In 1891, the influential literary realist William Dean Howells stated that “the arts must become democratic” in order to have “the expression of America in art.” This vision of a democratic culture, though modified, continued to inspire American writers and artists well after the turn of the century. The idea of democracy in American culture remained an important touchstone for conservative as well as progressive-minded writers on art and literature even as modernism took hold in the second decade of the century. For James Oppenheim, for example, editor of the eclectic little magazine The Seven Arts, which published some of the most significant cultural criticism of the day, the role of democracy in American art was an unresolved yet still vital issue. “Our moderns slap democracy on the back,” he wrote in 1916, “but what are they giving it in art?” “Yes,” he goes on to state, “we have magazines that circulate in the millions: we have cities sown thick with theaters: we have ragtime and the movies.” These manifestations are signs of cultural democracy, he implies, albeit devoid of art.