The American author Ray Stannard Baker (1870-1946) was a noted muckraking journalist before he became the official biographer of Woodrow Wilson.

Ray Stannard Baker was born in Lansing, Mich., on April 17, 1870. An 1889 graduate of Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University), he later studied law and literature at the University of Michigan.

In 1892 Baker went to work for the Chicago Record, remaining for 6 years as reporter and editor. This introduced him to the misery of Chicago's poor, soup kitchens, charity wards, and thousands of homeless, starving men in the streets. "My attitude was that of the frontier where I had grown up. Bums, tramps! Why didn't they get out and hustle? Why didn't they quit Chicago"" he said. But his attitude began to change after he tried fruitlessly to help a youth find a job. He was haunted for the rest of his life by this "Potato-Car Boy...