Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941) was a prominent writer and Socialist Party leader. The author of twenty-seven books, he won the Pulitzer Prize for The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas (1927). Born in Davenport, Iowa, the son of an abolitionist newspaper editor, Russell began his career as a reporter. After twenty years in the field, he won renown as a muckraker and politician. He wrote several exposés, including The Greatest Trust in the World (1905), about the Chicago beef trust. He also campaigned for governor, mayor, and senator in New York but never won. A close friend of William English Walling, Russell was among the original group of people Walling invited to plan the NAACP. He served as acting chairman of the National Negro Committee (1909) and as a board member.