April 29 Faculty Seminar to Focus on Applied Socialist Reform
On Thursday, April 29, 2004, the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) will host the next in a continuing series of seminars presented by campus faculty members, researchers, extension personnel, and other visiting professionals. The seminar will take place at 3 p.m. in Youngquist Auditorium of the Agricultural Research Center on the campus and will feature ”The Appeal To Reason: Applying Reform,” presented by UMC Professor Sharon Neet, D.A.
Neet completed her doctoral work in history from University of North Dakota. She also holds a Specialist in Education Degree from Pittsburg State University, a master's in history from Pittsburg State University, and a bachelor's degree in history from Washburn University. Her research interests are non-Marxian socialist reform publications (1885-1920) and rural development.
The staff of The Appeal to Reason in
Girard, Kansas, 1900
Abstract:
Historians and political scientists have studied The Appeal To Reason for its content and impact on public opinion because it was the most successful radical newspaper of the Progressive Era. Their focus on political issues and personalities has left a void that is fundamental to understanding the viability and success of a socialist newspaper published in a small Kansas town. The Appeal management created a business structure that functioned in the largely unregulated commercial economy of pre-World War I America. It used a business plan that generated revenue and profits that not only produced a successful national newspaper but also was the major producer and fund source of books, leaflets and pamphlets in the U.S. socialist movement.
Beginning as a small town Republican newspaperman, J. A. Wayland, after some notable trials and errors * found a method of structuring his business to not only spread the socialist agenda but to finance it with numerous related enterprises. The Appeal's financial success was a potential embarrassment to pure socialist ideologues and proof to capitalists that Wayland was bilking his supporters. Wayland had no conflict with using capitalist methods to hasten the demise of capitalism. Simply, Wayland rendered unto Caesar, and took the profit to undermine the capitalist system.
The propaganda machine of socialism was a potent force for political and social change. Wayland's business acumen saw Girard as his laboratory to try his ideas by giving them form through various business ventures and civil projects. He stated that Girard was every town and if it embraced the socialist sentiment then it could succeed in every town. His influence was felt in start-up businesses to provide electricity, built airplanes, drill municipal gas wells, manufacture household supplies, build a public library, and a regional network of trolley cars. How he moved forward with a national political agenda, built a model of cooperation in a small town while managing a growing publication business is the focus.
Posted 04/27/2004
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435