Founded in New York in 1893 by a man of volcanic energy and creativity—a quirky, brilliant Irish immigrant named Samuel S. McClure—McClure's stood the staid American magazine industry on its head. Selling copies for a dime apiece when most magazines cost 25 or 35 cents, McClure boosted his magazine's circulation and ultimately the sales of many other magazines in America, which were forced to reduce their prices to compete. Hiring a staff of aggressive, intelligent, hardworking editors and reporters, he also gave America its popular definition of muckraking journalism in the following decade, publishing articles during the Progressive Era that exposed civic, corporate, and union corruption and helped bring about new laws and tougher enforcement of existing laws.

Samuel S. McClure (1857-1949) came to the United States with his widowed mother as a child and was raised in Indiana. He founded his remarkable magazine after...