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IntroductionAfter months of preparation, it is with great pleasure that weunveil the twenty-sixth edition of the Historical Discourses, McGill’sundergraduate journal of history. Given the academic excellence regularlyexhibited by history students, and our journal’s perennial mission toshowcase the best historical works written in the department, our taskas editors was daunting. In order to select ten essays from over onehundred submissions, we chose to adhere to Oscar Wilde’s credo, whichwe believed especially befitting of our journal: “The one duty we oweto history is to rewrite it.” Although the journal was lucky to receive anincredible amount of excellent submissions, the ten essays included inthis year’s edition stood out for their outstanding creativity, analysis ofprimary sources and overall contribution to the field of history. Thesepapers are a testament to the hard work and dedication of McGillhistory students and we are proud to be able to showcase them for you.We could not have put this journal together were it not for thehelp of a number of key people and organizations. We would liketo thank the History Students’ Association, the Arts UndergraduateSociety and the Student Society of McGill University for theirgenerous financial support. A big thank you also needs to go to oureditorial team, our layout, and our artistic staff, without whom wecould not have published this year’s journal. Finally, we are indebtedto all the professors from the history department who continue tohelp guide and inspire their students to achieve academic excellence.Jean-Robert LalancetteAlexandra WapiaEditors-in-ChiefMarch 2012

Utopian Dreamers:Edward Bellamy and the Canadian ContextMatthew VasilevIn 1887 Edward Bellamy, an unlikely newspaper journalist fromChicopee Falls, Massachusetts, penned a literary fantasy titled LookingBackward: 2000 - 1887. During its second year of publication demand forthe book exploded. More than 200,000 copies were sold by 1890 and salessteadily increased in the following years. In fact, these sales numbers weresecond only to Beatrice Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Bellamy’s story hadstruck a chord in the nation’s conscience: by writing a novel, he foundeda movement. Hundreds of Nationalist clubs sprouted across the countryto spread his ideas and books. These groups soon sought political forreforms to enlarge state ownership of resources, utilities, and services.Historians of Canada, perhaps put off by the novel genre, have rarelydignified Looking Backward with more than passing mention despitethe fact that Bellamy was widely read and avidly taken up throughoutlate-Victorian Canada. In fact, the only scholarly article on the topic ofBellamy and Canada focuses on the 1930s and the revival of his ideasduring the Great Depression.1 As this study will show, Bellamy’s ideaswere present in Canada before the 1930s since they intersected withthe labour reform movement, the social gospel, and utopian colonies.Canadians read and used Bellamy in much the same way as the Americansdid, so I will begin by surveying that initial American reception.Part One: The Story of Julian West and the Birth of the AmericanNationalist MovementBefore 1887, Utopian literature remained a marginal subgenre of

2Matthew Vasilevthe highly popular romance novels. Within ten years of the publicationof Looking Backward, more than one hundred utopian works were writtenin the United States.2 Bellamy’s book, however, was not the cause. Instead,this utopian literary explosion was fuelled by demand for answers,solutions, and ideas on how to overcome the perceived catastropheapproaching North American society. Bellamy’s book was simply themost successful at tapping into this widespread anxiety. These turbulenttwo decades witnessed immense technological changes, great economicdevastation from international market collapses, and violent conflictbetween capital and labour. Nineteenth century society was being rapidlytransformed by new technologies, lay wounded by international marketcollapses and was under constant threat of violent clashes between capitaland labour. Not only did these industrial strikes displace and dislocateworkers and families but also almost everybody was reading about themdue to the mass proliferation of newspaper. The leading social riddlesof the day like “The Labor Question,” “The Women Question,” and even“The Servant Girl Question” confronted readers and provoked rigorousdebates in the editorial pages of newspapers. Utopian novels addressedthese leading questions by transporting readers to new realities wheredramatic change, a grand theory, or a significant event had solvedthe great social problems confronting society. In Bellamy’s vision thecomplete transformation of civilization was easy and above all, peaceful.Looking Backward tells the tale of a modern Rip Van Winkle. JulianWest, a wealthy insomniac whom, with the help of his hypnotist, fallsinto a deep sleep one night in Boston in 1887. His insomnia is evidently aphysiological symptom of the feverish social unrest disturbing the moralconscience of the middle classes of the late nineteenth century. During this“great business crisis,” America is crippled by “disturbances of industry” asthe “working classes had suddenly and very generally become infected witha profound discontent with their condition, and an idea that it could begreatly bettered if they only knew how to go about it.”3 West’s only sanctuaryfrom the social unrest surrounding his suburban home is his soundproof

