Mary Marcy
Encyclopedia
Mary Edna Tobias Marcy (1877–1922) was an American socialist author, pamphleteer, poet, and magazine editor. She is best remembered for her muckraking
series of magazine articles on the meat industry, "Letters of a Pork Packer's Stenographer," as author of a widely translated socialist propaganda pamphlet regarded as a classic of the genre, Shop Talks on Economics, and as an assistant editor of the International Socialist Review
, one of the most influential American socialist magazines of the first two decades of the 20th Century.
. Orphaned in her childhood, Mary's two younger siblings were sent away to live with relatives while she worked to support herself while attending high school. As she grew somewhat older Mary found more stable employment as a telephone switchboard operator
and took her sister and brother back into her household, in which she served as the provider.
Mary purchased a textbook on stenography and taught herself shorthand
in her free time.
She took an active interest in politics
from an early age and found out firsthand about the consequences sometimes bestowed on those holding minority views on such matters when she was fired from her job in 1896 for wearing a button supporting populist
Democrat William Jennings Bryan
. "It is interesting to note," remarked socialist Jack Carney in his eulogy of Marcy, "that her employers were engaged in the business of manufacturing American flags."
Prominent attorney
and civil libertarian
Clarence Darrow
heard the story of Mary's dismissal and went out of his way to aid the young woman. He obtained a job for her working as an office secretary
for William R. Harper, president of the University of Chicago
— a position which included free college tuition at the university. Marcy took full advantage of this opportunity, studying psychology
under John Dewey
and taking advanced courses in literature
and philosophy
.
After three years at the university, Mary married Leslie A. Marcy and moved from Chicago to Kansas City, Missouri
. There Mary was employed as the personal secretary of an official of a large meat packing company, a job which she held from 1902 to 1905. Her experiences in this capacity were the inspiration for her muckraking magazine series, "Letters of a Pork Packer's Stenographer." which brought her to the attention of radicals across America. Marcy also came to the attention of government officials investigating the activities of the Beef Trust in the country. Marcy testified against her employers before a Chicago grand jury
, an action which cost her her job.
Thereafter, Marcy took a job with Associated Charities of Kansas City, where she learned firsthand about the situation faced by the poor. Another magazine serial appeared from this work experience, a series of articles later published in the International Socialist Review under the title "Out of the Dump."
Marcy lived for a year in Hot Springs, Arkansas
, where she worked as a freelance writer.
(SPA) in 1903. Although her journalism appeared in the socialist press after that date, she did not actually take a paid position in the socialist movement until 1908, when she returned to Chicago to work as a secretary to Charles H. Kerr and his International Socialist Review. Marcy remained with Charles H. Kerr & Co. until the day of her death 14 years later.
Moving from its origins as a dry theoretical magazine edited by A.M. Simons in its earliest years, by the end of the first decade of the 20th Century Kerr and Marcy had made the Review into an illustrated slick-paper publication which provided an aggressive voice to the left wing of the socialist movement. A report issued in 1911 by Kerr & Co. noted a circulation of 17,000 subscribers with additional over-the-counter and bulk sales of another 32,000 copies per issue, making the publication one of the largest magazines of the American left. Editor Kerr received a salary of $1500 and Assistant Editor Marcy $1000 in that year, according to the report.
In the years prior to American intervention in World War I
, Kerr and Marcy maintained a strong internationalist
perspective, with Marcy in particular seeking out participation from left wing members of the Zimmerwald movement
, such as S.J. Rutgers and Anton Pannekoek
. The Review opined again and again against the arms buildup of the Woodrow Wilson
administration, conducted under the slogan of "Preparedness
."
With the American declaration of war against Germany
on April 7, 1917, the anti-militarist
International Socialist Review became subject to an intensifying series of repressive government actions, including United States Post Office Department
surveillance, and denial from the mails. Cut off from its ability to reach its subscribers, the publication was terminated early in 1918, the same year in which Marcy joined the revolutionary union the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW).
An attempt was made by Kerr & Co. to launch a successor publication, edited by Marcy and entitled The Labor Scrapbook, in March 1918, but the publication failed to achieve critical mass and was quickly terminated.
Somewhat ironically, as Charles H. Kerr & Co. was being effectively eliminated as a publisher of periodicals, the level of government surveillance was increased rather than lessened. The Marcys' home was ransacked by the U.S. Department of Justice searching for evidence about war resisters. She mortgaged this house to provide bail bond money for the political prisoner
s of the IWW, first on behalf of acting Secretary-Treasurer A.S. Embree
and later, after Embree was convicted and imprisoned, to secure the release of William D. "Big Bill" Haywood.
Unfortunately for Marcy, the physically ailing and long-persecuted Haywood made the decision to jump bond and escape to Soviet Russia
, a decision which cost Marcy and her husband their home.
