Review of Reviews

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", published in the Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885.

The first issue was an instant success, and opened with numerous facsimiled welcome messages which Stead had courted from various dignitaries of the time.

Perhaps seeing this discord as a sign of things to come, Newnes severed ties, exclaiming that the whole venture was "turning his hair grey".

He also involved the Review in social work, setting up the "Association of Helpers" and even an adoption agency called "The Baby Exchange".

However, in spite of such apparent successes, without the business-like Newnes to guide him, Stead frequently drove the Review to death's door, despite the best efforts of his business manager, Edwin H. Stout.

Stead's attempt to recoup his losses, with the launch of the ill-fated The Daily Paper, was a complete failure and, almost bankrupt, he suffered a nervous breakdown.

Shaw was part of the first generation of academic reformers, which included Woodrow Wilson (who was his classmate at Johns Hopkins University).

Declining an appointment at Cornell, Shaw became editor of the Minneapolis Tribune and a widely published author of books on municipal reform.