Steffens, Lincoln (1866-1936), was an American author, editor, lecturer, and reformer. He was one of a group of writers known as muckrakers because their magazine articles during the early 1900’s exposed corruption in government, business, and labor. Starting in 1902 with an expose of crooked political practices in St. Louis, Steffens went on to write about conditions in many U.S. cities and states.
Joseph Lincoln Steffens was born on April 6, 1866, in San Francisco, and he studied at the University of California and in Europe. He began his career with the New York Commercial Advertiser. He soon joined McClure’s Magazine, and there wrote the articles that made him famous. Later, he wrote for the American Magazine and Everybody’s Magazine. His Autobiography (1931) is considered one of the great American autobiographies. Steffens died on Aug. 9, 1936, in Carmel, California.
