This writer, political philosopher and lecturer was hailed as an "American Socrates."
Writer, political philosopher and lecturer Lincoln Steffens, muckraking author of The Shame of the Cities (1904) was hailed as an "American Socrates? because he raised rather than answered questions and jolted his audiences into awareness. Born in San Francisco on April 6, 1866, he was a leader of the form of journalism that won the sobriquet ?muckraking? from Theodore Roosevelt. Steffens sought to reveal the shortcomings of the popular dogmas that equated economic success with moral worth and national progress with individual self-interest. His 1931 Autobiography was an enormous success. In the 1920s Steffens had a great interest in revolutionary politics in Europe and later became a champion of leftist politics in America. Steffens died August 9, 1936.
