Socialism and Print Culture in America, 1897–1920
Jason D Martinek
The History of the Book
978 1 84893 334 7: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 84893 335 4
For socialists at the turn of the last century, reading was a radical act. This interdisciplinary study looks at how American socialists used literacy in the struggle against capitalism. The early Presidential campaigns of Eugene V Debs – leader of the Socialist Party – produced a concerted effort to develop a socialist literature specifically for an American readership. There followed a rapid growth in printed material which helped the movement in its rise to prominence, however, Martinek contends that this over-reliance on the printed word was also to be instrumental in its subsequent downfall.
Readership
History of the Book, Social and Political History and American Studies
Contents
1 The 'Wokingman's Bible': Robert Blatchford's Merrie England and the Making of American Socialism
2 The Business of Social Protest: Charles H Kerr and Company and the Subterranean World of Radical Publishing
3 Selling Socialism: The Rank and File Hawkers of Socialist Literature
4 The Struggle Over the Press: The Socialist Party and its Rejection of a Party-Owned Press
5 Annotations on the Failure of Socialism in America: Reading at the Margins of John Spargo's Socialism