Based on an exhibition which was sponsored by the Yale University Art Gallery in 1985-86, this title examines the origins of "The Masses'" graphic style in American realism, labor cartoons, and European satire. It features 149 illustrations.

Davies, Abraham Walkowitz, and Pablo Picasso: and an abundance of work by the American realists later known as the Ashcan School, among them John Sloan, George Bellows, Glenn Coleman, Robert Henri, and the young Stuart Davis. Although the magazine did not pay its contributors, for seven years artists and writers donated some of their best work because they believed in its ideals of social change and artistic independence. Aiming to "conciliate nobody, not even our readers," "The Masses" was widely recognized as one of the best-edited and best-produced magazines in America, considered by some to be a left-wing forerunner of "The New Yorker". However, because of its strident anti-war stance, when the Espionage Act went into effect in 1917, the U.S. government forced "The Masses" to cease publication. Author note: Rebecca Zurier holds a doctoral degree in the History of Art from Yale University and was curator of the exhibition, "Art for The Masses."