Chuck Steffen was born in Los Angeles and grew up in southern California. After graduating from the University of California at San Diego he relocated to Chicago to pursue his graduate education at Northwestern University. He spent forty years teaching US history at Murray State University and Georgia State University before his retirement in 2018. He has published on a variety of topics, including the politics of homelessness in Atlanta. This research project changed his life in two ways. First, it introduced him to photography as a tool for documenting the lives of unhoused populations in the city. Second, it led to his decision to join the board of directors of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization that operated the largest homeless shelter in Atlanta. These days, Steffen continues to take pictures for his website, “Framing Capitalism in Place,” which documents the impact of capitalism on the built environment. This work can be seen at www.chucksteffenphotography.com.