Lincoln Steffens

Lincoln Steffens

Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866–August 9, 1936), American journalist, was one of the most famous and influential practitioners of the journalistic style called muckraking. He is best known for his 1921 quote, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have seen the future, and it works." He was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a wealthy businessman, and he studied in France and Germany before graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was first exposed to radical political views.

At McClure's magazine, Steffens became part of the celebrated muckraking trio of himself, Ida Tarbell, and Ray Stannard Baker. He specialized in investigating government 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 , which beat up on New Jersey for patronizing incorporation, in a manner similar to what Delaware practices now. In 1906, he departed McClure's, along with Tarbell and Baker, to form American Magazine.

In 1910 he covered the Mexican Revolution and began to see revolution as preferable to reform. In 1919, he visited the Soviet Union, where he developed a short-lived enthusiasm for communism that had soured by the time he wrote his memoirs, published in 1931. He died in 1936.