Chapter 9: The Fabian Turtle Discovers America

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) becomes an unexpected bestseller and political catalyst. Bellamy, a frail, tubercular former journalist known for attacking “competitive industry,” produces what is described as a highly effective piece of propaganda.

The novel is labeled “a socialist romance which never once mentioned socialism.” ⚠️ Covert socialism via fiction. The Nation (March 29, 1888) praises it as “a glowing prophecy and gospel of peace,” judging it more radical than the proposals of Henry George.

Bellamy’s vision calls for making land and “all other investments equally unprofitable,” to be achieved through a “National Organization of Labor under a single direction.” Like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it promotes abolition—this time of “wage slavery.”

Selling “a thousand copies a day,” Bellamy becomes a symbolic leader. British Fabians assist in shaping the movement. Lawrence Gronlund’s The Cooperative Commonwealth (1884) repackages Marxism for American readers and is withdrawn to promote Bellamy’s novel. ⚠️ Marxism rebranded for U.S. audiences.

Marx and Engels are cited as believing revolution could proceed “peacefully” in the U.S. and Britain by exploiting free institutions. Early American socialism struggles due to German-language isolation, anarchist violence, and scandals involving “free love.”

Universities become key transmission points. Richard T. Ely and the American Economic Association (1885) promote municipal and national ownership ideas. Sydney Webb publishes through these academic networks, which include figures such as Woodrow Wilson.

Webb and Edward Pease visit in 1888, promoting gradualism. The Boston Bellamy Club reorganizes as the “Nationalist Club,” using patriotic language to conceal nationalization. Its declaration condemns “competition” as “brute,” praises trusts as proof of “practicability,” and urges industries to operate “in the interests of the nation.”

Chapter 10: Putting the Silk Hat on Socialism

The Bellamy movement expands rapidly. By November 1890 there are “158 nationalist clubs in 27 States,” concentrated in New York and California, which Gronlund calls “ripe for the Cooperative Commonwealth.”

The movement avoids former Confederate states and largely bypasses the Catholic Church. Bellamy presents nationalism as an American “Social Gospel,” not foreign radicalism. By February 1891 there are “165 chartered clubs” and “50 newspapers” offering support.

The Literary Digest (launched March 1890) treats Looking Backward favorably and reports socialism’s spread in British universities and churches, including the public role of Annie Besant.

Clubs are predominantly middle-class and New England–oriented, attracting figures such as William Dean Howells, Edward Everett Hale, Hamlin Garland, and theosophist John Storer Cobb. Many support socialist aims while remaining unaware of their Marxist foundations. ⚠️ Elite respectability enables “unconscious socialism.”

Women participate prominently, including Julia Ward Howe and Frances Willard. Meetings draw “the best people in town,” from luxury hotels to prominent synagogues.

Leadership rests with committed socialists: Bellamy, Gronlund, Elwood Pomeroy, and Rev. W.D.P. Bliss, who argues Christianity and socialism are compatible despite papal defenses of private property.

Nationalist clubs merge into the People’s Party in 1892 and soon collapse. Bellamy’s July 4, 1892 editorial predicts a new “Declaration of Independence” abolishing class distinctions, achieved “peaceably or forcibly.”

After anarchism is outlawed in 1894, socialism avoids prohibition. Nationalism has provided a “veneer of respectability”—“putting the silk hat on socialism.” Former nationalists go on to seed later socialist institutions.