Lincoln Steffens

{{Short description|American investigative journalist (1866–1936)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Lincoln Steffens

| image = Lincoln Steffens.jpg

| caption = Steffens in 1895. Photo by Rockwood.

| birth_name = Joseph Lincoln Steffens

| birth_date = April 6, 1866

| birth_place = San Francisco, California, US

| death_date = August 9, 1936 (aged 70)

| death_place = Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, US

| resting_place = Cypress Lawn Memorial Park

| resting_place_coordinates =

| known_for = {{ubl|Part of the muckraking trio at the turn of the century|Articles and books, including The Shame of the Cities. See Works.}}

| education =

| alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley

| employer = {{ubl|New York Evening Post (until 1905)|McClure's Magazine (until 1906)|The American Magazine (1906 onward)}}

| occupation = Muckraking journalist

| title =

| height =

| term =

| predecessor =

| successor =

| party =

| boards =

| spouse = Josephine Bontecou (m. 1881–1911), Ella Winter (m. 1924)

| partner =

| children = 1

| relatives = Laura Steffens Suggett (sister)

| signature =

| website =

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}}

Joseph Lincoln 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",{{cite book|last1=Newman|first1=John|last2=Schmalbach|first2=John|title=United States History|date=2015|publisher=Amsco|isbn=978-0-7891-8904-2|page=434|edition=2015}} that would later be published together in a book titled The Shame of the Cities. 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, California, the only son and eldest of four children of Elizabeth Louisa (Symes) Steffens and Joseph Steffens. He was raised largely in 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.{{cite book|title=The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Arsc2H9-_KwC|isbn=9781597140164|last1=Steffens|first1=Lincoln|year=1931| publisher=Heyday Books }}

Steffens attended St Mathews, where he frequently clashed with the school's founder and director, stern disciplinarian, Alfred Lee Brewer.

Career

File:Steffens 5332811097 a8d6f69b58 o.jpg

Image:Furuseth-La Follette-Steffens-1915.jpeg (center), and maritime labor leader Andrew Furuseth (left), {{circa|1915}}.]]

Steffens began his journalism career at the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s,{{Cite web|url=https://www.americanheritage.com/american-characters-lincoln-steffens|title=American Characters: Lincoln Steffens {{!}} AMERICAN HERITAGE|website=www.americanheritage.com|access-date=2019-04-28}} before moving to the New York Evening Post. From 1902 to 1906, he became an editor of McClure's magazine, where he became part of a celebrated muckraking trio with Ida Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker.{{cite journal |date=November 1904 |title=On the Making of Same McClure's Magazine |journal=McClure's Magazine |volume=XXIV |issue=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IiAAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA107 |access-date=2008-08-03}}{{cite book|last=Dramov|first=Alissandra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GtRzAgAAQBAJ|title=Carmel-by-the-Sea, The Early Years (1803-1913)|publisher=AuthorHouse|place=Blomington, Indiana|date=2012|pages=149–150|isbn=9781491824146|access-date=2023-03-06}} He specialized in investigating government and political corruption, and two collections of his articles were published as The Shame of the Cities (1904) and The Struggle for Self-Government (1906). He also wrote The Traitor State (1905), which criticized New Jersey 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, 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."Hartshorn, 304-11

After his return, he promoted his view of the Soviet Revolution 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.Hartshorn, 315 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 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.

File:Lincoln Steffens historic marker in Carmel, California.JPG

Steffens 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.

In 1927, they relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, the most significant art colony on the Pacific Coast, and settled in a cottage close to the intersection of San Antonio Street and Ocean Avenue. During their stay, he authored his autobiography and managed the Pacific Weekly. The cottage underwent renovation in 1992.{{cite web|url=https://ci.carmel.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/homes_of_famous_carmelites_0.pdf?1564762654 |title=Homes of Famous Carmelites|website=ci.carmel.ca.us |place=Carmel-by-the-Sea, California|date=1992|page=|access-date=2023-04-11}}{{cite web|last1=Grimes|first1=Teresa|last2=Heumann|first2=Leslie|url=https://ci.carmel.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/final_updated_carmel_historic_context_statement_091208-b.pdf?1510262312 |title=Historic Context Statement Carmel-by-the-Sea|work=Leslie Heumann and Associates|place=Carmel-by-the-Sea, California|page=8|access-date=2023-04-13}}

Ella and Lincoln soon became controversial figures in the leftist politics of the region.{{cite book|last1=Edwards|first1=Robert W.| title=Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, Vol. 1|date=2012|publisher=East Bay Heritage Project| location=Oakland, Calif.| isbn=9781467545679|pages=231, 233, 524, 548, 554–556, 558, 627, 682–683}} An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website ({{cite web |url=http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/10aa/10aa557.htm |title=Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, vol. One, East Bay Heritage Project, Oakland, 2012; by Robert W. Edwards |access-date=2016-06-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429115613/http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/10aa/10aa557.htm |archive-date=2016-04-29 }}).

