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Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Drama of the Nineteenth Century” (1888)

August 9, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE DRAMA OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. BY VOLTAIRINE de CLEYRE. The passions of men are actors, events are their motions, all history is their speech. In the long play of the ages a human being sometimes becomes an event; a nation’s passion takes a personnel. Such beings are the expression of the gathered mind-force of millions. He only who keeps himself aloof from all feeling can remain the spectator of the hour. All that humanity which is held within the beating, coiling, surging tides of passion, it has no individuality; it sinks its personality to become a vein in the […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “State, Nature and Art” (1888)

August 9, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

God ought to be a Protestant. I couldn’t help thinking so the day I visited the Philadelphia House of Correction; and if anyone has the patience to hear me out, I think he will agree with me before I conclude this narrativ. There is a perfect anomaly at the gate of this institution—a civil policeman (though that is not the reason God ought to be a Protestant. Civility is ordinarily incompatible with a blue coat trimmed with brass buttons). This gentleman—I am glad to giv him the title—displayed no unnecessary pomp or patronizing air, as he showed us the way […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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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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 […]

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 […]