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The Odyssey of William English Walling: Revisionism, Social Democracy, and Evolutionary Pragmatism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
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In the history of American socialism William English Walling occupies a special place. Born into a wealthy Midwestern family, Walling was educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard, but soon found a calling as a social reform activist when he learned first hand about the conditions of working people as an Illinois factory inspector and a habitué of turn-of-the-century social settlement houses and the Jewish ghetto scene. From that point forward Walling was a major influence wherever he directed his fertile mind and instinct for provoking controversy and precipitating new movements. In 1903, Walling helped found the National Women's Trade Union League and became president of its New York chapter. Six years later he cobbled together a group of anti-racist socialists to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – then invited W.E.B. DuBois to become editor of its journal, The Crisis.
- Type
- Essays
- Information
- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 2 , Special Issue 4: New Perspectives on Socialism II , October 2003 , pp. 403 - 430
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2003
References
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