When John O’Shea, one of the local Carmel 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 pride in the drawing and enjoyed the publicity it generated.The Carmelite: 8 September 1932, p. 4; 20 October 1932, p.4.{{cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/122699019/steffens-house/|title=Carmel Man Paints Soul Of Steffens, Muckraker|work=Oakland Tribune|date=19 Feb 1933|page=2|access-date=2023-04-11}}

{{blockquote|Who's Who does not give his Carmel address. We object! A student of philosophy, he has been editor of a string of newspapers and magazines including The American, Everybody's McClure's, the author of a half dozen books; a lecturer, and a prominent club man.|Carmel Pine Cone{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/ccarm_001733/page/n5/mode/2up?q=%22Heron%22|title=Who's Who-and Here|author=|work=Carmel Pine Cone|place=Carmel-by-the-Sea, California|date=1928-12-14|pages=9–15|access-date=2022-10-17}}}}

In 1934, Steffens and Winter helped found the San Francisco Workers' School (later the California Labor School); Steffens also served there as an advisor.

Death

Steffens died of a heart condition on August 9, 1936, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.{{cite news |title=Lincoln Steffens, First Muckraker Dies At 70 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2pErAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Y3EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3980,3333463&dq=lincoln+steffens&hl=en |newspaper=Associated Press |date=August 10, 1936 |access-date=2011-05-10 }}

In 2011, Kevin Baker of The New York Times lamented that "Lincoln Steffens isn't much remembered today".{{cite web|author=Baker, Kevin|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/books/review/lincoln-steffens-muckrakers-progress.html|title=Lincoln Steffens: Muckraker's Progress|work=The New York Times|date=2011-05-13}}

Works

Pittsburgh is Hell with the Lid Off (1903) (Painting Jules Guerin/Lincoln Steffens)
The Shame of the Cities (1904), [https://archive.org/details/shameofcities00stefuoft online] at the Internet Archive
The Traitor State (1905)
[https://archive.org/details/struggleforself00stefgoog The Struggle for Self-Government (1906), online] at the Internet Archive
[https://archive.org/details/upbuilders00stefrich Upbuilders (1909), online] at the Internet Archive
[https://archive.org/details/leastofthese00steffrich The least of these: a fact story (1910), online] at the Internet Archive
[https://archive.org/details/intomexicoout00stef 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.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JDteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA546|title=The Bonfire of the Vanities|first=Tom|last=Wolfe|date=June 21, 2018|publisher=Random House|isbn=9781473563926|via=Google Books}}

Characters on the American crime drama series City on a Hill, which debuted in 2019, make numerous references to Lincoln Steffens.{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-city-on-a-hill-showtime-review-20190614-story.html|title=Review: Cop drama 'City On A Hill' finds Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Boston is no beacon|date=2019-06-14|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-21}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/07/city-on-a-hill-showtime.html|title=The Sneaky Greatness of Showtime's City On A Hill|website=pastemagazine.com|date=11 July 2019 |language=en|access-date=2019-08-21}}

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.{{Cite book|last=McCarthy|first=Mary|title=The Group|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|year=1963|isbn=0-15-137281-0|pages=154}}

Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens is mentioned in the Joseph McElroy novel Women and Men. And it is mentioned as a favorite by Marilyn Monroe in her Autobiography "My Story" (she reads it during the making of All About Eve and is warned by Joseph L. Mankiewicz to not tell anyone due to possible Communist ties).

Lincoln Steffens is a somewhat frustrated witness to the political intrigue of the remapping of Europe following WW1 in the 1940 novel World's End by Upton Sinclair.{{cite book|title=World's End|ISBN=978-9997531599}} In World's End, Sinclair refers to Steffens as a muckraker. The same label has been assigned to Sinclair himself.

References

{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite news

| title = Matters Historical: Military-style academies on the march in 1800s

| url = https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/08/03/matters-historical-military-style-academies-on-the-march-in-1800s/

| date = 2016-08-03

| work = East Bay Times

| language = en-US

| access-date = 2020-05-29

| quote = On at least one occasion, after being caught drinking while encouraging younger cadets to engage in such “forbidden activities,” Steffens was locked into Brewer’s guardhouse, where he existed in solitary confinement on limited rations for 22 days.

}}

=Primary=

Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1958)
The Letters of Lincoln Steffens, edited by Ella Winter and Granville Hicks, 2 vols. (1938)

=Secondary=

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

Gorton, Stephanie. Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America. New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020. [https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062796646/citizen-reporters/ online]

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

Kaplan, Justin, Lincoln Steffens: A Biography (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1974)

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

Schultz, Stanley K. "The Morality of Politics: The Muckrakers' Vision of Democracy," The Journal of American History, 52#3 (1965), 527–547, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1890846 in JSTOR]

Shapiro, Herbert. "Lincoln Steffens: the muckraker reconsidered." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 31.4 (1972): 427-438.
Stein, Harry H. "Apprenticing Reporters: Lincoln Steffens on the Evening Post." The Historian 58.2 (1995): 367-382.
Stein, Harry H. "Lincoln Steffens and the Mexican Revolution." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 34.2 (1975): 197-212. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3485809 online]

External links

{{find a Grave|976|name=Joseph Lincoln Steffens|work=Journalist, Muckraker|date=January 1, 2001}}
Lincoln Steffens' collected journalism at [http://www.historicjournalism.com/liincoln-steffens.html The Archive of American Journalism]

Category:1866 births

Category:1936 deaths

Category:Activists from California

Category:American anti-corruption activists

Category:American autobiographers

Category:American investigative journalists

Category:American male journalists

Category:American political writers

Category:Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park

Category:Journalists from California

Category:People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

Category:Progressive Era in the United States