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2003.
Recent Scholarship.
Journal of American History,
Vol. 90,
Issue. 3,
p.
1161.
Article contents
“The Workingman's Bible”: Robert Blatchford's Merrie England, Radical Literacy, and the Making of Debsian Socialism, 1895–1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
Extract
Turn-of-the-century socialists radicalized literacy. Unlike middle-class reformers, whose desire for mass literacy arose from the need for a hardworking, compliant workforce, socialists used it to undermine capitalism. Through their printed culture of dissent, they not only sought to transform individual lives, but an entire social system. They took up the task of using literacy to convert workers with a missionary zeal. Moral indignation fueled their crusade. In a nation of such wealth, they asked, why was it that so many industrious people did not have enough to provide themselves and their families with adequate food, clothing, and shelter? Their answer was that America's political and economic institutions had been corrupted by the nation's monied power. In their minds, only an enlightened, educated working-class could challenge the prerogatives of capital and make these institutions fully socially accountable to the people.
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- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 2 , Special Issue 3: New Perspectives on Socialism I , July 2003 , pp. 326 - 346
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- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2003
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