Utopian Dreamers3vault. However, his retreat from the “nervous tension of the public mind,”is also a flight from history itself since West sleeps until the year 2000.West is revived by Dr. Leete who acts as both as host and interpreterof the new society to the protagonist and the nineteenth century reader.The novel proceeds as a long series of discussions between West and Leeteon the history and development of the new world order as well as a tourof Boston’s new superstructure. In this new social order, society has beenreorganized along the lines of Nationalism—state ownership of all formsof production—which has produced tremendous material wealth whichwas distributed evenly. A host of technological innovations have alsofreed men and women from the cumbersome labour to which they wereonce bound. The real miracle of production, however, was achieved byunlocking the boundless potential of human energy through cooperationrather than competition. The linchpin to Bellamy’s visionary futureis the creation of the Industrial Army, a Prussian-inspired and tightlydisciplined workforce regulated by a national corporate bureaucracy. Allcitizens are conscripted at the age of twenty-one, yet are free to choosetheir line of work, while employment and education are made birthrights.The peaceful transformation from industrial capitalism to statesocialism was brought about, ironically, “thanks to the corporationsthemselves.” Dr. Leete explains to West that “the absorption of business byever larger monopolies continued,” and widened the gap between the richand poor. However, the “prodigious increase of efficiency” revealed by thesegreat consolidations of capital could not be ignored.4 The logical evolutionwas completed by the final consolidation of the entire capital ofthe nation. [.] The nation, that is to say, organized as the onegreat business corporation in which all other corporations wereabsorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all othercapitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which allprevious all previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up,a monopoly in the profits and economies of which all citizensshared. The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great Trust.5

4Matthew VasilevMost importantly, this trajectory was peaceful “without great bloodshedand terrible convulsions.” Public opinion welcomed the transformationrather than rejected it. “The once bitter identification with the greatcorporations changed once their necessity was realized as a link, atransitional phase, in the evolution of the true industrial system.”6This sudden awakening of the American public is the closestBellamy comes to describing how the transformation from 19th centuryindustrial capitalism to utopian Nationalism could be achieved.He hoped his book would help in this great awakening, but soonrecognized that more effort would be required. After endorsing theinitiative of several Boston theosophists, Bellamy quickly took partin launching a nationwide movement of establishing Nationalistclubs to debate and promote the new way forward. Who were theseactive supporters and why were they so receptive to Bellamy’s ideas?Significantly, nowhere in the book does Bellamy use the word‘socialism’ in association with this new world order despite its very overtsimilarities. Instead he described his vision as “Nationalism,” a term looselyassociated with patriotism and pride rather than subversion and violence.By 1887, Socialism had acquired a violent overtone amongst the middleand upper classes in part due to memories of the bloodshed that resultedfrom the Paris Commune in 1871, and more recent and much closer tohome, the Haymarket Affair which shook the nation in May 1886.7 At theheight of the eight-hour movement a group of anarchists were accused ofthrowing a bomb into a crowd of policemen who were attempting to breakup a demonstration in Chicago. For decades after the Haymarket Affair,socialism was equated with violence in the United States. In order todistance his ideas from these associations Bellamy deliberately dismissesthe radicals and socialists as hindrances in the construction of Nationalism.Leete stresses, “the red flag party” almost sabotaged the entire enterprisebecause its assorted anarchists and communists “were paid by the greatmonopolies to wave the red flag and talk about burning, sacking, andblowing up, in order, by alarming the timid, to head off any real reforms.”8

