to come:
John Humphrey Noyes
Benjamin Tucker
Ezra Heywood?
Stephen Pearl
Andrews (March 22, 1812 -
May 21, 1886) was an American individualist anarchist and author of several
books on the topic.
Born in
Templeton, Massachusetts, he went to Louisiana at age 18 and studied and
practiced law there; appalled by slavery, he became an abolitionist. Having
moved to Texas in 1839, he and his family were almost killed because of his
abolitionist lectures and had to flee in 1843. Andrews travelled to England
where he was unsuccessful at raising funds for the abolitionist movement back
in America.
While in England,
Andrews became interested in Pitman's new shorthand writing system and upon his
return to the U.S. he taught and wrote about the shorthand writing system. At
the same time Andrews continued to give lectures on abolitionism.
He also became
interested in phonetics and the study of foreign languages, eventually learning
30 languages. By the end of the 1840s he began to focus his energies on utopian
communities. He and fellow individualist anarchist Josiah Warren (who was
responsible for Andrew's conversion to radical individualism) established
Modern Times in Brentwood, NY, (1851). Then, in (1857), he established Unity
Home in New York City. By the 1860s he was propounding an ideal society called
Pantarchy, and from this he moved on to a philosophy he called
"universology", which stressed the unity of all knowledge and
activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Pearl_Andrews
1786 1867, American philosopher and semanticist, b. Gosport, England. He emigrated (1801) to the United States and eventually became a wealthy banker in Utica, N.Y. Johnson anticipated many of the concerns of logical positivism and modern linguistic philosophy, but his views were ignored in his lifetime and were lost sight of for nearly a century. He held that a statement meant, for a speaker, whatever evidence he adduced or could adduce in its support: Language does not explain the world, rather the world explains language. He showed that many philosophical problems were the result of projecting distinctions of language onto nature, resulting in confusion. In addition to his philosophical works he wrote on politics, economics, and banking. His books included The Philosophy of Human Knowledge; or A Treatise on Language (1828), Religion in its Relation to Present Life (1841), The Philosophical Emperor (1841), and The Meaning of Words (1854).
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.
Warren wrote of Johnson's philosophy of language: "I use language with a constant regard to its principles as developed by Mr. Johnson . . . I do not intend to any argument where the language does not refer to some sensible "phenomena" . . . Mr. Johnson's elucidation of language is a bridge over which I have escaped from the bewildering labyrinths of verbal delusions called arguments and controversies." (quoted by Wunderlich, from Peaceful Revolutionist 1, April 1833)
Robert Owen, the son of a saddler and ironmonger from
Newtown in Wales, was born on 14th May, 1771. Robert was an intelligent boy who
did very well at his local school, but at the age of ten, his father sent him
to work in a large drapers in Stamford, Lincolnshire. After spending three
years in Stamford, Robert moved to a drapers in London. This job lasted until
1787 and now aged sixteen, Robert found work at a large wholesale and retail
drapery business in Manchester.
It was while Owen
was working in Manchester that he heard about the success Richard Arkwright was
having with his textile factory in Cromford. Richard was quick to see the
potential of this way of manufacturing cloth and although he was only nineteen
years old, borrowed £100 and set up a business as a manufacturer of spinning
mules with John Jones, an engineer. In 1792 the partnership with Jones came to
an end and Owen found work as a manager of Peter Drinkwater's large spinning
factory in Manchester.
As manager of
Drinkwater's factory, Owen met a lot of businessmen involved in the textile
industry. This included David Dale, the owner of Chorton Twist Company in New
Lanark, Scotland, the largest cotton-spinning business in Britain. The two men
became close friends and in 1799 Robert married Dale's daughter, Caroline.
With the
financial support of several businessmen from Manchester, Owen purchased Dale's
four textile factories in New Lanark for £60,000. Under Owen's control, the
Chorton Twist Company expanded rapidly. However, Robert Owen was not only
concerned with making money, he was also interested in creating a new type of
community at New Lanark. Owen believed that a person's character is formed by
the effects of their environment. Owen was convinced that if he created the
right environment, he could produce rational, good and humane people. Owen
argued that people were naturally good but they were corrupted by the harsh way
they were treated. For example, Owen was a strong opponent of physical
punishment in schools and factories and immediately banned its use in New
Lanark.
David Dale had
originally built a large number of houses close to his factories in New Lanark.
