scholarly journals “The true path to salvation”: Conversion to the Religion of Socialism in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ball
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Conversion Narrative ◽  
Upton Sinclair ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
True Path ◽  
Common Motif

The most common motif in early twentieth century radical literature is the conversion narrative. A variation on the bildungsroman, these works feature conversions to socialism or to the labor movement that are modeled on techniques used by evangelical revivalists and on the experiences of religious converts. The most widely read and emblematic radical authors to consistently employ this trope were Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Not only did London and Sinclair continually utilize the conversion story in their fiction and nonfiction, they both described their own discovery of socialism as a religious conversion. In their work, both authors diligently seek to conflate Christianity and socialism and to prove that, not only are the two compatible, but that authentic observance of Christianity demands the endorsement of socialism. London and Sinclair use their writing as a method of evangelism that aims to convince their audience that socialism is a religious enterprise and means to salvation.

scholarly journals “The true path to salvation”: Conversion to the Religion of Socialism in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ball
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Conversion Narrative ◽  
Upton Sinclair ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
True Path ◽  
Common Motif

The most common motif in early twentieth century radical literature is the conversion narrative. A variation on the bildungsroman, these works feature conversions to socialism or to the labor movement that are modeled on techniques used by evangelical revivalists and on the experiences of religious converts. The most widely read and emblematic radical authors to consistently employ this trope were Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Not only did London and Sinclair continually utilize the conversion story in their fiction and nonfiction, they both described their own discovery of socialism as a religious conversion. In their work, both authors diligently seek to conflate Christianity and socialism and to prove that, not only are the two compatible, but that authentic observance of Christianity demands the endorsement of socialism. London and Sinclair use their writing as a method of evangelism that aims to convince their audience that socialism is a religious enterprise and means to salvation.

Rooted in Place, Constructed in Movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Sonia Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Nuevo Leon ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Since the turn of the twentieth century, men and women from the greater Mexican borderlands have shared labor concerns, engaged in labor solidarities, and employed activist strategies to improve their livelihoods. Based on findings from archival research in Mexico City, Washington, DC; Texas; Tamaulipas; and Nuevo León and by engaging in transnational methodological and historiographical approaches, this article takes two distinct but related cases of labor solidarities from the early twentieth century to reveal the class and gendered complexities of transnational labor solidarities. The cases of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican farmer and immigrant from Tamaulipas living and working in Texas in 1901, and Caritina Piña, a Tamaulipas-born woman engaged in anarcho-syndicalism in the 1920s, reveal the potential of cross-class and gendered solidarities and underscore how a variety of social contexts informed and shaped labor movements. Excavating solidarities from a transnational perspective while exposing important limitations of the labor movement sheds light on the gendered, racial, and class complexities of such forms of shared struggle; but, equally important, reminds us of how much one can learn about the power of larger, global labor movements by closely examining the experiences of those residing on nations’ edges.

scholarly journals Revolutionary Migrants of the Early Labor Movement in Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Istria in the Late Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-102
Author(s):  
Luka Pejić
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Heterogeneous Labor ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Cross Border Cooperation

In the late nineteenth century, prompted by uneven industrial development, the predominantly agrarian regions of Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Istria were slowly undergoing processes of urbanization and economic transformation. As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, these regions were subject to dynamic migrations of the labor force from several regions and neighboring countries. Industrialization was the crucial impetus behind the formation of the first working-class organizations and syndicates, but their development, their socio-political goals, and the strategies they employed were heavily influenced by socialist theoreticians and agitators from Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Italy. This ideologically heterogeneous labor movement depended on cross-border cooperation with different individuals and collectives, ranging from Hungarian Marxists and Austrian social democrats to Italian anarchists. Even though unions and subversive pamphlets were illegal and closely monitored, migratory activists continued to agitate and collaborate with local workers through various underground channels. This paper will analyze various ideological inputs of migratory workers within the area that is now present-day Croatia during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. It will also examine the perception of their presence and activism articulated by political authorities and mainstream newspapers. Due to a lack of similar research, emphasis will be placed, to some extent, on anarchist activities in this area.

scholarly journals Alexander Robertson, Scottish Social Theology and Low-caste Hindu Reform in Early Twentieth-century Colonial India

2015 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Constable
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Western India ◽  
Material Development ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religion And Ethnicity ◽  
At Home

This article analyses the social theology and practice of Scottish presbyterian missionaries towards hinduism in early twentieth-century western India. It reveals a radical contrast in Scottish missionary practice and outlook with the earlier activities of Alexander Duff (1806–78) in India from 1829 to 1864 as well as with contemporaneous discourse on non-christian religion and ethnicity which was prevalent at home in Scotland. The article argues that Scottish presbyterian missionaries selectively adapted and elaborated radical social theology from late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Scotland to deal with the hindu socio-religious out-casting and economic exploitation that they experienced during their christian proselytisation in early twentieth-century western India. In particular, the article analyses the social theology of the United Free Church missionary Reverend Alexander Robertson, who lived and worked in western India from 1902 to 1937. Robertson sought to re-invent and apply radical Scottish social theology to the material development and religious conversion of Dalit or impoverished out-caste hindu populations in western India. The article also contrasts this Scottish missionary social theology and practice with the secular Edwardian Liberal ideas of Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree (1871–1954), which Robertson's colleague and colonial administrator, Harold H. Mann (1872–1961) sought to implement towards Dalit people when he was Agricultural Chemist of Bombay Presidency after 1907 and Director of Agriculture for the Bombay Presidency in Pune from 1918 to 1927. In this context, the article argues more broadly that popular Orientalist discourse on non-christian religion and ethnicity at home in Scotland and perceptions of a subordinate Scottish relationship with the London metropole conceal the radical dimensions of Scottish identity within empire and the ways in which the interaction of radical practices between imperial peripheries like Scotland and India conditioned imperial development.

Some Polish Composers of To-Day

Tempo ◽  
1948 ◽  
pp. 25-28
Author(s):  
Andrzej Panufnik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Fertile Soil ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Progressive Group ◽  
Karol Szymanowski

It is ten years since KAROL SZYMANOWSKI died at fifty-four. He was the most prominent representative of the “radical progressive” group of early twentieth century composers, which we call “Young Poland.” In their manysided and pioneering efforts they prepared the fertile soil on which Poland's present day's music thrives.

V1214: Edward Loughborough Keyes: An Early Twentieth Century Leader In Urology

2004 ◽  
Vol 171 (4S) ◽  
pp. 320-320
Author(s):  
Peter J. Stahl ◽  
E. Darracott Vaughan ◽  
Edward S. Belt ◽  
David A. Bloom ◽  
Ann Arbor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document