We Called Each Other Comrade: Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publisher (History of Communication) [Paperback]

Allen Ruff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0252065824 | ISBN-13: 978-0252065828

This is the history of the most significant translator, publisher, and distributor of left-wing literature in the United States. Based in Chicago and still publishing, Charles H. Kerr & Company began in 1886 as a publisher of Unitarian tracts. The company's focus changed after its founder, the son of abolitionist activists, became a socialist at the turn of the century. Tracing Kerr's political development and commitment to radical social change, "We Called Each Other Comrade" also tells the story of the difficulties of exercising the First Amendment in an often hostile business and political climate. A fascinating exploration in left-wing culture, this revealing chronicle of Charles Kerr and his revolutionary publishing company looks at the remarkable list of books, periodicals, and pamphlets that the firm produced and traces the strands of a rich tradition of dissent in America.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Freelance historian Ruff tells the story of Chicago's Charles H. Kerr & Co. and its importance as the longest-running socialist publisher in the world. Ruff describes Kerr & Co.'s development and its founder's philosophical journey from Utilitarianism through Populism to socialism and the revolutionary wing of the movement. Along the way he presents a rich view of turn-of-the-century American political history. This seemingly narrow corporate history sketches the development of labor unions, the formation of American socialism, and its factional infighting before World War I. We view the rise of Chicago and its publishing industry and look behind the scenes at seminal publications of American socialism. Ruff also includes biographical snapshots of the great figures of the Progressive era?Eugene V. Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and Clarence Darrow, among others. Recommended for academic and public libraries with comprehensive collections in American history.?Paul A. D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., Me.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252065824
• ISBN-13: 978-0252065828
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,197,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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This review is from: We Called Each Other Comrade: Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publisher (History of Communication) (Paperback)

Allen Ruff takes on a complex subject, the place of a radical publisher in the context of the turn of the 19th century and run up to the Great War and socialist squabbles brought on by varying degrees of belief in electoral politics and bread and butter unionism. The time of the War to End All Wars, or Peace to End All Peaces, may well remind many that once in their life IRA meant something Irish, SDS was not a syndrome, and Days of Rage in Chicago had noting to do with shopping or snowstorms. Whirlwind events gentled to today's moans, just as the Socialist Party, once millennialist, became quadrennialist Democratic Party goers, or fixated on behaviors acceptable to this or that exclusive sect, sex, race, or occupation.

Unifying the fact-packed discussion are the chronological presentation, the author's critical loyalty to the changing, deepening insight of his subject, and the amazing subject himself, Charles H. Kerr. Kerr developed the radical among radicals idea that the movement he served should be lead and of service to the country's productive population. He was no sectarian or office-seeker. His books, pamphlets, and magazines meant to reach any concerned and even curious person, to present to them the ideas of European and home-grown thinkers, comrades in the struggle for social equity. He opposed anarchic violence as well as those who would work join the mainstream and "work within for change", which usually meant selling out.

And oddly enough, Kerr kept the publishing house and publications financially afloat, an amazing story in itself, which Ruff has as one thread in his history. It would take J. Edgar Hoover and his ilk and the nationalism infecting socialists as the war came on to cripple the publishing company. It exists yet and probably among the ashes of the left are sparks that Kerr and others could have fanned into signal flares if not bonfires of revolution.

At any rate, some readers will be intrigued by the reach of the hope and plans for a new society, others will reminded of the insurrections of their own youth, and all can appreciate the clear style, absence of pretense or preachiness in Ruff's work. Even better the book may inspire some to emulate Kerr's effort. Kerr himself would have approved.