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Deacon Van Winkle’s Dream (Looking Backward)

December 12, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m in the midst of a Sequels of Looking Backward marathon, working my way through as many of the early responses to Edward Bellamy’s novel as I can get my hands on. In the process of tracking these down, I’ve come across a couple of short pieces that are worth a look. “Deacon Van Winkle’s Dream,” by George H. Hubbard, is a sharp Christian response to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, centered on Thanksgiving Day. The author appears to be the George Henry Hubbard (1857-) who wrote The Teaching of Jesus in Parables, and who was a persistent, relatively conservative voice […]

Parrington and more at UVa

December 12, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

The American Studies program at University of Virginia has a number of nice resources on their website, including all three volumes of Vernon L. Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought: Vol. I – The Colonial Mind [my students should bookmark this one now!] Vol. II – Romantic Revolution in America Vol. III – The Beginnings of Critical Realism Parrington is rather old school but also very good. These volumes were one of the key influences on me at an earlier phase of my education. While you’re on the site, also check out Erastus Salisbury Field’s magnificent The Historical Monument of […]

Florence Finch Kelly on Co-Operative Apartment Buildings (1908)

December 8, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Florence Finch Kelly was an extremely prolific journalist, who, as the introduction to this piece remarked, had “written much on social questions.” She worked as a book reviewer for the New York Times, contributed to The Independent, wrote novels and poetry, and, as “F. F. K.,” was a contributor to Liberty. I’ve been “mining” The Independent a bit for radical material and ran across several essays by Kelly, along with a number of other things (a Milo Hastings piece on Edgar Chambless’ Roadtown, Upton Sinclair on the Home Colony, etc.), all of which are of interest. More soon. . . […]

A Calvin Blanchard Miscellany

December 7, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Bits and pieces, in preparation for a web-page update: Biographical sketch of Calvin Blanchard’s brother, Rufus Blanchard (1821-1904) [An entertaining snippet] Should Blanchard† publish First Principles—and it is far from impossible (I prevented him from publishing Social Statics)—it would not only ruin the whole subscription project, but, by mingling your name with the gang of obscene, prurient, and scoffing authors whom he patronizes and advertises, would make it embarrassing for others. † Calvin Blanchard, a disreputable publisher who kept a shop on Nassau Street, where you could buy any kind of […]

Stephen Pearl Andrews, 1877 “Address”

December 5, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m just about done, for now at least, with combing the page of The Index. There is plenty more work to be done. For instance, someone should collect the material by Henry Appleton and Edwin C. Walker, particularly in the volumes for 1877 and 1878, and someone could easily make a good study of the responses to the Heywood trial and the issue of “obscenity” generally. I haven’t come close to exhausting what’s in those pages, but what I’ve extracted is still a “pretty good haul.” Here, once again, are the previous entries on The Index: Benjamin Tucker enters the […]

As 2006 draws to a close

December 4, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Looking back at my goals for the 2006 scanning project, I can quite happily say that I have exceeded the 3000 original pages which I had hoped to add to the archive—and that I have to say that it’s a rather different 3000 pages than I projected. We’ll see how this last month goes, but it looks like the total will be closer to 5000 pages. I anticipate coming at least very close to finishing the William B. Greene works, and some of those connected works, like Beck’s Money and Banking and some additional work by Kellogg, without which the […]

Francis Tandy on strikes, boycotts and invasion

December 4, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

STRIKES, TRUSTS, BOYCOTTS, AND BLACK-LISTS. Francis D. Tandy The Arena (February 1900) IN a state of slavery it is impossible for a man to change his occupation. The very existence of such a state of society depends upon the denial of the right of the workman to leave his master. In proportion as this right is denied, the laborer is still a slave. Even under the present wage-system, this right is hedged about with restrictions, and when exercised is often found to be but stepping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Certain economic conditions make the lot of workmen […]

Lewis Masquerier, amateur astrophysicist?

December 4, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Lewis Masquerier is one of my favorite figures among the older generations of American reformers. This early essay, from The American Repertory of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures, June, 1841, is really an exemplary piece for displaying his wide-ranging curiosity and the fearlessness (bordering at times on foolhardiness) of his speculations. What it lacks in scientific acumen, it more than makes up in character.New Theory; suggesting the Rotary Motion of the Earth as the Cause of its Curvilinear Direction in its Orbit, and also of the Tides.by Lewis Masquerier. It is said in treatises upon gunnery, that if a rotary motion […]

Milo Hastings, housing reformer

December 4, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] In 1920, a book appeared with the title The Joke About Housing. It was a work of housing reform, including some fairly radical elements. Appended to it were a number of appendixes, including “A Solution of the Housing Problem in the United States,” a prize-winning essay by Milo Milton Hastings. Hastings was a prolific writer of science fiction, works on poultry farming, nutrition, and urban reform. He was a promoter of Edgar Chambless’ linear city, Roadtown. Hastings and Chambless are important figures from the “grand domestic revolution” of the early 20th century. I’ve done a little work to update […]

Greene and the “galvanized yankees,” II

December 4, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

from Thomas L. Livermore, Days and Events (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920). [327] Captain H. G. O. Weymouth, lately a captain in the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers, was sent up by General Butler, who now assumed command of our district in his “Department of Virginia and North Carolina,” to join this regiment which I was forming. He came on a promise of higher rank than he formerly held, I think, but was to take a company at first. Captain Weymouth had lost one leg at Fredericksburg, and of course could not do duty as a company officer, which […]