Leonard Abbott | |
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| Born | (1878-05-20)May 20, 1878 |
| Died | March 19, 1953(1953-03-19) (aged 74) New York City, U.S. |
| Known for | Stelton Colony,Ferrer Association |
| Political party | Socialist |
| Relatives | Clinton Gilbert Abbott (brother) |
Leonard Abbott (May 20, 1878 – March 19, 1953) was an anarchist and socialist best known for co-founding theStelton Colony and relatedFerrer Association in the 1910s.
Leonard Abbott was born inLiverpool on May 20, 1878, to an American expatriate family. His father was a metal merchant in the British city for an American firm.[1] Raised and schooled in England, Abbott attended the upper-class, publicUppingham School.[2] Having readThomas Paine'sThe Age of Reason in his youth, Abbott eschewed college, whose tuition his family could have afforded, and chose to pursue social issues and a conventional career as a magazine editor upon immigrating to the United States in 1898.[3] He wrote forThe Literary Digest and later became associate editor ofCurrent Digest,[2] which he served for a quarter century.[4]
Abbott was radicalized through the free speech movement in theProgressive Era, as anarchists were repressed theircivil liberties.[5] He would later become theFree Speech League's president after 1907.[4] Abbott met the anarchistEmma Goldman soon after immigrating[3] and turned towards libertarianism via his friend, theindividualist anarchistJ. William Lloyd. The two publishedFree Comrade sporadically between 1900 and 1912.[2]
Simultaneously, Abbott served multiple organizations for social causes. Influenced byWilliam Morris, Abbott joined the executive board of theSocialist Party of America in 1900 and the founding board of theRand School of Social Science in 1906.[4] He introducedUpton Sinclair to socialism in 1902 with an edition ofWilshire's Magazine.[2] At the turn of the century, Abbott wrote on socialism in America for theBritish Labour Annual, helped with a socialist publication based in Chicago, and would continue to write pamphlets and for multiple other publications over the remainder of his career.[4]
Moved by the execution ofFrancisco Ferrer in 1909, Abbott edited a volume about Ferrer's life and became the public face of the anarchist New YorkFerrer Association. His British accent and aristocratic manners made him an unlikely yet successful advocate for radical politics. But Abbott became best known as a leader of the New JerseyFerrer Colony, which he helped to split from the Association in 1916 following its 1914 move.[2] His abilities to summarize and popularize were among his talents.[6]
As the anarchism movement ebbed, Abbott moved to socialism in 1917.[6] While Abbott followed anarchism as a social philosophy and believed in its liberatory fight against oppression,[2] historianLaurence Veysey wrote that Abbott vacillated between socialism and anarchism and never committed fully to the latter.[3] In the middle of the Ferrer affair, Abbott wrote that radical ideas stirred his spirit, and he pursued them almost impulsively, but he believed in principles of self-development and individualism on balance with conservative values, such as self-sacrifice. He wrote that he wanted to feel his radical beliefs with greater ardor.[5]
In the 1930s, Abbott worked for theWorks Progress Administration inWashington, D.C. He died in New York City on March 19, 1953.[2][7]
Abbott named his daughter, who died in infancy in 1914, after the anarchistVoltairine de Cleyre.[6]
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