Book reviewed: American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation, by Holly Jackson

The network of dissent after American Revolution

A new network of dissent appeared in the New World about fifty years after American Revolution. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America. One of them was heiress Frances Wright, whose critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point. Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher, espoused the need to morally resist the actions of an unjust state. Thoreau was a leading figure in the movement along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Abagail Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. They were illustrious sons and daughters of Massachusetts. One of the highlights of Alcott family including author Louisa May Alcott was their belief that all people are born equal. They were ardent abolitionists and fighters for equal rights. The future of suffrage movement that paved the way for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that granted American women the right to vote, a right commonly known as women's suffrage was born out of passion for equality in Alcott household. Another figure which I liked in this book was about Frances Wright. In the late 1820s, Wright was the first woman to speak publicly before men and women about political and social reforms. She advocated for universal education, the emancipation of slaves, birth control, equal rights, sexual freedom, legal rights for married women, and liberal divorce laws. She expressed against organized religion and capital punishment. William Lloyd Garrison and Susan B. Anthony fought against slavery, racism, gender equality in family and labor laws. They were firebrand hippies of the 1960s era but operating in middle of 19th century America.

Socialists of early America deeply believed that the new nation was heading in the wrong direction. This part of American history with its fragile political and economic system was breaking away from its experiments of throwing British out of the country. The American dream was rapidly disappearing; only a few privileged families had this for real. Very few dared to question this as the political and economic climate was developing into a catastrophe.

Professor Manisha Sinha of UConn documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology of abolition in the Unites States. Her work takes a much broader look at its impact since it was a successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection against French colonial rule. However, it was an expensive experiment since European colonists retaliated against Haiti with economic isolation.

In this book, University of Massachusetts Professor Holly Jackson walks us through these pages about liberals and antiestablishment figures who fought to change the American institution. Professor Jackson teaches American literature and antiestablishment movements in early America at UMASS, Boston has a smooth and engaging style of narrating her story. I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in American history and social movements in 1800s that was dominated by abolition, suffrage, and equality.