Muckraking Exposes and the Shaping of Progressive Era Political Culture
Davis, Kristin Elizabeth
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87573
Description
Title
Muckraking Exposes and the Shaping of Progressive Era Political Culture
Author(s)
Davis, Kristin Elizabeth
Issue Date
2000
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Dilip Gaonkar
Department of Study
Speech Communication
Discipline
Speech Communication
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Language, Rhetoric and Composition
Language
eng
Abstract
This study is an attempt to redress a lacuna in rhetorical scholarship and the unjustified reign of a simplistic analysis in historical scholarship by examining the character of progressive era political culture through a close analysis of muckraking texts. While rhetoricians have not examined the political culture of the Progressive Era, nor of any aspect of the Progressive Era for that matter, historians have overlooked the centrality of the muckraking press and taken for granted the character of Progressive Era political culture. Contrary to the theses of many historians, the central thesis of this study is that exposes helped shape progressive era political culture by weaving together liberalism and more traditional moral resources, namely civic and religious traditions, in an attempt to restore a balance among democracy, capitalism, and morality. The exposes drew from and tried to contain competing moral and political traditions within a traditionally religious genre. The heteroglossia of the exposes suggest an unstable and open political culture, one ripe for change. Indeed, an examination of the exposes reveal how two performative tradition take advantage of the instability and attempt to craft a political morality to supplement liberalism.
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