Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century

614 Pages·2016·6.42 MB·English

by  Andrew Cornell

Unruly Equality
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of
the Valerie Barth and Peter Booth Wiley Endowment Fund in
History of the University of California Press Foundation.
Unruly Equality
U.S. ANARCHISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Andrew Cornell
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished
university presses in the United States, enriches lives around
the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social
sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by
the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions
from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit
www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2016 by The Regents of the University of California Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cornell, Andrew,
1977– author.
Unruly equality : U.S. anarchism in the twentieth
century / Andrew Cornell.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-28673-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-
0-520-28675-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-520-96184-
5 (ebook) 1. Anarchism–United States—History—20th
century. I. Title. II. Title: U.S. anarchism in the
twentieth century.
HX843.C667 2016
335’.8309730904—dc23
2015022451
Manufactured in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally
responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has
printed this book on Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30%
post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
For Ellie
I am undertaking something which may turn
out to be a résumé of the English speaking
anarchist movement in America and I am
appalled at the little I know about it after
my twenty years of association with
anarchists both here and abroad.
W.S. VAN VALKENBURGH
Letter to Agnes Inglis, 1932
From the start, anarchism was an open
political philosophy, always transforming
itself in theory and practice. . . . Yet when
people are introduced to anarchism today,
that openness, combined with a cultural
propensity to forget the past, can make it
seem a recent invention—without an elastic
tradition, filled with debates, lessons, and
experiments to build on.
CINDY MILSTEIN
Anarchism and Its Aspirations, 2010
Librarians have an “academic” sense, and
can’t bear to throw anything away! Even
things they don’t approve of. They acquire a
historic sense. At the time a hand-bill may
be very “bad!” But the following day it
becomes “historic.”
AGNES INGLIS
Letter to Highlander Folk School, 1944
To keep on repeating the same attempts
without an intelligent appraisal of all the
numerous failures in the past is not to
uphold the right to experiment, but to insist
upon one’s right to escape the hard facts of
social struggle into the world of wishful
belief. We grant such a right to the weak,
the infirm, to the tired radical, to the
escapists. But we do deny such a right to
the revolutionary whose main weapon is an
unflagging will and an unblunted sense of
reality.
Vanguard: A Libertarian Communist
Journal, 1934
CONTENTS
List of Tables and Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I THE DECLINE OF CLASSICAL ANARCHISM
1 • Anarchist Apogee, 1916
2 • The Red and Black Scare, 1917–1924
3 • A Movement of Defense, of Emergency, 1920–1929
4 • The Unpopular Front, 1930–1939
PART II THE RISE OF CONTEMPORARY ANARCHISM
5 • Anarchism and Revolutionary Nonviolence, 1940–1948
6 • Anarchism and the Avant-Garde, 1942–1956
7 • Anarchism and the Black Freedom Movement, 1955–1964