Utopian Dreamers5In suggesting a new way forward free from radical change andviolent revolution Bellamy was reaching out to the middle classes whoanxiously observed the conflict between capital and labour but were notversed in writings of Karl Marx or Lawrence Gronlund, author of TheCooperative Commonwealth. He was not the first enlightened thinkerto reach out to this broad and highly diverse class of people. Severalimportant movements had preceded Bellamy with similar visions ofeconomic equality and social solidarity. These were advocates of HenryGeorge’s Single Tax, industrial workers organized into Local Assemblies ofthe Knights of Labor, and spiritual reformers who preached the Doctrineof Theosophy. Popular participation in these movements signalled adeeper dissatisfaction with two party politics and the limits of reform. Forthese activists society’s major problems were not the shortcomings of asingle political party but deeper symptoms of a corrupt economic system.By challenging the economic foundations of capitalism or questioningthe spiritual fabric of modern society, these movements enabledBellamy’s success by awakening a spirit of reform he was able to harness.One of the earliest social panaceas offered was Henry George’s SingleTax. In 1879 Henry George published Progress and Poverty, an economictreatise that proposed the abolition of all existing property taxes andtariffs and replacing them with a “single tax” on the unimproved valueof the land. The idea was to stimulate industry and development andsimultaneously prevent land speculation in previously unsettled areas.The Single Tax movement was remarkable because of its capacity to appealacross culture and class, as well as both urban and rural constituencies.9Readers of George had come to a more thorough understandingof the fallacies of orthodox free-market capitalist economics. Moreimportantly, the proposed solution was simple: tax land, not industry.He was, however, rather ambiguous whether this reform would amountto the abolition of the private ownership of land as a legal institution.According to George, private property would be abolished throughpublic ownership not of the land itself but of the land’s value. Owners

6Matthew Vasilevwould thus retain possession but not the proprietorship of the land’svalue.10 For some single tax supporters this was understood as practicalfiscal policy, for others it was land nationalization in disguise.11 Thesingle taxers who had already accepted the idea of land nationalizationthrough George easily identified with Bellamy’s Nationalist programme.Thanks to George’s ambiguity and these different interpretations,the single tax was adopted in various municipalities across NorthAmerica. His ideas, however, were rarely implemented to their fullest.Within the urban setting, many proponents of both Bellamy’sNationalism and of George’s Single Tax had participated in the earlyindustrial union movement headed by the Holy and Noble Order of theKnights of Labor. Born in Philadelphia in 1869, the Knights of Laborreached its peak membership in 1887 with over 700,000 membersacross Canada and the United States.12 The Order comprised of mainlysemi-skilled and unskilled members of the “producing classes” from allindustries. Their purpose was twofold; it was to organize and to educateworkers of the world. Industrial workers were organized along vocationallines into local assemblies where they would raise their collective concernsand share ideas of reform. Through these assemblies, Henry George’swritings and other social criticism were recommended to members andstocked in Assembly libraries.13 However, by the time Bellamy’s book wasin peak circulation between 1889 and 1890, the Knights of Labor werein swift decline across the United States and Canada.14 Bellamy’s utopianvision of an Industrial Army united by the Brotherhood of Solidarityspoke volumes to their collective and idealist ethos and attractedmany Knights and former Knights to his cause throughout the 1890s.When Looking Backward was published in 1888 the first group torespond to Bellamy were theosophists from his own locality, Boston. TheTheosophy Society was founded in 1875 in New York City to advancespiritual principles and the search for truth in the occult and easternreligions. They were a very inclusive organization that sought to “forma nucleus of universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction

