E) Read the text about horse racing again and make notes under following headings.

* Qualities needed for trotting * Boy’s experience on the track

* Fixed races * Boy’s feelings

3. a) Read the biography of Lincoln Steffens and focus on the two main points:

1) what are the works of Steffens devoted to;

2) what is ‘Autobiography’ (1931) about.

LINCOLN STEFFENS

Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American journalist and one of the most famous and influential practitioners of the journalistic style called muckraking. He is also known for his 1921 statement, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works." In fact, according to historian Richard Pipes, Steffen wrote those words on a train in Sweden before he had even arrived in the USSR. His more famous quote "I've seen the future, and it works" can be found on the title page of his wife's, Ella Winter, 1933 edition of Red Virtue.

Steffens was born in San Francisco in the family of a wealthy businessman, California, grew up in San Francisco, and studied in France and Germany. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, he was first exposed to what were known then as "radical" political views. He is the allegory for the character of Mr. Whymper in the novel Animal Farm.

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 and political 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 criticized New Jersey for patronizing incorporation. In 1906, he left McClure's, along with Tarbell and Baker, to form American Magazine.

In The Shame of the Cities, Steffens sought to bring about political reform in urban America by appealing to the emotions of Americans. He tried to make them feel very outraged and ‘shamed’ by showing examples of corrupt governments throughout urban America. He became a strong supporter of the rebels and during this period developed the view revolution, rather than reform, was the way to change capitalism.

In 1910 he covered the Mexican Revolution and began to see revolution as preferable to reform. Steffens visited Russia in 1919 and when he returned in 1921 he made the famous comment, "I've seen the future, and it works". He was a member of a group that came to be known as the California Writers Project, funded by the New Deal. Some of its members were socialists or communists, while others had little formal interest in politics.

Steffens enthusiasm for the Soviet form of government did not last and by the time he wrote his memoirs, Autobiography (1931), he was disillusioned with communism.

There are five parts in his Autobiography:

A Boy on Horseback

Seeing New York First

Muckraking

Revolution

Seeing America at last.

He started his first part with the words: “Early in the morning of April 6, 1866, in a small house “over in the Mission” of San Francisco, California, I was born – a remarkable child.”

With the help of his book Steffens wanted to prevent young people from making the mistakes he and his peers had done.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1012