as a mainstream publication.
Writers, publishers, and editors were quite effective in advancing the causes of labor, socialism, women’s suffrage, and minorities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They did whatever they could to release the information they received to the people of the United States in their papers, magazines, pamphlets, books, and so on. Had it not been for these journalists, and publishers, these issues would not have had such a strong backing in my opinion. It is hard to gain support from people when they are unaware of what is going on. Journalists and writers provided the facts for people, and encouraged them to do what they could, and to let their voice be heard in order to make a difference.
