The January 1903 issue of McClure's Magazine stunned its readers with its extraordinary content and came to be regarded by many historians as the most important single issue of a magazine in its era, if not in the history of American journalism. It stands as the supreme example of the journalism that characterized the time: investigative reporting that Theodore Roosevelt later called "muckraking."

That issue included Ida Tarbell's third installment of a devastating history of the Standard Oil Company ("The Oil War of 1872"), as well as an article by Ray Standard Baker on the lawlessness of members of the United Mineworkers ("The Right to Work: The Story of Non-Striking Miners"). The lead article, however, came to be the most noted work of muckraking journalism; it was Lincoln Steffens's "The Shame of Minneapolis," an article that detailed widespread municipal corruption with shocking frankness and accuracy. This article was part of...