The Public and its Problems: Sacco and Vanzetti, Dewey, Dos Passos, and Activist Literary Publics in the 1920S

Abstract: This essay examines how the wave of authors' activism surrounding the Sacco and Vanzetti case engaged political philosophy of the 1920s diagnosing an American public sphere that was increasingly inhospitable to participatory democracy or able to debate issues of pressing national concern. Discussing work by John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, Nathan Asch, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and John Dos Passos, the essay examines their shared analysis of, and tentative solutions to, a 'crisis of the public' occasioned by new technologies, consumer distractions, and new media economies–a crisis that was impacting not only progressive democracy but the possibility of national justice.