Introduction: The people's form finds its audience : popular front realism and the culture industries -- Taking down the Great White Hope : the popular front boxing narrative -- Radio soaps, Broadway lights : Lillian Hellman, Shirley Graham, and the interpellation of female audiences -- Realism with a little sex in it : Erskine Caldwell's challenge to Gone with the wind -- Asian yeoman and ugly Americans : Carlos Bulosan, H.T. Tsiang, and the U.S. literary market -- The popular front in the American century : Life magazine, Margaret Bourke-White, and partisan objectivity.