In the first critical biography of Charles A. Dana in fifty years, Steele artfully weaves the great newspaper editor's vision, life, and work into the social and intellectual mood of the late nineteenth century. As one of the most influential publishers of the period, Dana defined and shaped the values of the working-class readers of the New York Sun. The Sun's motto, "It shines for all," captured Dana's uncompromising democratic ideal. Its pages exalted the proletariat's rhetoric and celebrated tolerance, ethnic diversity, and a broad commitment to social justice. Through a blend of social and media history, the author explores America's transition from a production-oriented society to a culture of consumption. Because of Dana's strong aversion to the consumerism that accompanied industrial capitalism, the Sun became both the conscience and the advocate for New York's working class. In the words of Joseph Pulitzer, Dana transformed the Sun into "the most piquant, entertaining, and without exception, the best newspaper in the world." At the core of the book is Dana's philosophy, his formative years and intellectual genesis at Brook Farm, his political emergence at the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley, and his alliances with other prominent figures of the day, including Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Walt Whitman, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Steele includes unpublished photographs and draws upon Dana's personal correspondence from an array of manuscript collections never before cited. Dana was much more than a flash in the pan of journalism history; as managing editor of the New York Tribune , he hired Karl Marx to write regular reports on European affairs. Full of lively and interesting details, this critical biography of a key 19th-century character tells Dana's full story: work as Horace Greeley's lieutenant on the Tribune , the short-term editorship of the Chicago Republican , and, finally, triumph as the publisher of the influential New York Sun. Steele, a University of Virginia assistant professor, explores Dana's beliefs and shows how he expressed them in his newspapers. Recommended for journalism collections and historical biography sections. - Abraham Z. Bass, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. In the first biography of 19th-century newspaperman Charles A. Dana since Candace Stone's Dana and the Sun (1938), Steele (Rhetoric and Communications/Univ. of Virginia) cautiously depicts her subject's life from his obscure New Hampshire origins to his 30-year stint as editor of the New York Sun, then one of the most influential papers in America. Born to poverty in 1817, unable to continue the Harvard education he craved, Dana joined Brook Farm, the suburban Boston utopian experiment in communal living for the intelligentsia. After visiting France during the aborted Revolution of 1848, he signed up as managing editor of Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, a post he kept until 1862. While at the Tribune, Dana--working with George Ripley--compiled the enormously successful, 16-volume American Cyclopaedia, which solicited contributions from such distinguished authors as Engels and Marx. During the Civil War, Dana served as Lincoln's assistant secretary of war; in 1868, following a brief editorship at The Chicago Tribune, he took over the Sun and gave it a personal voice, as well as a distinct character as a workingman's paper covering the nascent union activities and promoting cooperative labor. In the 1880's, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World challenged the Sun's popularity by favoring the new consumer ethic, including in its pages guides to entertainment, sports, gossip, and fashion, as well as advertising, women's pages, and illustrations- -everything that Dana believed was too frivolous for the working classes. The World also introduced the new corporate voice of modern journalism, replacing the personal tone that Dana had cultivated. Ultimately, Dana turned against the working-class that he felt had betrayed him, and he became increasingly conservative and cynical--his new tone, Steele says, resembling the dark humor of Mark Twain and the illustrations of Thomas Nast. Like an old newspaper, Dana seems faded here--distant, out of focus, with his claimed significance difficult to account for; ironically, it's Pulitzer who comes across vividly and with bite. (Eighteen illustrations--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. In the first critical biography of Charles A. Dana in fifty years, Steele artfully weaves the great newspaper editor's vision, life, and work into the social and intellectual mood of the late nineteenth century. As one of the most influential publishers of the period, Dana defined and shaped the values of the working-class readers of the New York Sun. The Sun's motto, "It shines for all", captured Dana's uncompromising democratic ideal. Its pages exalted the proletariat's rhetoric and celebrat