Muckraker JESSICA MITFORD. She died of cancer at the age of 78 on Tuesday (July 23). She was considered one of the premiere investigative journalists of her day, a muckraker in the tradition of Sinclair Lewis and John Dos Passos. Her targets included the Famous Writers School, a Midwest correspondence school, and the U.S. penal system ("Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business"). MITFORD's most recent book, "The American Way of Birth" (1992), declares that doctors perform too many C-Sections and de-legitimize midwifery. Near her death, MITFORD was working on a revision of her most acclaimed work, "The American Way Of Death" (1963), which was a criticism of the American funeral industry. (ORIGINALLY BROADCAST 5/
Copyright 1996 Fresh Air
