Month: June 2018

From the Archives

Lewis Masquerier in “The Free Enquirer” (1834)

June 30, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
Dear Sir,—I have received the Free Enquirer, and herein enclose you five dollars. I betrayed great ignorance when I wrote for it, last winter, but I had then just waked in my morn of reason, from my night of superstition; and living in these frontier regions, I was not certain that there was a liberal press in the Union.

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From the Archives

Lewis Masquerier in “The Crisis” (1834)

June 30, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Lewis Masquerier, “To Robert Owen,” The Crisis, and National Co-Operative Trades’ Union Gazette 4 no. 13 (July 5, 1834): 99–100. “[Response]” The Crisis, and National Co-Operative Trades’ Union Gazette 4 no. 15 (July 19, 1834): 118. [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] The following letter was read by Mr. Owen in his lecture on Sunday evening, June 21, but which we had not room for last week:] To Robert Owen. Dear Sir, I am happy to inform you that I am an advocate for your social system, and can refrain no longer from the expression of […]
obituaries and funeral orations

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Kate Austin” (1902)

June 23, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Kate Austin “It’s aw a muddle.” That’s how I feel, thinking of the death of her. Why should she have died, she who was so full of energy and purpose, and so many to live on who are not now, and never were, and never will be anything but aimless, listless, useless, lumps of organized dust! The old, old question,—as senseless and as useless as aught a human being can ask, and bound to beget the answer, “There is no sense at all in anything. ‘It’s aw a muddle.’” I never […]
fiction

Lizzie M. Holmes, “To Poverty” (1902)

June 23, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] To Poverty. Poverty! Miserable curse of a plenteous earth, what horrors are conjured at your name! Shameful shadow falling like a pall over the bright glow civilization would boastfully send forth, you darken every dream of beauty and purity that mortal dares to dwell upon! You drive him to despair, you hound him to the prison door, you call forth the evil within to fight your encroachments, and you crush to earth his aspirations, his genius. Needless, hideous phantom that you are—thing created, not of nature but of men—what mystical words […]
From the Archives

J. A. Maryson, “The Principles of Anarchism” (1935)

June 22, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0″][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE PRINCIPLES OF ANARCHISM by Dr. J. A. MARYSON Translated from the Yiddish by A. GROSSNER The Principles of Anarchism Anarchism is the philosophy and ideal of individual liberty in human society. But true individual liberty is not possible without economic independence, and, therefore, the theory and philosophy of anarchism embrace the ideal of the economic independence of every individual. The conception of individual liberty excludes all social domination and all state coercion; the conception of economic independence precludes every form of exploitation and all special privileges. Anarchism differs from the […]
From the Archives

Lewis & Ann Masquerier in the “Boston Investigator” (1834-1888)

June 19, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
INTRODUCTION January 5, 2026. — I have stood on the top of Mount Moosilauke, on the western end of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and looked down over the Connecticut River valley. It’s a spectacular spot, which I wish I had been able to visit more often. These days, that view to the west has gained a surprising significance, as I have gradually come to think of a twenty-mile stretch, between Wells River, Vermont, in the north, and Orford, New Hampshire, in the south, as something of a hotbed, in the years when anarchism was emerging, of the kind of thought […]
Blazing Star Library

William B. Greene, “Capital and Labor” (1849)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] This was the last series of articles from The Worcester Palladium incorporated into Equality (1849). The first installment underwent minor revisions, but “Socialism in Massachusetts” both begins and ends with substantially different sections. This was not, of course, the end of the articles by “OMEGA” or even the end of the “Equality” series. Greene would contribute at least another dozen articles to the Palladium, but that material never found a place in Greene’s book-length works. In the end, both Greene and Pierre Leroux would leave their respective series on equality unfinished. Wm. B. Greene in […]
Blazing Star Library

William B. Greene, “Equality” (Worcester Palladium, 1949)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
This series of articles from The Worcester Palladium would be incorporated into Equality (1849) and Mutual Banking (1850), which would, in turn, become the basis for the subsequent editions of William Batchelder Greene’s Mutual Banking. The first did not actually appear in Equality, but became the “Introduction” to the later book, where it appeared with only very minimal changes. The other two installments did appear in Equality, with a few revisions in the second and some fairly significant revisions in the third. Returned to their original sequence, with their original conclusion restored, aspects of Greene’s craft become apparent, as the parallels between the sections are clearer and the wide breadth of material addressed appears considerably less random.

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Blazing Star Library

Letter from William B. Greene to Edward Atkinson, on the State of the Currency (1868)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] This is perhaps the last article by William Batchelder Greene to appear in The Worcester Palladium. As it happens, it is also the next to last article left on a list I’ve been trying to track down for a very long time now, so I’m very pleased to be able to present it here. Wm. B. Greene in “The Worcester Palladium” [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] LETTER FROM WM. B. GREENE TO EDWARD ATKINSON, ESQ., On the State of the Currency —– Brookline, Mass., Oct. 21st, 1868. Dear Sir: — In our debate, last Saturday […]
Journal

Journal: June 16, 2018

June 17, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] AN ERA OF REFLECTION: For the last week, my research has been focused very much on the 1920s, right at the end of the period that I ordinarily treat in historical work. I’ve been working with a rough-and-ready periodization scheme that breaks the long formative period of anarchism (1840-1920) in a forty-year “era of anarchy,” before the popularization of anarchism as an idea, during which “being an anarchist” meant engaging with an anarchy-without-anarchism, and a forty-year “era of anarchism,” during which the a largely communistic “modern anarchism” attempted to develop its […]