THE PEN IS MIGHTIER: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell
Robert Miraldi, . . Palgrave, $32.50 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-312-29292-8
In Russell, Miraldi has found a rare subject: a man of large historical importance about whom very little has been written. Russell's accomplishments as a muckraking journalist and social activist in many ways surpass those of his better-known colleagues, but this is the first biography of him. Russell (1860–1941) followed in the footsteps of his father, a newspaper editor in Davenport, Iowa. Over the course of his life, he attacked Iowa's railroad monopolies, took on Chicago's meat-packing industry and helped force Hugh McLaughlin, Brooklyn's version of Boss Tweed, from power. Miraldi, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, admirably focuses on Russell's professional and political development, but excludes most personal details. When Russell was 42, his wife died and he suffered a nervous breakdown, leaving his job as editor of the
Reviewed on: 12/16/2002
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 352 pages - 978-1-4668-8646-9