Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities (1904) collects the muckraking magazine articles that exposed corruption in American municipal government. Investigating St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities, Steffens documented the alliances of crooked politicians, business interests, and complacent voters that allowed graft to flourish.
A defining work of investigative journalism, the book argues that civic corruption was not the failure of a few bad men but a systemic problem implicating ordinary citizens. Steffens’s reporting helped launch the Progressive Era’s reform movements. Download the free EPUB of this pioneering work of American muckraking and urban political exposure.