Utopian Dreamers7of race, creed, sex, or caste.” Within six months of the publication ofLooking Backward, two theosophists, Cyrus Willard and SylvesterBaxter, approached Bellamy separately about the prospect of forming aNationalist Club in Boston.15 Interestingly, half of the founding officers ofthe first Nationalist club were theosophists. In Looking Backward, they sawthe material realization of the harmony and brotherly love that theosophypreached. Bellamy’s emphasis on the role of an enlightened elite in liftingmen from moral degradation paralleled their own vision.16 However, thisgoal of universal brotherhood was the extent of their commonalities.Theosophists were less interested in the practical trappings of a centralizedbureaucracy promised by Bellamy’s future than the potential his novel toexpose the spiritual injustice perpetrated by modern industrial capitalism.Bellamy’s message quickly moved beyond theosophists. Withina year, a host of urban reformers—single tax advocates, socialists, andformer Knights of Labor—took up the cause and established NationalistClubs across the United States. These clubs worked to spread theliterature and ideas of Nationalism. In May 1889, the movement’s ownnewspaper, the Nationalist, began publication. By December 1889,over 200,000 copies of Looking Backward had sold while 69,000 copiesof the Nationalist had circulated.17 1890 witnessed an active growth ofthis first phase of education and proselytizing, as the numbers of clubsand associations mushroomed throughout the year. In January, therewere 44 clubs in 14 states and the District of Columbia. By May, therewere 110 clubs across the United States, in December, the numberof clubs climbed to 158 and finally peaked at 165 in February 1891.18The second phase of the movement was marked by the appearanceof a second Nationalist periodical, the New Nation, in January 1891.19This new publication quickly eclipsed the Nationalist which was seenas limited in ambition and audience and ceased publication threemonths later. By moving away from the Nationalist towards the NewNation, Bellamy was also leaving behind his theosophist supporterswho had hoped for a regeneration of society outside of the corrupt and

8Matthew Vasilevcorrupting world of politics. The New Nation advocated precisely that,political participation and organization. Bellamy took on the role of chiefeditor of the new journal and sought to engage the “thinking classes”of America to join the movement towards government ownership andcontrol of industry. A consistent feature of the publication was a sectiondevoted to debating the benefits of Nationalism with different membersof society – the business man, the farmer, the teacher, among manyothers – and urging them to join the movement.20 In another sectionof the journal directed at consolidating support for the movement,Bellamy looked with approval upon any municipal reform that pointedtoward Nationalism in what he called “gas and water socialism.”21Under this new political orientation, Bellamy closely followed theemerging Peoples’ Party, commonly known as the Populists. They differedsignificantly from a typical political party since they were more of a coalitionof reform organizations ranging from farmers’ associations, labourorganizations, women’s groups, than an array of nonconformists includingurban radicals, tax and currency reformers, prohibitionists, middle classutopians, spiritual innovators, and miscellaneous iconoclasts.22 This thirdparty force emerged from the increasingly powerful Farmers’ Alliance andits kindred associations which numbered in the millions during the 1880sand 90s.23 These agrarian populists were seeking to forge a reform coalitionwith labour and in doing so attracted the attention of many Nationalists.Many populists had already been won over to the Single Tax plan as apractical fiscal scheme to yield immediate benefits. However, Bellamy’svision was a bit startling for some of the farm reformers because of thethreat of the disappearance of the private farm enterprise in Bellamy’scollectivist future.24 The Farmers Alliance sought agricultural cooperativesin order to help level economic playing field and were not interested instate-run collectivization.25 The two groups managed to find commonground in their insistence on government ownership of railroads.Although Nationalists viewed such a move as the first step to completegovernment ownership of industry, Alliance farmers tended to draw the

Utopian Dreamers9line at the railroad.26 Such tentative agreement was nonetheless enough forthe two groups to work together under the banner of the Peoples’ Party.More importantly, many leaders of the state Peoples’ Parties werealso ardent Nationalists and promoted Bellamy’s work in the pages of theirofficial organs. Thanks to this fervent fellowship, Bellamy’s work enjoyedtremendous popularity in the Midwest and California.27 When thePeoples’ Party hosted its national convention in Omaha on July 4, 189

Historical Discourses is published annually by McGill University undergraduate history students. All essays become property of Historical Discourses and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the authors. Discours historiques est publié chaque année par les étud