Description
Book SynopsisIn 1869 six London families arrived in Nemaha County, Kansas, as the first colonists of the Workingmen's Cooperative Colony, later fancifully renamed Llewellyn Castle. Based on archival research throughout the US and the UK, this history of an English collectivist colony in America's Great Plains highlights the connections between British and American reform movements and their contexts.
Trade Review"
Llewellyn Castle is an accomplishment that contributes much to our understanding of a social reform movement that stretched from London to Kansas, while reminding us that even lost and forgotten "footnotes" can inform us about larger historical trends."—Charles Delgadillo,
Kansas History"
Llewellyn Castle revives the history of a community and group. . . . It will be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of scholars in a variety of fields."—Michelle D. Tiedje,
Nebraska History"
Llewellyn Castle is a surprisingly epic history of the cooperative political and economic world view that spanned the nineteenth century and formed the bedrock of the Anglo-American radical tradition."—Adam-Max Tuchinsky,
Journal of American History“Llewellyn Castle will be quite important to specialists in regional history, British history, and communal studies. . . . [This is] scholarship at its finest.”—Timothy Miller, author of The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America, 1900–1960
“Gary Entz’s discussion of the Populists’ subtreasury plan . . . represents an original and path-breaking analysis and [is] a real contribution to the historiography of American populism.”—Jim Bisset, author of Agrarian Socialism in America
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Llewellyn Castle is a surprisingly epic history of the cooperative political and economic world view that spanned the nineteenth century and formed the bedrock of the Anglo-American radical tradition."—Adam-Max Tuchinsky,
Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsList of Maps
Preface
Introduction: Llewellyn Castle
1. The Sorrow of the Land: Bronterre O’Brien and the National Reform League
2. High Moral Chivalry: The Mutual Land, Emigration, and Cooperative Colonization Company
3. An Honest Social State: The Workingmen’s Cooperative Colony
4. Moral Intoxication: Frederick Wilson
5. Hold Up the Lamp of Hope: John Radford
Conclusion: The O’Brienites
Appendix
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
