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James Ferdinand Morton Jr.
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James Ferdinand Morton Jr.
James Ferdinand Morton Jr. (October 18, 1870 – October 7, 1941) was an anarchist writer and political activist of the 1900s through the 1920s especially on the topics of the single tax system, racism, and advocacy for women. After about 1920 he was more known as a member of the Baháʼí Faith, a notable museum curator, an esperantist and a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft.
Morton was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, lived in Andover, New Hampshire. His family reached back to the pilgrims landing in 1620, his grandfather was Rev. Samuel Francis Smith. A newspaper article from 1906 refers a little to his youth - that he worked as a "newsboy, bootblack, an organ blower, and an employe (sic) in a jelly factory". In 1892 he earned Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University, simultaneously, in Classical Philology, earning a "Gorham Thomas" scholarship, graduated cum laude and was a member of the honors society Phi Beta Kappa. He was a classmate of W.E.B. Du Bois and carried on some correspondence with him. He gained skills in Greek, Latin and French. The Harvard Secretary's Report of 1896 noted by then he was in the temperate Independent Order of Good Templars, animal rights oriented New England Anti-Vivisection Society and had campaigned under the People's Party.
Even at this early period he was actively involved in the amateur journalism movement, appearing in newspaper coverage of the developing practice in 1891, and elected President of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) in 1896. In his earlier days in New England he explored a number of alternatives to mainstream culture.
He became a supporter of anarchism - having a special affinity for individualist anarchism, free love, and freethought - and went on a cross-country speaking tour 1899-1900 to the West supporting these ideas. Several of these talks appeared in newspapers. By 1901 he was active on the West Coast. When living in the West Morton wrote for or edited various anarchist journals such as Free Society, Discontent, The Demonstrator, and Emma Goldman's Mother Earth as well as the Freethought periodical Truth Seeker and lived at the Home, Washington anarchist commune which had been raided though Morton was not arrested, and was still present when the news of the assassination attempt against US President William McKinley arrived. Morton's writings clarified that he favored a "non-retaliatory" anarchism. In 1904 he made his way back to the East coast and a talk of his on anarchism, free-thought, and morality was carried in several newspapers.
As early as 1903 Morton was visibly against racism in his writing for the anarchist Distcontent. He campaigned actively for civil rights for blacks, challenged productions like Thomas Dixon's The Clansman, and in 1906 published The Curse of Race Prejudice, which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's The Crisis listed among its suggested reading materials in many editions over the years. Morton served on various committees of the NAACP in the 1910s, and continued to speak on the issue across several years. In 1922 he contributed to a conference on the history of racism.
Perhaps no other subject consumed Morton's energy and focus in the earlier half of his life than the subject of a single-tax as originated by Henry George. It was one of the topics he spoke across several years about. In 1916-17 Morton totaling 68 lectures in 54 cities, with over 2000 in attendance. Many of these made the newspapers. He also advocated for taxing churches.
A third topic was of lasting concern to Morton—the facets of advocacy for women, including suffrage, feminism, and conventions on limitations on sexuality and contraception.
In addition to particular topics that had his voice across the decades, and practicing law for some years in New York and Massachusetts, he wrote or gave talks on a wide range of topics:
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James Ferdinand Morton Jr.
James Ferdinand Morton Jr. (October 18, 1870 – October 7, 1941) was an anarchist writer and political activist of the 1900s through the 1920s especially on the topics of the single tax system, racism, and advocacy for women. After about 1920 he was more known as a member of the Baháʼí Faith, a notable museum curator, an esperantist and a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft.
Morton was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, lived in Andover, New Hampshire. His family reached back to the pilgrims landing in 1620, his grandfather was Rev. Samuel Francis Smith. A newspaper article from 1906 refers a little to his youth - that he worked as a "newsboy, bootblack, an organ blower, and an employe (sic) in a jelly factory". In 1892 he earned Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University, simultaneously, in Classical Philology, earning a "Gorham Thomas" scholarship, graduated cum laude and was a member of the honors society Phi Beta Kappa. He was a classmate of W.E.B. Du Bois and carried on some correspondence with him. He gained skills in Greek, Latin and French. The Harvard Secretary's Report of 1896 noted by then he was in the temperate Independent Order of Good Templars, animal rights oriented New England Anti-Vivisection Society and had campaigned under the People's Party.
Even at this early period he was actively involved in the amateur journalism movement, appearing in newspaper coverage of the developing practice in 1891, and elected President of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) in 1896. In his earlier days in New England he explored a number of alternatives to mainstream culture.
He became a supporter of anarchism - having a special affinity for individualist anarchism, free love, and freethought - and went on a cross-country speaking tour 1899-1900 to the West supporting these ideas. Several of these talks appeared in newspapers. By 1901 he was active on the West Coast. When living in the West Morton wrote for or edited various anarchist journals such as Free Society, Discontent, The Demonstrator, and Emma Goldman's Mother Earth as well as the Freethought periodical Truth Seeker and lived at the Home, Washington anarchist commune which had been raided though Morton was not arrested, and was still present when the news of the assassination attempt against US President William McKinley arrived. Morton's writings clarified that he favored a "non-retaliatory" anarchism. In 1904 he made his way back to the East coast and a talk of his on anarchism, free-thought, and morality was carried in several newspapers.
As early as 1903 Morton was visibly against racism in his writing for the anarchist Distcontent. He campaigned actively for civil rights for blacks, challenged productions like Thomas Dixon's The Clansman, and in 1906 published The Curse of Race Prejudice, which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's The Crisis listed among its suggested reading materials in many editions over the years. Morton served on various committees of the NAACP in the 1910s, and continued to speak on the issue across several years. In 1922 he contributed to a conference on the history of racism.
Perhaps no other subject consumed Morton's energy and focus in the earlier half of his life than the subject of a single-tax as originated by Henry George. It was one of the topics he spoke across several years about. In 1916-17 Morton totaling 68 lectures in 54 cities, with over 2000 in attendance. Many of these made the newspapers. He also advocated for taxing churches.
A third topic was of lasting concern to Morton—the facets of advocacy for women, including suffrage, feminism, and conventions on limitations on sexuality and contraception.
In addition to particular topics that had his voice across the decades, and practicing law for some years in New York and Massachusetts, he wrote or gave talks on a wide range of topics:
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