Contr'un
The Founding Fathers
Some days I’m content to treat the “founding fathers” as Real American Heroes, guys who did a pretty amazing job of forging a country out of the colonies, despite active opposition from England and internal […]
Contr’un
Contr'un
Calvin Blanchard: A Crisis Chapter on Government
It’s been awhile since this has been up in the Labyrinth. Yesterday, when I was discussing Tom Paine with my Great Ideas students, I passed around a couple of 19th century editions of Paine’s work: […]
Contr'un
Oops! Wrong Brookfield? Mass. Historical backroads prove tricky
Hehe. Thanks to some help from the very kind folks at the West Brookfield Historical Commission, it looks like we may have to revise one of the generally accepted “facts” about William B. Greene’s career. […]
Contr'un
“Song of Espousal” in the Moss Rose for 1847
I’ve been able to verify that William B. Greene’s first published work, the poem “Song of Espousal,” did in fact appear in the Moss Rose holiday gift annual for 1847. The annual is apparently a […]
Contr'un
The Fund: A Boston Land Bank of 1681
An important episode in the story of the New England land banks is The Fund at Boston, in New England, apparently the earliest practical land bank experiment in the colonies. Much of what we know […]
Contr'un
The Fund: A Boston Land Bank of 1681
One sheet survives of this pamphlet, attributed to Rev. John Woodbridge. It describes an early mutual bank scheme known as The Fund at Boston in N. E. It is quite likely that this sheet was […]
Contr'un
The Incredible Shrinking. . .
William B. GreeneAn observation, based on the collations I’ve been doing of Greene’s borrowings from sources such as William Beck and Edward Kellogg: The mutual bank writings of 1849 and 1850 are full of Greene’s […]
Contr'un
The Very Idea!
I’ve set up a public mirror for the lecture-essays I’m posting to my Great Ideas class this semester. Returning to the part-time faculty gig has been good for my research. You haven’t really lived the […]
Contr'un
Natural Gas Wars, Then and Now
The more things change. . . and all that. There are moments when it really feels like nothing much ever changes, except perhaps the scale of our collective foolishness. Last night, over coffee, i set […]
Contr'un
Radical Deficiency of the Existing Circulating Medium, 1857
William B. Greene’s 1857 Radical Deficiency of the Existing Circulating Medium, and the Advantages of a Mutual Currency is now online in the Libertarian Labyrinth. This is the text issued during the Panic of 1857—at […]