Harry Kelly (anarchist)
Encyclopedia
Harry May Kelly was an American anarchist and lifelong activist in the Modern School
movement.
in the local Episcopal
church, Kelly spent his youth on the banks of the Mississippi. His father was Cornish
, while his mother was a descendant of the Calvert
family, founders of the city of Baltimore
. Once a partner of railroad magnate Thomas Alexander Scott
, Kelly's father had lost his stake and took a job as a mine inspector, dying in poverty before Kelly's fifth birthday. Kelly left school after the fifth grade
and worked as a press
man in printing companies in order to support his family. At twenty years old, he was wandering from city to city. He was hired as a salesman of printing equipment by the American Machine and Foundry Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It was during this time he became actively engaged in the trade union
movement and was first exposed to anarchist ideas
. He became a collaborator of Charles Mowbray on Boston
's The Rebel, and when that ceased publication, published a paper called The Match, the first of three anarchist periodicals he founded in America. Kelly's contemporary Hippolyte Havel
would later comment that "The Match went out all too suddenly, but while it burned it gave Kelly great pleasure and satisfaction."
in 1898, partly to meet his father's relatives, but also to engage with London's renowned circle of anarchist revolutionaries, a prospect which he had looked forward to with impatience. It was there, among newfound friends and comrades, anarchist thinkers and propagandists, that Kelly spent his happiest days, and in the words of Havel "fortified his ideal with historical, economical and social facts and data".
In England, he worked alongside prominent anarchist intellectual Peter Kropotkin
, with whom he formed a close friendship, visiting the Russian often at his home in Bromley
, Kent
and finding him to be an enthusiastic comrade and great teacher. Though he became increasingly less active in the labor movement whilst in England, he collaborated on the prominent London anarchist newspaper Freedom, alongside Kropotkin, Tcherkesow
, Louise Michel
, Max Nettlau
and John Turner
until his return to the United States in 1904.
. Kelly worked as a salesman for several companies in the 1920s, including periods at the John Hancock Company and, for six months, the Metropolitan Insurance Company. Kelly struggled financially in the Great Depression
, writing in 1932 that he had failed to earn enough in the preceding year to support himself, and being refused a TVA
position after listing his political affiliation as "anarchist".
and New Jersey
. He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall
in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
. He was a co-founder and organizer of the Ferrer Modern School at Stelton Colony in Piscataway Township, New Jersey
, which became the most successful and longest lasting anarchist colony in America. He left the colony in 1923, and went on to found the Mohegan Colony at Lake Mohegan, New York in 1925, and later the Mount Airy Colony at Harmon, New York.
He was a close friend of Russian anarchists Emma Goldman
and Alexander Berkman
, alongside whom he worked for years until their deportation under the Anarchist Exclusion Act in 1918. Kelly sought to establish an anarchist society founded on voluntary association
, in which coercion
and authority
would be replaced with personal freedom, individual autonomy and mutual aid
. "Anarchism", he wrote to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, "is an ideal to strive for but it requires patience and fortitude in an uncanny degree to live it."
In a speech celebrating Kelly's fiftieth birthday, Havel elaborated:
Kelly's attitude towards his life divided between wage labor and activism was one of ambivalence.
Modern School (United States)
The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were United States schools, established in the early twentieth century, that were modeled after the Escuela Moderna of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, the Catalan educator and anarchist...
movement.
Early life and work
Born in a thirteen-room house in Saint Charles, Missouri and christenedInfant baptism
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism or pedobaptism from the Greek pais meaning "child." The practice is sometimes contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or...
in the local Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
church, Kelly spent his youth on the banks of the Mississippi. His father was Cornish
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...
, while his mother was a descendant of the Calvert
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore
Sir George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, 8th Proprietary Governor of Newfoundland was an English politician and colonizer. He achieved domestic political success as a Member of Parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I...
family, founders of the city of Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. Once a partner of railroad magnate Thomas Alexander Scott
Thomas Alexander Scott
Thomas Alexander Scott was an American businessman. He was the 4th president of what was the largest corporation in the world, the Pennsylvania Railroad, during the middle of the 19th century...
, Kelly's father had lost his stake and took a job as a mine inspector, dying in poverty before Kelly's fifth birthday. Kelly left school after the fifth grade
Fifth grade
Fifth grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The fifth grade is the fifth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 10 – 11 years old, and are preteens...
and worked as a press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
man in printing companies in order to support his family. At twenty years old, he was wandering from city to city. He was hired as a salesman of printing equipment by the American Machine and Foundry Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It was during this time he became actively engaged in the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement and was first exposed to anarchist ideas
Anarchist schools of thought
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
. He became a collaborator of Charles Mowbray on Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's The Rebel, and when that ceased publication, published a paper called The Match, the first of three anarchist periodicals he founded in America. Kelly's contemporary Hippolyte Havel
Hippolyte Havel
Hippolyte Havel was a Czech anarchist who lived in Greenwich Village, New York, which he declared to be "a spiritual zone of mind". He was close friends with Emma Goldman....
would later comment that "The Match went out all too suddenly, but while it burned it gave Kelly great pleasure and satisfaction."
