Year: 2017

Anarchist Beginnings

Ferdinand Monier, “Manifeste anarchiste” (1886)

August 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Prix : 2 centimes Manifeste anarchiste LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ A vous qui produisez tout et qui n’avez rien que ce que vous laissent ceux qui ne produisent rien et qui ont tout. COMPAGNONS, Les hommes que s’intitulent « Parti ouvrier » viennent de nous adresser un manifeste, dans lequel nous invitent à nous rendre à Bruxelles le 15 août pour y réclamer le suffrage universel. Examinons donc froidement et, sans parti-pris, la situation, et demandons-nous: Que peut suffrage universel pour améliorer notre sort? A cette question nous répondrons catégoriquement: Rien! En effet: Considéré en lui-meme, il ne changera absolument rien aux […]
Anarchist Beginnings

George Schumm, “Benj. R. Tucker—A Brief Sketch Of His Life And Work” (1893)

August 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
BENJ. R. TUCKER—A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORK. ‘ By GEORGE SCHUMM. BENJ. R. TUCKER, whose portrait is the frontispiece of this issue of the Magazine, was born in South Dartmouth, near New Bedford, in Massachusetts, April I7, 1854. His parents were in comfortable circumstances, and belonged to the enlightened portion of the community. In politics, his father was a Jeffersonian Democrat; in religion, both his father and his mother were radical Unitarians and as such members of W. J. Potter’s church. Mr. Tucker’s maternal grandfather was a great admirer of Thomas Paine. Thus it will be seen […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “In a Marble Tomb” (1888)

August 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
A bequest to the poor children of Philadelphia. That, they tell me, is the royal gift of Stephen Girard; and, by the way, friends, did it ever occur to you that while God is occupying himself in multiplying the families of the poor to the end that his mighty name be praised and glorified, he generally makes just some Quixotic choice of an Infidel of the Girard stamp for the purpose of doing what in all conscience he himself ought to hav done—or, as the Rev. Mr. Field would probably regard it, for the purpose of setting his own plan […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Quaker City” (1888)

August 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
It was nearing the close of that May-time which is the morning of summer, when one fair, bright day I was borne away to the southward, through long, shining levels of grassy sea, shot over with yellow dandelion gleams like little baby sunshines playing in the sink and swell of the emerald waves. Up from that silent, dreaming, hazy, green ocean came floating the songs of its toilers; and the light-bathed airs which rested above it grew redolent with perfume, purple and silver with the sheen of the wings floating through it. and night came down like the gathered brooding […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Pennsylvania Conventions and Ohio Workers” (1888)

August 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pennsylvania Conventions and Ohio Workers After a long, tiresome jolt over that paragon of bad roads, the L. S. & M. S., your correspondent arrived at Girard station on the forenoon of the 24th of January. The day was cold, the station-house was cold, the baggage-master was cold, very cold, as I asked him, in my most persuasiv accents, when the Erie and Pittsburgh train left for Louisville. “Five hours, miss,” and he wiped the young and budding icicles from his mustache. Five hours! and only one weary, forlorn passenger with which to while away the time. It looked dubious, […]
Contr'un

Extrications: History, Tradition, Theory

August 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
The initial task in these Extrications is analytic: we want to pull things apart a bit, enough to see if we can’t isolate some terms and make some useful distinction. I want to set aside this notion of the anarchist milieu as our intentionally vague term for the thing that we are examining and pulling apart. Let’s just say for now that the milieu is the social space occupied by anarchism and anarchists—and hopefully, with a little care and luck, we’ll be able to say something a bit more definite before too long.

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The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Secular Education” (1887)

August 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
There are four instruments which, wielded by dominant minds, bend and mold the sentiments of the masses to meet the form and spirit of the times: The force of early influence, the school, the platform, and the press. These are the four grand educators, and education is the strong right arm of progress, that arm which bares its mighty muscles and strikes upon the hewn rock of time the chisel-blows which carve the tablets of an advancing era, there to remain until the surges of the incoming ages shall hav swept them away, leaving a smooth face whereon shall be […]
Contr'un

Extrications

August 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Posts in the series: [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] It’s been roughly 25 years since I first committed myself to the study of anarchist history and theory. And I can break that span down into three general periods: two decades during which I understood the work as a simple matter of “filling the gaps” in a traditional anarchist narrative that I had not yet come to seriously challenge, five years during which the tensions between anarchist history and anarchist tradition have posed all kinds of theoretical and practical problems, and, at this point, a few […]
poetry

V. de C., “A Poetic Swing Around the Circle” (1888)

August 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
A Poetic Swing Around the Circle Now, all he truth seekers, attend my tale. I am not writing “no such word as dale” (Which, Truth Seeker observes, is common sense Beyond the average poem’s just pretense), But scribbling out a simple little story. For any fibs you’ll please giv God glory, For any merit please giv me the credit, And render all due thanks when you hav read it. There is a place that’s called the Smoky City; It has that reputation, more’s the pity That nicknames cling when we hav long outgrown them; In cases like thi people shouldn’t […]
The Sex Question

Sadakichi Hartmann, “Voltairine de Cleyre” (1915)

August 5, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE By Sadakichi Hartmann THE first and only time I heard Voltairine de Cleyre lecture was at Walker’s N. Y. Liberal Club, way back in 1894. The topic was “Mary Wollstonecraft, the Apostle of Equal Rights.” The even delivery, the subdued enthusiasm of her voice, the abundance of information, thought and argument, and the logical sequence of the same made a deep impression upon me. I was at that time a lecture fan, and able to make comparisons of her straightforward method with the performances of other public speakers. She had nothing of the pompous, climax-building elocutionary oratory […]