By the time Owen arrived, over 2,000 people lived in New Lanark village. One of
the first decisions took when he became owner of New Lanark was to order the
building of a school. Owen was convinced that education was crucially important
in developing the type of person he wanted.
When Owen arrived
at New Lanark children from as young as five were working for thirteen hours a
day in the textile mills. He stopped employing children under ten and reduced
their labour to ten hours a day. The young children went to the nursery and
infant schools that Owen had built. Older children worked in the factory but
also had to attend his secondary school for part of the day.
Owen's partners
were concerned that these reforms would reduce profits. Unable to convince them
of the wisdom of these reforms, Owen decided to borrow money from Archibald
Campbell, a local banker, in order to buy their share of the business. Later,
Owen sold shares in the business to men who agreed with the way he ran his
factory.
Robert Owen hoped
that the way he treated children at his New Lanark would encourage other
factory owners to follow his example. It was therefore important for him to publicize
his activities. He wrote several books including The Formation of Character
(1813) and A New View of Society (1814). In 1815 Robert Owen sent detailed
proposals to Parliament about his ideas on factory reform. This resulted in
Owen appearing before Robert Peel and his House of Commons committee in April,
1816.
Robert Owen
toured the country making speeches on his experiments at New Lanark. He also
publishing his speeches as pamphlets and sent free copies to influential people
in Britain. In one two month period he spent £4,000 publicizing his activities.
In his speeches, Owen argued that he was creating a "new moral world, a
world from which the bitterness of divisive sectarian religion would be
banished". His criticisms of the Church of England upset many people,
including reformers such as William Wilberforce and William Cobbett.
Disappointed with
the response he received in Britain, Owen decided in 1825 to establish a new
community in America based on the socialist ideas that he had developed over
the years. Owen purchased an area of Indiana for £30,000 and called the
community he established there, New Harmony. One of Owen's sons, Robert Dale
Owen became the leader of the new community in America.
By 1827 Owen had
lost interest in his New Lanark textile mills and decided to sell the business.
His four sons and one of his daughters, Jane, moved to New Harmony and made it
their permanent home but Owen decided to stay in England where he spent the
rest of his life helping different reform groups. This included supporting
organisations attempting to obtain factory reform, adult suffrage and the
development of successful trade unions. He expressed his views in his journals,
The Crisis and The New Moral World.
Owen also played
an important role in establishing the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union
in 1834 and the Association of All Classes and All Nations in 1835. Owen also
attempted to form a new community at East Tytherly in Hampshire. However, like
New Harmony in America, this experiment came to an end after disputes between
members of the community. Although disillusioned with the failure of these
communities and most of his political campaigns, Robert Owen continued to work
for his "new moral order" until his death on 17th November, 1858.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRowen.htm
Frances Wright
(17951852) was a lecturer, writer, feminist, and utopian. Wright was born to a
wealthy family in Scotland; when she was orphaned at the age of three, she was
left with a substantial inheritance. Wright toured the United States with her
sister from 1818 to 1820 and became enamored with the young nation. She moved
to the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1825. Wright advocated
abolition, universal equality in education, and feminism. She also attacked
organized religion, greed, and capitalism. Along with Robert Owen, Wright
demanded that the government offer free boarding schools.
Wright was the
co-founder of Free Inquirer newspaper and authored Views of Society and Manners
in America (1821), A Few Days in Athens (1822), and Course of Popular Lectures
(1836). Wright became the first woman to lecture publicly before a mixed
audience when she delivered an Independence Day speech at New Harmony in 1828.
In 1825, Wright
founded the Nashoba Commune intending to educate slaves to prepare them for
freedom. Wright hoped build a self-sustaining multi-racial community of
comprised of slaves, free blacks, and whites. Nashoba was partially based on
Owen's New Harmony settlement, where Wright spent a significant amount of time.
Nashoba lasted until Wright became ill with malaria and moved back to Europe to
recover. The interim management of Nashoba was appalled by Wright's benevolent
approach to the slaves living in Nashoba; rumors spread of inter-racial
marriage and the Commune fell into financial difficulty, which eventually led
to its demise. In 1830, Wright freed the Commune's 30 slaves and accompanied
them to the newly-liberated nation of Haiti, where they could live their lives
as free men and women.
The modern-day
city of Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis, is located on the land on
which Wright situatated her community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Wright
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