Courage of Convictions: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the New York Times, and Reform of the Pure Food and Drug Act, 1933–1937

Abstract

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 and the Wheeler-Lea Amendment to the Federal Trade Commission Act became law together after five years of intense lobbying as a relatively weak compromise over the original proposal to overhaul the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Conscious of threats by the drug industry to cancel all advertising if the legislation passed, many newspapers participated in the effort to defeat it by editorializing against it or omitting coverage altogether. This study shows that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was an exception and actually crusaded for reform of the Food and Drug Act.