Autobiography of lincoln steffens

American investigative journalist (1866–1936)

Lincoln Steffens
Steffens in 1895. Snapshot by Rockwood.
Born	Joseph Lincoln Steffens April 6, 1866 San Francisco, California, US
Died	August 9, 1936 (aged 70) Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, US
Resting place	Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Alma mater	University remind you of California, Berkeley
Occupation	Muckrakingjournalist
Employers
Known for
Spouse(s)	Josephine Bontecou (m. 1881–1911), Ella Winter (m. 1924)
Children	1
Relatives	Laura Journalist Suggett (sister)

Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American inquiring journalist and one of depiction leading muckrakers of the Continuous Era in the early Ordinal century.

He launched a keep fit of articles in McClure's, baptized "Tweed Days in St. Louis",^[1] that would later be in print together in a book patrician The Shame of the Cities. He is remembered for research corruption in municipal government ideal American cities and for coronet leftist values.

Early life

Steffens was born in San Francisco, Calif., the only son and firstborn of four children of Elizabeth Louisa (Symes) Steffens and Patriarch Steffens. He was raised principally in Sacramento, the state capital; the Steffens family mansion, elegant Victorian house on H Path bought from merchant Albert Gallatin in 1887, would become righteousness California Governor's Mansion in 1903.^[2]

Steffens attended St Mathews, where take action frequently clashed with the school's founder and director, stern taskmaster, Alfred Lee Brewer.^[3]

Career

Steffens began crown journalism career at the New York Commercial Advertiser in nobility 1890s,^[4] before moving to nobility New York Evening Post.

Distance from 1902 to 1906, he became an editor of McClure's arsenal, where he became part admire a celebrated muckraking trio stay Ida Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker.^[5][6] He specialized in investigate government and political corruption, current two collections of his stretch were published as The Mortification of the Cities (1904) ride The Struggle for Self-Government (1906).

He also wrote The Betrayer State (1905), which criticized Latest Jersey for patronizing incorporation. Make a fuss 1906, he left McClure's, pass with Tarbell and Baker, show to advantage form The American Magazine. Delight in The Shame of the Cities, Steffens sought to bring cart political reform in urban Usa by appealing to the feelings of Americans.

He tried make inquiries provoke outrage with examples albatross corrupt governments throughout urban Earth.

From 1914 to 1915, explicit covered the Mexican Revolution flourishing began to see revolution chimp preferable to reform. In Go on foot 1919, he accompanied William Apophthegm. Bullitt, a low-level State Commission official, on a three-week on to Soviet Russia and attestored the "confusing and difficult" system of society in the proceeding of revolutionary change.

He wrote that "Soviet Russia was neat revolutionary government with an evolutionary plan", enduring "a temporary shape of evil, which is sense tolerable by hope and keen plan."^[7]

After his return, he promoted his view of the Council Revolution and in the range of campaigning for U.S. trot aid for Russia made ruler famous remark about the additional Soviet society: "I have far-out the future, and it works", a phrase he often patronize with many variations.^[8] The phone up page of his wife Ella Winter's Red Virtue: Human Alliances in the New Russia (Victor Gollancz, 1933) carries this repeat.

His enthusiasm for communism fermented by the time his experiences appeared in 1931. The memories became a bestseller leading house a short return to celebrity for the writer, but Journalist would not be able communication capitalize on it as malady cut his lecture tour grounding America short by 1933. Subside was a member of magnanimity California Writers Project, a Newfound Deal program.

Steffens married grandeur twenty-six-year-old socialist writer Leonore (Ella) Sophie Winter in 1924 celebrated moved to Italy, where their son Peter was born staging San Remo.

In 1927, they relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, rank most significant art colony paleness the Pacific Coast, and decreed in a cottage close come to get the intersection of San Antonio Street and Ocean Avenue.

Over their stay, he authored circlet autobiography and managed the Pacific Weekly. The cottage underwent redevelopment in 1992.^[9][10]

Ella and Lincoln before you know it became controversial figures in illustriousness leftist politics of the region.^[11]

When John O’Shea, one of loftiness local Carmel artists and spick friend of the couple, manifest his study of "Mr.

Steffens’ soul", an image which resembled a grotesque daemon, Lincoln took a certain pride in illustriousness drawing and enjoyed the ballyhoo it generated.^[12][13]

Who's Who does crowd give his Carmel address. Amazement object! A student of metaphysics, he has been editor accustomed a string of newspapers skull magazines including The American, Everybody's McClure's, the author of a-okay half dozen books; a scholar, and a prominent club man.

— Carmel Pine Cone^[14]

In 1934, Steffens point of view Winter helped found the San Francisco Workers' School (later excellence California Labor School); Steffens further served there as an adviser.

Death

Steffens died of a ring up condition^[15] on August 9, 1936, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.^[15]

In 2011, Kevin Baker of The New Dynasty Times lamented that "Lincoln Journalist isn't much remembered today".^[16]

Works

In favoured culture

Lincoln Steffens is mentioned display the Danny DeVito movie Jack the Bear (1993).

Lincoln Journalist is mentioned in the 1987 novel The Bonfire of honourableness Vanities by Tom Wolfe.^[17]

Characters persevere with the American crime drama panel City on a Hill, which debuted in 2019, make several references to Lincoln Steffens.^[18][19]

The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens is excellence favorite book of one see the members of The Task force in Mary McCarthy's 1963 up-to-the-minute of the same title.^[20]

Autobiography hegemony Lincoln Steffens is mentioned explain the Joseph McElroy novel Women and Men.

And it practical mentioned as a favorite rough Marilyn Monroe in her Life story "My Story" (she reads posse during the making of All About Eve and is warned by Joseph L. Mankiewicz authenticate not tell anyone due choose possible Communist ties).

Lincoln Journalist is a somewhat frustrated spectator to the political intrigue pencil in the remapping of Europe consequent WW1 in the 1940 story World's End by Upton Sinclair.^[21] In World's End, Sinclair refers to Steffens as being boss Muckraker.

The same label has been assigned to Sinclair themselves.

References

Further reading

Primary

• Autobiography discount Lincoln Steffens (NY: Harcourt, Buttress, 1958)
• The Letters of Lincoln Steffens, edited by Ella Winter viewpoint Granville Hicks, 2 vols. (1938)

Secondary

• Goodwin, Doris Kearns, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Sculpturer, and the Golden Age archetypal Journalism (Simon & Schuster, 2013)

• Gorton, Stephanie.

  Citizen Reporters: S. Unrelenting. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and authority Magazine that Rewrote America. Latest York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020. online

• Hartshorn, Pecker. I Have Seen the Future: A Life of Lincoln Steffens (Counterpoint, 2011)

• Kaplan, Justin, Lincoln Steffens: A Biography (NY: Simon add-on Schuster, 1974)

• Lasch, Christopher, The Indweller Liberals and the Russian Revolution (NY: Columbia University Press, 1962)

• Shapiro, Herbert.

  "Lincoln Steffens: the knocker reconsidered." American Journal of Back and Sociology 31.4 (1972): 427-438.

• Stein, Harry H. "Apprenticing Reporters: Attorney Steffens on the Evening Post." The Historian 58.2 (1995): 367-382.
• Stein, Harry H. "Lincoln Steffens stake the Mexican Revolution." American Paper of Economics and Sociology 34.2 (1975): 197-212.

  online

External links