Years in England
Scholar Lawrence Veysey observed that Kelly shared with his father "at least two major traits—a migratory restlessness and a certain interest in books and ideas". Kelly moved to EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1898, partly to meet his father's relatives, but also to engage with London's renowned circle of anarchist revolutionaries, a prospect which he had looked forward to with impatience. It was there, among newfound friends and comrades, anarchist thinkers and propagandists, that Kelly spent his happiest days, and in the words of Havel "fortified his ideal with historical, economical and social facts and data".
In England, he worked alongside prominent anarchist intellectual Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, with whom he formed a close friendship, visiting the Russian often at his home in Bromley
Bromley
Bromley is a large suburban town in south east London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Bromley. It was historically a market town, and prior to 1963 was in the county of Kent and formed the administrative centre of the Municipal Borough of Bromley...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
and finding him to be an enthusiastic comrade and great teacher. Though he became increasingly less active in the labor movement whilst in England, he collaborated on the prominent London anarchist newspaper Freedom, alongside Kropotkin, Tcherkesow
Varlam Cherkezishvili
Prince Varlam Cherkezishvili was a Georgian politician and journalist, involved in anarchist communist movement, and later in the Georgian national liberation movement...
, Louise Michel
Louise Michel
Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre...
, Max Nettlau
Max Nettlau
Max Heinrich Hermann Reinhardt Nettlau was a German anarchist and historian. Although born in Neuwaldegg and raised in Vienna he retained his Prussian nationality throughout his life. A student of the Welsh language he spent time in London where he joined the Socialist League where he met...
and John Turner
John Turner (anarchist)
John Turner was an English-born anarcho-communist shop steward. He referred to himself as "of semi-Quaker descent."Turner was the first person to be ordered deported from the United States for violation of the 1903 Anarchist Exclusion Act...
until his return to the United States in 1904.
Return to America
On his return from Europe, Kelly continued selling printing equipment for American Machine and Foundry until 1920, with the exception of several weeks in 1911 when he became a full-time professional organizer for the Francisco Ferrer Association of New York, an anarchist organization established to create Modern Schools in America based on the ideas of Francesc Ferrer i GuàrdiaFrancesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia was a Spanish Catalan free-thinker and anarchist....
. Kelly worked as a salesman for several companies in the 1920s, including periods at the John Hancock Company and, for six months, the Metropolitan Insurance Company. Kelly struggled financially in the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, writing in 1932 that he had failed to earn enough in the preceding year to support himself, and being refused a TVA
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
position after listing his political affiliation as "anarchist".
Thought and activism
On his return to the United States from England, Kelly established libertarian communities and schools in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall
Bolton Hall
Bolton Hall is a historic American Craftsman era stone building in Tujunga, Los Angeles County, California. Built in 1913, Bolton Hall was originally used as a community center for the Utopian community of Los Terrenitos. From 1920 until 1957, it was used as an American Legion hall, the San...
in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Berkeley Heights is a township in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 13,183....
. He was a co-founder and organizer of the Ferrer Modern School at Stelton Colony in Piscataway Township, New Jersey
Piscataway Township, New Jersey
The township consists of the following historic villages and areas: New Market, known as Quibbletown in the 18th Century, Randolphville, Fieldville and North Stelton...
, which became the most successful and longest lasting anarchist colony in America. He left the colony in 1923, and went on to found the Mohegan Colony at Lake Mohegan, New York in 1925, and later the Mount Airy Colony at Harmon, New York.
He was a close friend of Russian anarchists Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
and Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, alongside whom he worked for years until their deportation under the Anarchist Exclusion Act in 1918. Kelly sought to establish an anarchist society founded on voluntary association
Voluntary association
A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...
, in which coercion
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
and authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
would be replaced with personal freedom, individual autonomy and mutual aid
Mutual aid (politics)
Mutual aid is a term in organization theory used to signify a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture; an intrinsic part of the small, communal societies universal to humanity's ancient past...
. "Anarchism", he wrote to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, "is an ideal to strive for but it requires patience and fortitude in an uncanny degree to live it."
In a speech celebrating Kelly's fiftieth birthday, Havel elaborated:
Kelly's attitude towards his life divided between wage labor and activism was one of ambivalence.
Works Online
- 1908: "Anarchism: A Plea for the Impersonal", in Mother EarthMother Earth (magazine)Mother Earth was an anarchist journal that described itself as "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature," edited by Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's editor from 1907 to 1915...
, Vol. II, No. 12 (February, 1908). 555-562. - 1912: "A Review of the Year", in Mother EarthMother Earth (magazine)Mother Earth was an anarchist journal that described itself as "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature," edited by Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's editor from 1907 to 1915...
, Vol. VI, No. 11 (January, 1912). 331-334.