American Fabian Society

AMERICAN FABIAN SOCIETY. In the 1890s, with the coming collapse of populism and before the rise of the Socialist Party, small groups of Christian socialists organized to educate their peers to the value of a planned, just society. They looked first to England, where the Fabian Society of London, formed in 1884, was attracting such distinguished reformers as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Edward Carpenter, Havelock Ellis, Emmeline Pankhurst, and George Bernard Shaw. The society’s logo, a tortoise, represented their commitment to slow, gradual social transformation. Intrigued by this new organization, the American Christian socialist William Dwight Porter Bliss (1856-1926) traveled to London to survey the political scene.

By this time, W.D.P. Bliss, a son of Christian missionaries, stood at the center of a growing circle of Christian socialists in the United States. Leaving Congregationalism behind, he had become an Episcopal priest in 1887 and helped organize the Church of the Carpenter, a Boston inner-city mission. “We are not here to commence a revolution,” he explained. “We are here simply, quietly, humbly to consider the application to social problems of the old gospel of the carpenter who lived in Nazareth.” A Grand Master in the Knights of Labor, he waged an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts on the Union Labor party ticket. Bliss moved more comfortably among middle-class reformers. In 1889, he founded the Society of Christian Socialists in 1889 and began to publish The Dawn, a magazine promoting the belief that “He works with God who works for man.” A prolific writer and editor, Bliss explained that he “was made a Christian by Karl Marx, and a Socialist by Jesus Christ.”

Hoping to gain steam by widening his circle and, most of all, by unifying reformers, Bliss organized the first chapter of the American Fabian Society in Boston. He recruited from the elite of reformers. Edward Bellamy, George McNeill, William Dean Howells, and Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman) assisted in his new publication, the American Fabian, which appeared as a monthly magazine in February 1895. A large photo of William Morris appeared on the front page of the first issue, followed by reports of labor activism and socialist organizations in several American cities and in Europe. The lead editorial introduced readers to its mission: to provide a broad and practical conception of socialism and to unite the reform forces currently mobilizing. The magazine, Bliss explained, would serve mainly an educational purpose and only secondarily delve into politics. The second issue reprinted a woodcut by the British socialist Walter Crane illustrating the Garden of Eden as a classless society: “When Adam delved and Eve Span, who was then the gentleman.”

The American Fabian Society grew as a federation of local chapters, never many in number. Popular writer Laurence Gronlund oversaw developments in California, while chapters in New York City, Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Seattle, and prominently in Boston filled the ranks. Followers of Edward Bellamy, American Fabians promoted the nationalization and municipal ownership of systems of transportation, communication, and utilities. They also advanced a host of other campaigns, such as the eight-hour day, progressive taxation, postal savings banks, and woman suffrage. Their philosophical underpinnings incorporated a wide and eclectic range of principles, drawing in near equal portions from Thomas Jefferson and Karl Marx. Believing that labor did not receive its just share of wealth, they nevertheless placed the agency for change in the middle-class hands, convinced that workers lacked the requisite education to move forward.

American Fabians reached their high point in 1898 and two years later closed down their magazine. By 1902 most had moved on to other organizations and movements.

Frederick, Peter J. Knights of the Golden Rule: The Intellectual as Christian Social Reformer in the 1890s. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976.

Gilbert, James, “The American Fabian: An Introduction and Appraisal,” Labor History, II (Summer 1970), pp. 347-50.

Jenkin, Thomas P. “The American Fabian Movement,” Western Political Quarterly, 1( June 1948), pp. 113-123.

American Fabian, Vol 1-3, 1895-1897, Vol. 4-5, 1898-1900. Hathi Trust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000681324