Boston Investigator

equitable commerce

Was Josiah Warren a spiritualist?

November 2, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
We know that there were plenty of spiritualists in Josiah Warren’s circle—including his wife, Stephen Pearl Andrews and his wife Esther, Ezra and Angela Heywood, and Mary and Thomas Nichols—we have the claim of Clarence L. Swartz that “not only in his later life, but almost from the beginning of modern Spiritualism, Warren was a believer in it.” But there’s been a real lack of testimony from Warren himself on the subject, at least in the sources I’ve been able to dig up. But I may have finally found an article by Warren addressing the question of “spiritual rappings” and […]
Contr'un

Eliphalet Kimball in 1873

October 31, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s a bit of follow-up on the Eliphalet Kimball story I recently posted. More searching has not turned up any more direct account of Kimball’s 1852 presidential platform, but while filling some holes in my bibliography I found an 1873 article in the Boston Investigator which I had not see previously. In many ways, this newly unearthed article repeats the concerns and attitudes of Kimballs contributions in the 1860s, but it also seems to echo very strongly the ideas reported in 1852. My developing sense is that Kimball may have adopted his peculiar variety of anarchism quite early and stayed […]
Contr'un

Eliphalet Kimball for President! in 1852

October 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Eliphalet Kimball remains one of my favorite figures in the American anarchist tradition, in part because he remains so unknown, popping up here and there in the 19th century radical press to make the most amazing pronouncements and demands, but somehow managing to go almost completely unremarked in the scholarly literature. I first discovered Kimball’s anarchist writings in the Boston Investigator and Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly more than four years ago, and posted three of his essays: “Law, Commerce, and Religion,” “Civilization—Anarchy” and “Suggestions.” Recently, I was able to pick up an original copy of his one book, Thoughts on […]
equitable commerce

Thomas and Maria L. Varney—The Other “Equitable Commerce” of 1846

September 19, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0″] Maria L. Varney, “Equitable Commerce, or, Association without Combination,” Boston Investigator 15 no. 48 (April 8, 1846): 1. [editorial notice], Boston Investigator 15 no. 48 (April 8, 1846): 6. Maria L. Varney, “Equitable Commerce, or, Association without Combination,” [concluded] Boston Investigator 15 no. 49 (April 15, 1846): 1. G. W. Rollins, “Reply to Maria L. Varney,” Boston Investigator 15 no. 51 (April 29, 1846): 1. Thomas Varney, “Equitable Commerce, or, Association without Combination,” Boston Investigator 15 no. 52 (May 6, 1846): 1. W. Chase, “Association with Combination,” Boston Investigator 15 no. 8 (July 1, 1846): […]
equitable commerce

Sidney H. Morse’s alternate history of equitable commerce

September 5, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Tucked away in the pages of Liberty, Sidney H. Morse, Josiah Warren’s literary executor, contributed an odd item, a kind of “what-if” history of Robert Owen’s New Harmony, as if, at the critical moment, Josiah Warren’s equitable commerce had been the model for continuing on after the failure of the original project. The story, Liberty and Wealth, may be the very best introduction I know of to Warren’s thought as filtered through another individuality. There is a difficulty in dealing with Warren’s writings, since he insisted that, in practice, equitable commerce must be based in a complete individualization of interests […]
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note on “Letter from Josiah Warren”

June 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[notice], Boston Investigator, 19, 21 (September 25, 1849), 3. The letter of friend Warren, in another column, should not be passed over on account of its length. It is the first of a series of familiar correspondence on one of the most important questions of the day, and will be found very interesting.
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Josiah Warren: from the National Reformer

June 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[notice], Boston Investigator, 19, 2 (May 16, 1849), 2. Josiah Warren, the indefatigable pioneer of Reform, accompanied by Amos E. Senter, and his accomplished wife, passed through here last week to join the brotherhood who give “Labor for Labor,” in Utopia. A few friends called upon them, and had a graphic sketch of the cheering reception given to friend Warren’s views, in Boston; where, during their exposition in public, the closest scrutiny of questioning brough only satisfactory responses, and faully satisfied the most skeptical opponents of progress, that “Equitable Commerce,” which makes “cost the limit of price,” is the true […]
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Equitable Commerce [extract]

June 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
“Equitable Commerce,” Boston Investigator, 19, 2 (May 16, 1849), 2. Equitable Commerce. We extract the following paragraphs from a pamphlet with this title, by Josiah Warren, published at Utopia, Ohio:— If a traveller in a hot day, stops at a farm house and asks for a drink of water, he generally gels it without any thought of price. Why?—Because it costs nothing, or its cost is immaterial. If the traveller was so thirsty that he would give a dollar for the water rather than not have it, this would be the value of the water to him; and if the […]
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Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce, 4/11/1849

June 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
“Equitable Commerce,” Boston Investigator, 18, 49 (April 11, 1849), 3. Equitable Commerce. The following article on this subject by Josiah Warren, its discoverer, will be read with interest by his friends in this city and throughout the country :— To the Editor of the Investigator: Dear Sir:—In accordance with your request, I would gladly make use of your columns as a medium through which the public might get some idea of “Equitable Commerce,” but I do not know that I could re-state the subject in any better form than that in the pamphlet entitled “Equitable Commerce,” from which you are […]