American Radicals

Starred review from August 26, 2019
In this electric debut, Jackson, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, eschews presidents and generals to construct a mesmerizing story of people who committed themselves to a vision of the United States based on “collectivity, equality, and freedom,” who, she argues “built a tradition of radical resistance that would reshape American life.” Jackson focuses her attention on three areas—slavery and race, sex and gender, property and labor—bringing to life the activists who championed their causes. In the 1820s, Scottish aristocrat Frances Wright settled in the U.S. and established the Nashoba community to help enslaved people transition to freedom. At the same time, free black people in the North, led by men like James Forten, debated leaving the country to ensure their freedoms, and William Lloyd Garrison launched a decades-long abolition movement that provoked violent backlashes. A women’s rights movement emerged in the 1840s and 1850s, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Stephen Pearl Andrews and Mary Give Nichols promoted free-love doctrines that urged reevaluation of marriage and gender relations. Meanwhile, Albert Brisbane, a disciple of the French philosopher Charles Fourier, promoted a restructuring of industry that would benefit the working classes. Jackson’s perspective is both broad, encompassing lesser-known figures, and long, looking forward to these movements’ effects on later decades. This is essential reading for anyone interested in how the U.S. became what it is today. Illus.

September 1, 2019
Sturdy historical account of the contributions of 19th-century radical thinkers to the present. That most Americans, at least on paper, work an eight-hour day is a product of American labor activists who took on the cause as an extension of abolitionism. That women have the right to vote was an outgrowth of the feminism that similarly grew from abolitionism, while it was largely the labors of the son of socialist reformer Robert Owen "that made no-fault divorce accessible nationwide." So writes Jackson (History/Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston; American Blood: The Ends of the Family in American Literature, 1850-1900, 2013) in this overview of labor, political, and social activism throughout the 19th century. At the center of her story is Owen Sr., a wealthy British industrialist who saw in early America and its people "free and easy manners, the 'extreme equality' across classes, and their universal, near-fanatical engagement in politics as a form of social engineering." The author writes that the figures who populate her narrative, among them William Lloyd Garrison and Susan B. Anthony, "worked across three entwined fields: slavery and race; sex and gender; property and labor." Some of them would have been easily confused with the hippies of the 1960s while others were straitlaced in affect but fiery in effect. The great firebrand John Brown was neither, and while his raid at Harpers Ferry failed to incite a Nat Turner-like slave rebellion across the South--on that note, writes Jackson, Turner was the subject of gruesome remembrance, his "severed head...passed around for decades"--it did result in a hastening of Southern secession and with it the Union victory that led to abolition. The author's account moves swiftly and interestingly, though the argument is not entirely novel; Manisha Sinha gets at many of the same points in The Slave's Cause (2016). Still, Jackson's book merits attention as a study in what she calls "slow-release radicalism," with seeming failures that eventually turned into successes. A useful survey of American activism and its lasting repercussions.

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October 1, 2019

In her latest book, Jackson (English, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston; American Blood) explores how a diverse group of Americans aimed to re-create the nation based on a vision of collectivity, equality, and freedom. Radicals such as Fanny Wright, Henry David Thoreau, John Brown, and William Lloyd Garrison worked in several related and overlapping fields, becoming interested in topics such as birth control, prison reform, and religious beliefs. Many quickly realized these issues were inextricably linked to the issue of slavery. By their account, no true reform or realization of America's promise of equality for all could be achieved until the millions of men, women, and children were freed from their bonds. Once slavery ended, some radicals considered the fight won, while others argued that true equality could only be obtained once every last bit of injustice and prejudice was erased from American society. Drawing on a wide variety of printed and archival primary sources, Jackson delivers a forcefully argued and lyrical account of these varied movements, their successes and failures. VERDICT Readers interested in the history of social and radical movements, along with antebellum history, will find much to enjoy.--Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2019
As the new American republic stabilized in the nineteenth century, a number of voices began to understand the Declaration of Independence's assertions of liberty to extend to all persons. Among the first, Lafayette prot�g�e Fanny Wright created an uproar with her calls for the abolition of slavery, marriage, private property, and religion, provoking fears of miscegenation and atheism. Her efforts were soon followed by William Lloyd Garrison, who demanded slavery's outright abolition. John Humphrey Noyes' abolitionist sentiments went so far as to advocate government overthrow. Elizabeth Cady Stanton stood with Garrison on abolition but proceeded to advocate women's rights as parallel with Black rights. George Ripley left his Boston church to pursue his vision of a more Christ-like vocation on a communal farm. Dozens of other utopian communities sprang up across the expanding frontier. Physician Martin Delany started a Black nationalist movement. Jackson adeptly interweaves all these stories, connecting one radical thinker to another to show the sweep of progressive thought in the nineteenth century that continues to echo today. Abundantly detailing political movements and the characters who led them, this history appeals to a broad spectrum of readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)