Muckraking journalist remembered for his attacks upon nostrums. Adams attended Hamilton College and, following his graduation in 1891, began his journalistic career with the New York Sun. His writing caught the attention of S. S. McClure, who hired him away from the Sun to his own magazine. At McClure\u2019s he was introduced to the crusading journalism for which it was known. After only a short time, however, Adams moved on to Collier\u2019s. During the summer of 1905, Adams became deeply involved in the investigation of the patent medicine industry. Legislation in the form of the first Pure Food and Drug Act was sitting in Congress, but languished due to the lobbying effort of the patent medicine manufacturers and the meat industry.<\/p>\n
Adams called the patent medicine business the \u201cGreat American Fraud.\u201d Americans were spending more than $75 million annually on what were in his understanding little more than alcohol and opiates. Many of what today are illegal narcotics opium and morphine, for example were perfectly legal and widely used in the 19th century. Adams suggested that more alcohol was distributed annually in medicines than in liquor. He placed the blame on the con men running the business, but he reserved a substantial part of his criticism for advertising people, who had no ethics in writing copy for their advertisements, and the newspapers, which accepted the ads and the revenue they brought. His simple solution was for his colleagues to stop accepting the patent medicine ads. He centered his attack upon the more popular products such as Paruna, celery compounds, and Lydia Pinkham\u2019s popular remedy for female problems (which in the end turned out actually to contain some helpful ingredients). As he noted the alcohol content of the average patent medicine, Adams also aimed his journalistic pen at \u201chypocrite\u201d church and temperance leaders who vocally endorsed these products.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Muckraking journalist remembered for his attacks upon nostrums. Adams attended Hamilton College and, following his graduation in 1891, began his journalistic career with the New York Sun. His writing caught the attention of S. S. McClure, who hired him away from the Sun to his own magazine. At McClure\u2019s he was introduced to the crusading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n