By Cecelia Tichi
America is experiencing a troubling deja vu – a second coming of the Gilded Age. Marked by an incredible disparity between the wealthy and poor, by waves of layoffs (especially in manufacturing) and business scandal after business scandal, this era is also burdened by a political culture that often seems heedless – or downright hostile – toward the well-being of the general American public.
A distinct school of writers has emerged to guard against a surrender to American middle-class downsizing and apathy toward those in our society who struggle to make do with so little. These writers believe – and actively demonstrate – that pointing the way toward a different, better social and cultural future is paramount.
The success of their books, which include Eric Schlosser’s "Fast Food Nation" and Barbara Ehrenreich’s "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," show a public ready, willing and eager for disclosure of the social-cultural problems demanding correction, from minimum-wage labor peonage to lax and lethal meat production. Both Schlosser and Ehrenreich’s books appeared on the nonfiction best-seller lists for nearly three years and continue to enjoy brisk sales.
Additional books by Pulitzer and other prize winners Laurie Garrett, Joseph Hallinan, Naomi Klein and others reinforce the sense of public interest in grave social issues, from the weakness of the public health system to the spread of for-profit prisons.
Taking these authors’ books as a whole, it is clear how each issue interlocks with the others, how each text is a puzzle piece and diagnostic narrative on the state of the union. Individually, these texts stir the minds and hearts of a nation in crisis. Collectively, they issue a wake-up call, a reveille for America that is reminiscent of another group of writers.
A century ago, Upton Sinclair, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell and other investigative writers produced a reportorial literature that served the public interest by disclosing criminality, corruption and malfeasance in business and government.
The eight-hour workday, the federal inspection of meat, beverages and medicines, the primary election system affording citizens more direct democracy, the very concept of the state as an arm of public service – these were long-term outcomes of the first muckrakers’ diagnoses of America’s social pathologies. Observed historian Richard Hofstadter, "It was muckraking that brought the diffuse malaise of the public into focus. In this great awakening, the muckraker was a central figure."
So what now? Some say that well-off Gilded Age II Americans are mere consumers interested only in shopping. But the best-seller lists indicate the contrary as readers continue to discover a call-to-action in the texts of this new generation of muckrakers.
Will this Gilded Age prompt new civic-political initiatives in the years ahead? We don’t yet know. One thing is certain: New muckrakers are alive and well among us, shaping ideas for social change. More than a few of us wish them well.
Tichi is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University, and has more than 30 years’ experience as an educator and researcher. Her books include High Lonesome: The American Culture of Country Music and Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture.