Blog

mutualism

John Gray (1799-1883)

October 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
John Gray, best known for his Lecture on Human Happiness, is frequently listed among the earliest of mutualists. Certainly, he was an important figure among the more-or-less-Owenite socialists of the mid-1820s. His Lecture was cited by the “Mutualist” of 1826. But we know that at least some of the accounts of this “first mutualist moment” are at least a bit garbled, particularly where Gray is involved. I’m still deciding how to classify Gray’s contribution to the history of mutualism, but the work has recently become easier, thanks to the appearance of a number of digital editions of Gray’s works. The […]
mutualism

1919 Mutual Banking online

October 26, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Henry Cohen published a number of editions of William Batchelder Greene’s Mutual Banking in the 20th century. The pieces of that particular bibliographic puzzle have been hard to assemble. Thanks to archive.org, we have at least one more piece: a digital facsimile of the 1919 edition by The Reform League of Denver, Colo. It’s available in a number of formats. Cohen’s editions closely follow the 1870 edition, with notes and an introduction by Cohen.
Anarchism

“Roots of American Anarchism” course, and Beyond(?)

October 22, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Well, it looks now like a fairly sure thing that I’ll be teaching a graduate-level course on “The Roots of American Anarchism.” This course is really concerned with the roots of the American anarchist traditions, and with their earliest flowerings. I’ve been half-joking that I would follow the development only up to about the time that the term “anarchism” came into widespread use. In realtity, I’ll go a little further than that, but not a lot. The course is for students of American Culture Studies, but we’ll also spend quite a bit of time looking at European sources.I’m pretty excited […]
Uncategorized

Fools rush in

September 25, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
As some of you know, I’ve been playing with an alternate-history project for awhile. The Distributive Passions is “Fourierist speculative fiction, with a mutualist message,” or something like that. I’m treating it as a place to make speculations about the implications and possibilities of the socialist and libertarian histories which occupy so much of my scholarly time, and to make some broader, less scholarly statements about people, how they interact, and what happens when they try to change the world. Having worked on various outlines and character descriptions, and having found it hard to keep it all straight in my […]
mutualism

Should labor be paid or not? part 1

September 20, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been involved in a number of discussions recently on the issue of wages, as it was understood by the mutualists and their successors among the Liberty group. There seems to be a widespread sense, among social anarchists, but also among some who consider themselves of the mutualist-individualist school, that wages per se are a Bad Thing. Very few anarchists of any stripe would disagree that waged labor, under present conditions and under any conditions where large accumulations of capital, what we used to call “monopoly power,” and state-backed privilege exist, is unlikely to return to labor its fair share […]
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A few new William B. Greene citations

September 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Thanks to Brady Campbell, who did a little research legwork at the American Antiquarian Society, we have a better idea about William B. Greene’s contributions the Worcester Palladium. Here are his notes: Equality – – No.1 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 18 July 1849Deals with Moses, and equality among Christian brotherhood Equality – – No.2 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 25 July 1849Deals with the banking system Equality – – No.3 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 1 August 1849Deals the repeal of usury laws Capital and Labor – – No. 1 by OMEGA. Wednesday 12 September 1849Deals with Transcendentalism Capital and Labor – […]
Contr'un

“The Spirit of the Age” at Google Books!

September 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s a very, very good day for those interested in the earliest manifestations of mutualism in the United States. William Henry Channing’s The Spirit of the Age (1849-1850) is now available, in its entirety, with minimal scanning defects, from Google Books. I had previously had the chance to read through an original bound volume, and transcribe some contributions. Now I can finally sit down to read through the entire run. 150 or so pages in, my sense of the importance of this early journal just keeps increasing. Go check it out!
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Josephine Lowell – extracts on the Greene family

September 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
William Rhinelander Stewart. The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York: Macmillan, 1911. [page 13] I know a great many men in the army who are: My brother, and first cousin, H. S. Russell, in Gordon’s Regiment (2d Mass. Vol.), Capt. Curtis, Lieut. Motley, Lieut. Morse, Capt. Tucker, Lieut. Bangs, Lieut. Robson in the same Regiment; Joe and Ned Curtis, the former belonging to the Ninth Regiment, N. Y., the latter, a surgeon in the Georgetown Hospital. My cousin, Harry Sturgis, in Raymond Lee’s Mass. Regiment. My uncle, William Greene, Colonel of the 14th Mass.; Dr. Elliott and his […]
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Greene family portraits

September 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Charles Carleton Coffin. History of Boscawen and Webster, from 1733 to 1878. Concord, N. H.: Republican Press Association, 1878. 384-394. GREENE, NATHANIEL. Nathaniel Greene was born in Boscawen, 20 May, 1797. He was christened Peter; but having great respect for the memory of his father, by permission of the legislature of Massachusetts he took the name of Nathaniel. Educational advantages at the beginning of the century were limited to eight or ten weeks of schooling in winter, and a term of about the same length in summer. Two of his teachers were,— Miss Lucy Hartwell, who afterwards became the wife […]