Lincoln Austin Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in '' McClure's'', called "Tweed Days in St. Louis", that would later be published together in a book titled ''

The Shame of the Cities ''The Shame of the Cities'' is a book written by American author Lincoln Steffens. Published in 1904, it is a collection of articles which Steffens had written for ''McClure’s Magazine''. It reports on the workings of corrupt political machines ...

''. He is remembered for investigating corruption in municipal government in American cities and for his leftist values.

Early life

Steffens was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, the only son and eldest of four children of Elizabeth Louisa (Symes) Steffens and Joseph Steffens. He was raised largely in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, the state capital; the Steffens family mansion, a Victorian house on H Street bought from merchant Albert Gallatin in 1887, would become the California Governor's Mansion in 1903. Steffens attended the Saint Matthew's Episcopal Day School, where he frequently clashed with the school's founder and director, stern disciplinarian, Alfred Lee Brewer.

Career

Steffens began his journalism career at the '' New York Commercial Advertiser'' in the 1890s, before moving to the '' New York Evening Post''. He later became an editor of '' McClure's'' magazine, where he became part of a celebrated muckraking trio with Ida Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker. He specialized in investigating government and political corruption, and two collections of his articles were published as ''

'' (1904) and ''The Struggle for Self-Government'' (1906). He also wrote ''The Traitor State'' (1905), which criticized

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

for patronizing incorporation. In 1906, he left ''McClure's'', along with Tarbell and Baker, to form '' The American Magazine''. In ''The Shame of the Cities'', Steffens sought to bring about political reform in urban America by appealing to the emotions of Americans. He tried to provoke outrage with examples of corrupt governments throughout urban America. From 1914 to 1915 he covered the Mexican Revolution and began to see revolution as preferable to reform. In March 1919, he accompanied

William C. Bullitt William Christian Bullitt Jr. (January 25, 1891 – February 15, 1967) was an American diplomat, journalist, and novelist. He is known for his special mission to negotiate with Lenin on behalf of the Paris Peace Conference, often recalled as a mi ...

, a low-level State Department official, on a three-week visit to Soviet Russia and witnessed the "confusing and difficult" process of society in the process of revolutionary change. He wrote that "Soviet Russia was a revolutionary government with an evolutionary plan", enduring "a temporary condition of evil, which is made tolerable by hope and a plan." After his return, he promoted his view of the

Soviet Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

and in the course of campaigning for U.S. food aid for Russia made his famous remark about the new Soviet society: "I have seen the future, and it works", a phrase he often repeated with many variations. The title page of his wife Ella Winter's ''Red Virtue: Human Relationships in the New Russia'' ( Victor Gollancz, 1933) carries this quote. His enthusiasm for

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

soured by the time his memoirs appeared in 1931. The autobiography became a bestseller leading to a short return to prominence for the writer, but Steffens would not be able to capitalize on it as illness cut his lecture tour of America short by 1933. He was a member of the California Writers Project, a New Deal program. He married the twenty-six-year-old socialist writer Leonore (Ella) Sophie Winter in 1924 and moved to Italy, where their son Peter was born in San Remo. Two years later they relocated to the largest art colony on the Pacific Coast, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Ella and Lincoln soon became controversial figures in the leftist politics of the region. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (). When John O’Shea, one of the local artists and a friend of the couple, exhibited his study of "Mr. Steffens’ soul", an image which resembled a grotesque daemon, Lincoln took a certain cynical pride in the drawing and enjoyed the publicity it generated. In 1934, Steffens and Winters helped found the

San Francisco Workers' School The San Francisco Workers' School was an ideology, ideological training center of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) established in San Francisco for Continuing education, adult education in 1934. "It was a typical specimen of a Communist school, suc ...

(later the California Labor School); Steffens also served there as an advisor.

Death

Lincoln Steffens historic marker in Carmel, California

Steffens died of a heart condition on August 9, 1936, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. In 2011 Kevin Baker of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' lamented that "Lincoln Steffens isn’t much remembered today".

Works

*''Pittsburgh is Hell with the Lid Off'' (1903) (Painting Jules Guerin/Lincoln Steffens) *''

'' (1904)
online
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

*''The Traitor State'' (1905)
''The Struggle for Self-Government'' (1906), online
at the Internet Archive
''Upbuilders'' (1909), online
at the Internet Archive
''The least of these: a fact story'' (1910), online
at the Internet Archive
''Into Mexico and --Out!'' (1916), online
at the Internet Archive *''Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens'' (1931)

In popular culture

Lincoln Steffens is mentioned in the Danny Devito movie ''Jack the Bear'' (1993). Lincoln Steffens is mentioned in the 1987 novel '' The Bonfire of the Vanities'' by Tom Wolfe. Characters on the American crime drama series '' City on a Hill'', which debuted in 2019, make numerous references to Lincoln Steffens. The ''Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens'' is the favorite book of one of the members of The Group in Mary McCarthy's 1963 novel of the same title. ''Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens'' is mentioned in the Joseph McElroy novel ''Women and Men''.

References

External links

* * Lincoln Steffens' collected journalism a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steffens, Lincoln 1866 births 1936 deaths American autobiographers American male journalists Journalists from California American political writers American investigative journalists Writers from Sacramento, California Progressive Era in the United States Reform in the United States University of California, Berkeley alumni Writers about the Soviet Union People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Activists from California American anti-corruption activists Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park