Ray Stannard Baker

Born in 1870, Ray Stannard Baker built his reputation as a reporter and magazine writer during the great reform movements of the early 20th century. He worked for newspapers and magazines including McClure’s, where he became known for deeply reported pieces on labor, race, and political reform.

He was one of the best-known muckraking journalists of his time, but he also had a quieter literary side. Writing as David Grayson, he published personal, reflective books and essays that reached a broad audience and showed a very different voice from his investigative reporting.

Later in life, he devoted major effort to writing about President Woodrow Wilson. That work brought him the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, and it helped secure his place as both a serious historian and a major public writer. He died in 1946.