Missing Pieces

Two important pieces of the history of the Northampton Association are intentionally left out of the curriculum for practical purposes. Your students are already presenting multi-layered history on their walking tour as independent learners, asking them to fold these additional layers of history into their self-styled narratives is simply asking too much of them. These topics must be discussed in depth – any mention of them in passing creates more confusion than clarity. They are best presented to students in teacher-led sessions after their walking tour. Your students’ deep knowledge of the cast of characters at the Northampton Association will help them make better sense of these compelling, missing pieces of the story.

THE SCHISM

On January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison launched his weekly abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, with these famous words: “I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, AND I WILL BE HEARD!”

Garrison’s was a “voice in the wilderness” in challenging the “evil” of slavery in the young republic this way. He stood on the shoulders of David Walker, an outspoken Black fellow Bostonian who refused to compromise on the issue of ending slavery. Free Blacks living in the North subscribed to The Liberator and formed the base of this nascent cause.

Garrison and his supporters were termed “radical abolitionists” mostly because they were “immediatists”. They declared slavery was an unalloyed evil that could not be phased out over time for the sake of political or economic expediency. They also rejected colonization and slave-owner compensation schemes and stood for rewarding all African-Americans full rights of citizenship under the U.S. Constitution.

In 1833, like-minded abolitionists founded the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) that sent speakers across the North to enlist their fellow citizens in the cause to end slavery. The speakers encountered hostile, often violent opposition to their message; they also developed a burgeoning cadre of dedicated supporters spread across cities and towns. This was a political success story: by the end of the decade, they were a force to be reckoned with. (See Burleigh Source Packet)

William Lloyd Garrison was a product of America’s Second Great Awakening. He burned with moral indignation at the plight of his enslaved brethren. His purpose was to sear his fellow citizens with the harsh truth and compel them toward making defensible choices.

The abolitionists’ message often provoked a violent reaction. Garrison responded by invoking Christ’s admonition in his Sermon on the Mount: “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” He modelled a non-violent response to personal attack. His followers then expanded their definition of violence to include what they called “coercion”: being told what to do by authority figures such as church ministers and politicians. As true “non-resistants”, they opted to leave their church congregations (see Benson Source Packet) and refused to participate in the political process. It didn’t help that they viewed both the organized church and state as “corrupted” by the influence of powerful slave owners. “No compromise with slaveholders” was expanded to no compromise with those who compromised with slaveholders.

The abolitionist movement evolved as it grew in strength and numbers. The Garrisonians pointed to the complicity of the North in the profits of slavery and thereby incurred the wrath of its political, business and church leaders. They responded by adhering more closely to their non-resistant principles. They also noted who their principle supporters were in the face of growing adversity: Free Blacks and women. They never wavered in their commitment to political and economic rights for all African-Americans due in part to this constituency.

Over time, women became the backbone of the abolitionist movement. They were among its principle organizers and fundraisers and then communicators using the written and spoken word. Lydia Maria Child and Sojourner Truth were prime examples of this. Female abolitionists began to make note of rights they were denied as women in Northern society and the Garrisonians stood by them. As women assumed leadership positions and became more visible in the movement, mainstream America recoiled once again. The difference this time, was that by 1840 many more mainstream Americans supported anti-slavery but did not necessarily support women’s rights or the principles of non-resistance.

The growing tension within the abolitionist movement set the stage for what they referred to as “The Schism” in 1840. A rival splinter group walked out of the AAS annual meeting that year over the nomination of feminist Abby Kelley to a leadership position. The anti-feminists walked across the street to form a new anti-slavery organization. The rival groups were referred to as New Organization and Old Organization abolitionists respectively – “New Org” and “Old Org” for short.

This was a bitter split. Abolitionists who had fought side by side under adverse conditions were now at odds. The more conservative New Org saw the expanded role for women as a violation of their “Christian values”. They saw the dismissal of church and political authority as a move toward “anarchy”. They advocated working from within established institutions to end slavery and assessed Garrison’s tactics as immoral, impractical and largely counter-productive.

The Old Org sensed they were being purged from a movement they had started. They felt shunted aside by more “establishment” figures within the movement with access to money and political power. They renewed their commitment to pursuing “truth at any cost” even if it put them outside the mainstream. A surprising number of abolitionists stood by them and the movement was evenly split. Many prominent African-American abolitionists, including David Ruggles and Frederick Douglass, were exasperated by internal struggles over doctrine and tactics and chose a third path as “practical abolitionists”, attending to the immediate needs of their community.

The decisive split in the abolitionist movement in 1840 directly impacted the formation of the Northampton Association in 1842. The founders of the Association stood firmly on the side of the Old Org abolitionists – George Benson was one of Garrison’s closest friends. Most of the founders lived in Connecticut, which quickly moved into the New Org camp, and they set out to find a new home base in friendlier territory. They purchased property in “the wilds of western Massachusetts” and formed a community that modelled Garrisonian ideals.

Interestingly, downtown Northampton became an important hub of New Org abolitionist activity. Key national figures like the Tappan brothers and Joshua Leavitt had connections there. Wealthy downtown businessmen like the Williston brothers and Samuel Hopkins were active, outspoken New Org abolitionists. They stood in sharp contrast with what was happening at the Association in Florence. This development, within the same town of Northampton, creates a study in microcosm of what was at stake here.

