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In this paper, I posit a cultural explanation for the failure of Debsian socialism in America. I argue that socialists’ radical use of literacy placed an inordinate amount of faith in ordinary people to see the necessity for dramatic social change. Debsian socialists believed that if individuals sat down and read about socialism that they would come to the same conclusion that thousands of converts had already reached: that socialism is the only answer to America's problems. Their faith in the American reading public to convert to socialism was overly optimistic. In fact, socialists’ print culture sometimes, if not often, produced unintended consequences. Socialists’ intended their print culture to convince readers of socialism’s efficacy. Yet, it could result in the reverse, the hardening of one’s opposition to the movement.

Indeed, uprooting hegemonic assumptions about individualism, competition, and private property proved to be socialists’ greatest challenge. Nothing is as difficult to change as people’s minds, and for socialists this was no exception. Socialists oftentimes faced a cultural conservatism that they could not adequately surmount. Socialist Labor Party leader Daniel De Leon had dealt with the problem by creating a tightly-knit cadre of vanguard revolutionaries. Debsian socialists, however, refused to lose hope in the democratic possibilities of print. They were convinced that their educational efforts would usher in a new era in American politics, one in which the collective needs of society came before those of the individual. Eugene V. Debs and other socialist leaders had trouble separating sales of socialist literature from the success of the socialist movement itself. This, in the end, may have been Debsian socialists’ greatest downfall.

Stream: Books, Writing and Reading

Paper: Annotations on the Failure of Socialism in America

I study the history of the book in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. My dissertation examines the role of books in the American socialist movement. It serves as a counterpoint to the work of Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton, who have emphasized the contributions of books to the spread of revolutionary ideas. I show how socialist leaders' use of print helped bring about the movement's downfall, adding a new dimension to the question, "Why did socialism fail in America?" This is just part of what I hope will be a larger study of working-class reading and literacy in America.