Jonathan Baxter Harrison
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Baxter Harrison (April 5, 1835 - June 17, 1907), Unitarian
minister and journalist
who was involved in many of the social causes of his day: abolitionism
, Indian rights
, forest preservation
, and the cultural improvement of the working class. Best known for his realistic depictions of everyday American life, he is acknowledged as an important influence in the development of literary realism
.
, he early showed an eagerness for reading, often studying beside the fire at night after a long day spent working in the fields. As a young man, he became a backwoods Methodist minister, and then worked for a Quaker-run abolitionist paper. Volunteering for service in the Union Army
, he was soon given a medical discharge, and spent the remaining war years as editor of the Winchester Journal in Randolph County, Indiana
. During this time he began corresponding with Charles Eliot Norton
, the secretary of the Loyal Publication Society
, beginning a lifelong friendship. In Norton’s papers we see Harrison described as a figure much like Abraham Lincoln
: an unaffected frontiersman, at once virtuous and wise.
After the war, Harrison became a Unitarian minister and active in Spiritualism
, a religious movement that attracted many abolitionists and other reformers. To be closer to Norton, Harrison moved east, obtaining a position as Unitarian minister 1870-1873 in Montclair, New Jersey
, and then from 1879-1884 in Franklin Falls, New Hampshire
, where he lived until his death. He made the acquaintance of members of Norton’s circle, such as Frederick Law Olmsted
, the landscape architect and social critic, and William Dean Howells
, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
At the encouragement of Norton and his friends, Harrison began writing on some of the most important social issues of the day. These included the conditions in the South after the end of Reconstruction; working class culture and political life in New England; the condition of the American Indians; and the deforestation of the Northeast. During the 1882 campaign to preserve the natural environment around Niagara Falls
, Harrison wrote a series of letters to newspapers in Boston and New York that turned public opinion in favor of preservation. By 1889 he was a well-known figure among New England journalists and intellectuals; in that year he was awarded an honorary degree (Artium Magister
) by Harvard University.
Harrison was recognized by his friends as someone with a unique and perceptive view of American life. His work has an ethnographic feel, particularly his documentation of life in the post-bellum South, based on extensive travels and contact with ordinary people in the everyday business of life. One of his major concerns was to show the highly educated cultural elite how the rest of America lived, thought, and felt. Like Charles Eliot Norton, he was a conservative in the stamp of Matthew Arnold
, worried that capitalism insidiously worked to degrade culture, and part of his intentions—particularly in documenting the life of the New England working class—was to make the cultured elite more aware and more concerned about the spiritual life of ordinary people. His work remains today as an important testimony of the conditions of life in the United States of the late nineteenth century.
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
minister and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
who was involved in many of the social causes of his day: abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, Indian rights
Indian Rights Association
The Indian Rights Association was an American social activist group dedicated to the well being and acculturation of Native Americans...
, forest preservation
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
, and the cultural improvement of the working class. Best known for his realistic depictions of everyday American life, he is acknowledged as an important influence in the development of literary realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
.
Life
Born in a log cabin in Greene County, OhioGreene County, Ohio
Greene County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. The population was 161,573 in the 2010 Census. Its county seat is Xenia, and it was named for General Nathanael Greene, an officer in the Revolutionary War. Greene County was established on March 24, 1803.Greene County is part...
, he early showed an eagerness for reading, often studying beside the fire at night after a long day spent working in the fields. As a young man, he became a backwoods Methodist minister, and then worked for a Quaker-run abolitionist paper. Volunteering for service in the Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
, he was soon given a medical discharge, and spent the remaining war years as editor of the Winchester Journal in Randolph County, Indiana
Randolph County, Indiana
Randolph County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2010, the population was 26,171. The county seat is Winchester.-History:...
. During this time he began corresponding with Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...
, the secretary of the Loyal Publication Society
Loyal Publication Society
The Loyal Publication Society was founded in 1863, during a time when the Union Army had suffered many reverses in the Civil War. The purpose of the society was to bolster public support for the Union effort, by disseminating pro-Union news articles and editorials to newspapers around the...
, beginning a lifelong friendship. In Norton’s papers we see Harrison described as a figure much like Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
: an unaffected frontiersman, at once virtuous and wise.
After the war, Harrison became a Unitarian minister and active in Spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
, a religious movement that attracted many abolitionists and other reformers. To be closer to Norton, Harrison moved east, obtaining a position as Unitarian minister 1870-1873 in Montclair, New Jersey
Montclair, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 38,977 people, 15,020 households, and 9,687 families residing in the township. The population density was 6,183.6 people per square mile . There were 15,531 housing units at an average density of 2,464.0 per square mile...
, and then from 1879-1884 in Franklin Falls, New Hampshire
Franklin, New Hampshire
The median income for a household in the city was $34,613, and the median income for a family was $41,698. Males had a median income of $32,318 versus $25,062 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,155...
