Books by Steven Biel

A new intellectual community came together in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s, a community outside the universities, the professions and, in general, the established centers of intellectual life. This book is a cultural history of this community of free-lance critics.

How, for example did African Americans, feminists, and labor activists respond to the Titanic disaster? Why did the El train crash take on such symbolic meaning for the citizens of Chicago? In what ways did the San Francisco earthquake reaffirm rather than challenge a predominant faith in progress? This title deals with these questions.