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5 unusual facts about Lincoln Steffens


Ellis Wainwright

In 1904, his name appeared in The Shame of the Cities, a muckraking exposé by Lincoln Steffens which gave details of Wainwright's shady dealings and other public corruption within the United States.

John Harmon Charles Bonté

Lincoln Steffens, in his autobiography, reports a humorous incident when he and his fraternity brothers were invited to the Bonté house to be fed some chickens that they didn't quite steal from the Bonté henhouse.

Lucius F. C. Garvin

He furnished information for Lincoln Steffens' muckraking article, "Rhode Island: A State for Sale," published in 1905 in McClure's.

Organized crime in Minneapolis

Organized crime in Minneapolis first attracted national attention in 1903, when thug and mayor Doc Ames (1842-1911) was exposed by Lincoln Steffens in the book The Shame of the Cities.

The Shame of a City

In his book, Lincoln Steffens infamously calls Philadelphia “corrupt and contented.”


Ella Winter

She met the U.S. journalist and 'muckraker' Lincoln Steffens at the Versailles Conference, where she was secretary to US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

S. S. McClure

McClure's Magazine published influential pieces by respected journalists and authors including Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Burton J. Hendrick, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Willa Cather, and Lincoln Steffens.


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