In the three decades after 1885, a virtual explosion in the nation's print media--newspaper tabloids, inexpensive magazines, and best-selling books--vaulted the American writer to unprecedented heights of cultural and political influence. "The Labor of Words" traces the impact of this mass literary marketplace on Progressive era writers. Using the works and careers of Jack London, Upton Sinclair, David Graham Phillips, and Lincoln Steffens as case studies, Christopher P. Wilson measures the advantages and costs of the new professional literary role and captures the drama of this transformative epoch in American journalism and letters.