This is complex but important history to share with your students. It is an opportunity to introduce them to feminism and pacifism. It addresses questions that arise when people come together in a democracy to challenge a societal problem: What is the best way to reach the most people and create meaningful change? Should change be reached for incrementally? Do you best influence power from inside or outside of dominant institutions? When do you choose solidarity with a worthwhile but unpopular cause over political expediency? Do you want a “top-down”, centralized organization, or a “bottom-up”, democratically-run organization?

“The Schism” lends itself to a teacher-led session after students have completed their walking tour. It could form the topic of a lively and informative in-class debate using this suggested prompt: “Slavery was an unalloyed evil that had to be outlawed as soon as possible. It generated huge profits and was made the law of the land. What kind of organization was best suited to creating the changes needed to end slavery? One organized along Old Org or New Org principles?

Source: Henry Mayer, All On Fire (New York: St. Martin’s Griffen, 1998)

THE COUP

Textile mills in New England primarily launched America’s Industrial Revolution. Wealthy trade merchants invested in emerging technologies that turned slave-grown cotton into something everyone wanted: cheap, durable and comfortable clothing. Every phase of textile production was increasingly consolidated under one roof as smaller, family-owned operations combined into larger, heavily capitalized, firms.

The investors and engineers who built the new mills needed a lot of workers to run them. Formerly self-employed farmers and artisans now sold their labor to mill owners in the form of wages. This produced a sea-change in work and family life in the space of a generation. Wage workers traded their independence for economic security that evaporated for many in the Panic of 1837.

The reformers at the Northampton Association did not approve of changes they saw around them. They saw rampant financial speculation that resulted in a prolonged economic depression. They saw independent farmers and artisans turned into dependent wage workers with little to no control over what they produced. They saw families that no longer worked together on the farm; and they witnessed the “division of tasks” used in the mills that resulted in less rewarding work for less pay. The net effect of these changes was growing socio-economic inequality in the North: while mill owners amassed considerable fortunes, the men and women who worked in the mills led lives with little promise.

Our reformers objected to what they saw on moral grounds, just as they objected to slavery. They believed every person deserved the opportunity to pursue “self-improvement” in order to fulfill his or her full potential. This was both the right and the responsibility of the individual and nothing or no one should ever stand in that person’s way.

The founders of the Community responded to this situation by addressing the balance of power between labor and capital. A small group of member investors bought the property, including the silk factory that supported the Association. This group became the “Stock Company” that managed the Association’s finances. Every Association member, whether or not they invested capital, belonged to the “Industrial Community”. This larger group managed production in the silk factory and in the various other “Departments” where members worked. The Association still essentially had owners and workers, but those workers had a lot more say in what was produced and how it was produced. Workers were paid differing wages according to skill, and investors were paid dividends according to how much money they had invested.

The small minority of Community members with invested capital thought this was a reasonable compromise. The large majority that contributed their labor to running the Association thought otherwise. Stock Company members had weighted votes at Community meetings – much like at a shareholders’ meeting in a publicly-traded corporation. Community members considered themselves equals, except that under this arrangement, some were more equal than others. The tension this created undermined the goal of creating a community that felt like an enlarged family in which “all were interested in all”.

At their first annual meeting held in 1843, members voted to merge the Stock Company and the Industrial Community. They abolished wages and substituted a system of “subsistence allowances” and profit-sharing. Instead of getting paid by the hour, members were allotted equal weekly sums that covered their essential needs. At the end of each year, members were paid equal shares of the profits that remained after expenses, debt service and future investment plans. An “Executive Council” was elected annually (one person/one vote) to manage the Association, including its finances. Members committed to working 60 hours a week in their chosen Departments. Labor and capital were now valued equally – they no longer rewarded those most who already had the most. The meeting that enacted these radical changes was half-jokingly referred to as “The Coup”.

This arrangement remained in effect for the life of the Community and worked remarkably well. Some members withdrew their investments in protest but the majority stayed on and supported the changes. It did not account for the Association’s demise in 1846 as much as did other factors. It relied on the reformers’ creed of self-discipline and personal responsibility to enforce work standards: workers ran their own Departments with minimal managerial oversight. Members lived comfortably but simply. They willingly exchanged material benefits for personal autonomy and dignity in the workplace along with an overall sense of togetherness and purpose. In labor relations parlance: this was about working conditions over wages.

The experiment that quickly turned into a much more radical experiment in Florence introduces your students to the effects of the market economy in American life. The Associationists appreciated the dynamism in this emerging economic system, but also identified its shortcomings. They created a more equitable business model in response: a worker owned and run cooperative. This early critique of the effects of industrial capitalism serves as a useful foil at the start of a longer discussion with your students. More specifically, it prepares your students for the epic struggles between labor and capital starting in earnest in the 1870s.

Like “The Schism”, this is complicated history best shared in a teacher-led session after students have led their walking tour. This is one idea for a lesson:

Divide the class into three groups.
Group One has patented a new “widget” they wish to develop and produce in their beloved home town.
Groups Two and Three pitch competing business plans to Group One as consultants using their notes from class or prepared handouts.
Group Two pitches a “traditional” business plan: A joint-stock company with overriding authority invested in a Board of Directors, which names company officers.
Group Three pitches a business plan for a worker-owned cooperative: everyone who works at the company has an equal say in what is produced and how it is produced.
Group One votes to choose a business model that could include elements from both proposals.
All three groups discuss the outcome using these suggested prompts: What are the strengths and weaknesses of each model? What are your metrics? What is “realistic” given the larger economy we operate in and our understanding of human nature? What kind of company would you like to work at? How do choices a company makes impact the wider community?

Source: Christopher Clark, The Communitarian Moment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995)