Albert Shaw

Born in Ohio in 1857, he studied at Iowa College, now Grinnell College, where he focused on constitutional history and economic science and also worked at the Grinnell Herald. He later continued his studies at Johns Hopkins University, earning a Ph.D. after early newspaper work that included time at the Minneapolis Tribune.

His career took a major turn in the early 1890s. After briefly being elected professor of international law and political institutions at Cornell University, he left academia to found and lead The American Review of Reviews, an American counterpart to W. T. Stead’s British journal. He remained editor-in-chief until the magazine ended in 1937, and his writing and editorial work made him a recognized voice on municipal government, reform, labor, agriculture, and international affairs.

Shaw’s long career bridged the years from the post-Civil War United States into the period after World War II. Along with editing a widely read journal, he wrote nonfiction and took an active interest in public questions and charitable causes. He died in 1947.