Review of Reviews

The "Review of Reviews" was a noted monthly journal founded in 1890 in London by British reform journalist William Thomas Stead (1849-1912). In 1891 Stead started the "American Monthly Review of Reviews" edited by the American academic, journalist, and reformer Albert Shaw (1857-1947).

"Review of Reviews" was notable because it was, from 1891 onwards, published simultaneously in London and New York. As such, it represented the views and concerns of participants in the trans-Atlantic culture of progressive reform so brilliantly discussed in Daniel T. Rodgers's "Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age" (1998).

Stead was a career journalist who was drawn into reform politics in the 1880s, crusading through for such causes as British-Russian friendship, the reform of England's criminal codes, and the maintenance of international peace. He was most famous in Britain for having passed, almost single-handedly, the first child-protection law by investigating and reporting child vice and white slavery in a series of articles titled "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" in July of 1885. As a result, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised the consent age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, similar to "statutory rape" laws in the United States. As editor of the London Pall Mall Gazette (1883-1889), Stead caused newspapers to appear they way they are today. He introduced crossheads (section titles) and signed articles, popularized interviews, and started illustrations and indexing. An advanced feminist, he was the first London editor to pay women equally with men. He authored many books, including "The Truth about Russia" (1888), "If Christ Came to Chicago" (1893), and "The Americanization of the World" (1902). [A lengthy bibliography of his books and articles may be found in NewsStead: A Journal of History and Literature 19 (Fall 2001) 19-36, supplemented in NewsStad 25 (Fall 2004) 21-22.] His essay "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic" (1886) is considered his first prediction of the sinking of the "Titanic"; his novel "From the Old World to the New" (1892) was the second prediction. Stead himself died in the sinking of the "Titanic" in 1912.

Shaw was part of the first generation of academic reformers which included Woodrow Wilson (who was his classmate at Johns Hopkins University). Born in Iowa, Shaw studied at Grinnell College and received his doctorate in government at Johns Hopkins in 1884. Declining an appointment at Cornell, Shaw became editor of the "Minneapolis Tribune" and a widely published author of books on municipal reform.

"Review of Reviews" is one of the best primary sources on American reform between 1890 and 1920, providing not only a panoramic view of the range of reformers' interests, but also the ties between British and American progressives. In its early years, the "Review" was published simultaneously in New York and London. With volume 3, the American edition was no longer identical with the British. The British edition continued publication until 1936. The American edition lasted until 1934.

External links

* [http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/reviews/alshaw.php Biography - eulogy on Stead's death]

References

*Graybar, Lloyd J. 1975. "Albert Shaw of the Review of Reviews: An Intellectual Biography". Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
*Daniel T. Rodgers. 1998. "Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.