, where he lived until his death. He made the acquaintance of members of Norton’s circle, such as Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, the landscape architect and social critic, and William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...
, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
At the encouragement of Norton and his friends, Harrison began writing on some of the most important social issues of the day. These included the conditions in the South after the end of Reconstruction; working class culture and political life in New England; the condition of the American Indians; and the deforestation of the Northeast. During the 1882 campaign to preserve the natural environment around Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
, Harrison wrote a series of letters to newspapers in Boston and New York that turned public opinion in favor of preservation. By 1889 he was a well-known figure among New England journalists and intellectuals; in that year he was awarded an honorary degree (Artium Magister
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
) by Harvard University.
Harrison was recognized by his friends as someone with a unique and perceptive view of American life. His work has an ethnographic feel, particularly his documentation of life in the post-bellum South, based on extensive travels and contact with ordinary people in the everyday business of life. One of his major concerns was to show the highly educated cultural elite how the rest of America lived, thought, and felt. Like Charles Eliot Norton, he was a conservative in the stamp of Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
, worried that capitalism insidiously worked to degrade culture, and part of his intentions—particularly in documenting the life of the New England working class—was to make the cultured elite more aware and more concerned about the spiritual life of ordinary people. His work remains today as an important testimony of the conditions of life in the United States of the late nineteenth century.
Religion
- "Religious Condition of the West." Radical: A Monthly Magazine, Devoted to Religion. 2(1866):234
- "Lessons of Methodism." Old and New. 4(1871):189
- "Methods of Dealing with Social Questions." pages 249-254 in Institute Essays; read before the Ministers’ Institute, October 1879, Providence R.I. with Introduction by Rev. H.W. Bellows. Boston: G.H. Ellis. 1880.
New England Social Classes and Everyday Life
- "Certain Dangerous Tendencies in American Life." The Atlantic Monthly. October, 1878 42(252):385-403
- "The Nationals, their Origin and their Aims." The Atlantic Monthly. November, 1878 42(253):521-530
- "Three Typical Workingmen." The Atlantic Monthly. December, 1878 42(254):717-727
- "Workingmen's Wives." The Atlantic Monthly. January, 1879 43(255):59-71
- "The Career of a Capitalist." The Atlantic Monthly. February, 1879 43(256):129-135
- "Study of a New England Factory Town." The Atlantic Monthly. June, 1879 43(260):689-705
- "Preaching." The Atlantic Monthly. August, 1879 44(262):129-137
- "Sincere Demagogy." The Atlantic Monthly. October, 1879 44(264):488-500
- Certain Dangerous Tendencies in American Life, and Other Papers. Houghton, Osgood and Company, Boston. 1880. (reprint edition: ISBN 1120173167)
- Notes on Industrial Conditions. Franklin Falls, N.H.: J.B. Harrison & Sons. 1886.
- "The Sale of Votes in New Hampshire." The Century: A Popular Quarterly. November, 1893 47(1):149-150
Post-Reconstruction Period in the South
"Studies in the South." The Atlantic Monthly:- January, 1882 49(291):76-92;
- February, 1882 49(292):179-195;
- May, 1882 49(295):673-685;
- June, 1882 49(296):740-752;
- July, 1882 50(297):99-110;
- August, 1882 50(298):194-205;
- September, 1882 50(299):349-361;
- October, 1882 50(300):476-488;
- November, 1882 50(301):623-634;
- December, 1882 50(302):750-764;
- January, 1883 51(303):87-99
Native Americans
- "Education for Indians." Critic and Good Literature. 11(1887):321
- The latest studies on Indian reservations. Philadelphia: The Indian Rights Association. 1887.
- The colleges and the Indians, and the Indian Rights Association. (pamphlet) Philadelphia: The Indian Rights Association. 1888.
- "Indians of the United States." Chautauquan: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture. 9(1888):140, 208
The Natural Environment
- The Condition of Niagara Falls, and the Measures Needed to Preserve Them: Eight Letters Published in the New York Evening Post, the New York Tribune, and the Boston Daily Advertiser, during the Summer of 1882. (pamphlet) New York: Cambridge, J. Wilson and Son. 1882.
- "Forest Destruction." (Editorial) New York Times. Aug. 5, 1888 Page:4 Column:4
- with Frederick Law Olmsted, Observations on the Treatment of Public Plantations, More Especially Relating to the Use of the Axe. (pamphlet) Boston: T. R. Marvin, Printers. 1889. Reprinted in F.L. Olmsted, Jr. and Theodora Kimball (editors), Forty Years of Landscape Architecture: Central Park. Boston: MIT Press. 1973.
- "Abandoned Farms of New Hampshire." Granite Monthly. 13(1890):153
- "Conservancy of Forests by the State." Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine. 13(1892):300
- "White Mountain Forests." Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art and Forestry. 6(1893): 106.
- "Our Forest Interests in Relation to the American Mind." The New England Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly. December, 1893 15(4):417-424