Comparing Baker's Life And Work

Baker was born in Lansing, Michigan, on April 17, 1870. He spent his early life on a farm before enrolling in Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) as an undergraduate. After Baker completed his studies at MAC, he enrolled in the University of Michigan to study law and literature. It was there he first came into contact with journalism and enrolled in a course called Rapid Writing, the first newspaper writing class in any American institution. His professor, Fred N. Scott, often criticized Baker's editorials. Yet it influenced him to be a better writer, and his interest in law and literature began to decline.In 1892, Baker gave up studying law and applied for a reporting job at the Chicago Record. One of his first assignments involved covering the establishment of soup kitchens in the city.
Fascinated by what he saw, he began submitting stories about it. His editor rejected them, saying the city couldn't be portrayed as poor. He kept writing the stories that his editor wanted for the Record and wrote a freelance article on the Pullman, Illinois strike of 1894, which focused on the working class injustice. By 1898, Baker had married his college sweetheart, Jessie Irene Beal, and relocated to New York to work for McClure's Syndicate. Baker joined McClure's at a time when the magazine was soaring in popularity. He was working alongside other rising muckrakers, such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens. Baker's audience was moved by his writing. Even President Theodore Roosevelt praised Baker, telling him, "You have impressed me with your earnest desire to be fair, with your freedom from hysteria, and with your anxiety to tell the truth rather than to write something that will be