during this time, people started to notice the poor condition of american cities. a group of people called the “muckrakers” wrote books and newspaper articles about subjects like the power of big business, unclean practices in factories, and the condition of poor people. roosevelt and congress answered their concerns with laws such as the pure food and drug act. the act controlled the way food was made to make sure it was safe. another response to the muckrakers was something called "trust-busting", where big businesses were broken up into smaller ones. the biggest business broken up this way was the standard oil company in 1911.