In the summer of 1919, when the Socialist Party was deeply divided along factional lines, Marcy produced a leaflet to be circulated among the delegates to the forthcoming 1919 Emergency National Convention
of the Socialist Party called "A Revolutionary Party." Fearing factional disintegration of the 100,000-strong American Socialist movement, Marcy pleaded that the movement maintain "a solid front to the capitalist enemy." Marcy's argument went unheeded and the Socialist Party split asunder along factional lines, ending in the formation of two new communist organizations in addition to the regular SPA and beginning a catastrophic spiral of decline.
and suffering depression from the loss of her home, Mary Marcy committed suicide December 8, 1922. Her last words were recorded as follows: "I want rest. No funeral, no flowers, cremation."
Her book, Shop Talks on Economics, is regarded as a classic of socialist propaganda
literature and was translated in its day into Japanese, Chinese, Ukrainian, Romanian, Finnish, French, Italian, and Greek.
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
series of magazine articles on the meat industry, "Letters of a Pork Packer's Stenographer," as author of a widely translated socialist propaganda pamphlet regarded as a classic of the genre, Shop Talks on Economics, and as an assistant editor of the International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review (1900)
The International Socialist Review was a monthly magazine published in Chicago, Illinois by Charles H. Kerr & Co. from 1900 until 1918. The magazine was chiefly a Marxist theoretical journal during its first years under the editorship of A.M. Simons. Beginning in 1908 the publication took a turn to...
, one of the most influential American socialist magazines of the first two decades of the 20th Century.
Early years
Mary Edna Tobias was born May 8, 1877 in Belleville, IllinoisBelleville, Illinois
Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 44,478. It is the eighth-most populated city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and the most populated city south of Springfield in the state of Illinois. It is the county...
. Orphaned in her childhood, Mary's two younger siblings were sent away to live with relatives while she worked to support herself while attending high school. As she grew somewhat older Mary found more stable employment as a telephone switchboard operator
Switchboard operator
In the early days of telephony, through roughly the 1960s, companies used manual telephone switchboards and switchboard operators connected each call by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the...
and took her sister and brother back into her household, in which she served as the provider.
Mary purchased a textbook on stenography and taught herself shorthand
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...
in her free time.
She took an active interest in politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
from an early age and found out firsthand about the consequences sometimes bestowed on those holding minority views on such matters when she was fired from her job in 1896 for wearing a button supporting populist
Populist Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away...
Democrat William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
. "It is interesting to note," remarked socialist Jack Carney in his eulogy of Marcy, "that her employers were engaged in the business of manufacturing American flags."
Prominent attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and civil libertarian
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
heard the story of Mary's dismissal and went out of his way to aid the young woman. He obtained a job for her working as an office secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
for William R. Harper, president of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
— a position which included free college tuition at the university. Marcy took full advantage of this opportunity, studying psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
under John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
and taking advanced courses in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
.
After three years at the university, Mary married Leslie A. Marcy and moved from Chicago to Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
. There Mary was employed as the personal secretary of an official of a large meat packing company, a job which she held from 1902 to 1905. Her experiences in this capacity were the inspiration for her muckraking magazine series, "Letters of a Pork Packer's Stenographer." which brought her to the attention of radicals across America. Marcy also came to the attention of government officials investigating the activities of the Beef Trust in the country. Marcy testified against her employers before a Chicago grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
, an action which cost her her job.
Thereafter, Marcy took a job with Associated Charities of Kansas City, where she learned firsthand about the situation faced by the poor. Another magazine serial appeared from this work experience, a series of articles later published in the International Socialist Review under the title "Out of the Dump."
Marcy lived for a year in Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs is the 10th most populous city in the U.S. state of Arkansas, the county seat of Garland County, and the principal city of the Hot Springs Metropolitan Statistical Area encompassing all of Garland County...
, where she worked as a freelance writer.
Political career
Mary Marcy joined the Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
(SPA) in 1903. Although her journalism appeared in the socialist press after that date, she did not actually take a paid position in the socialist movement until 1908, when she returned to Chicago to work as a secretary to Charles H. Kerr and his International Socialist Review. Marcy remained with Charles H. Kerr & Co. until the day of her death 14 years later.
Moving from its origins as a dry theoretical magazine edited by A.M. Simons in its earliest years, by the end of the first decade of the 20th Century Kerr and Marcy had made the Review into an illustrated slick-paper publication which provided an aggressive voice to the left wing of the socialist movement. A report issued in 1911 by Kerr & Co. noted a circulation of 17,000 subscribers with additional over-the-counter and bulk sales of another 32,000 copies per issue, making the publication one of the largest magazines of the American left. Editor Kerr received a salary of $1500 and Assistant Editor Marcy $1000 in that year, according to the report.
In the years prior to American intervention in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Kerr and Marcy maintained a strong internationalist
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
perspective, with Marcy in particular seeking out participation from left wing members of the Zimmerwald movement
Zimmerwald Left
The Zimmerwald Left was a revolutionary minority fraction at the Zimmerwald Peace Conference of 1915, headed by Lenin. The Left of the Zimmerwald Congress was made up of eight out of 38 people: Lenin, Zinoviev , Jānis K. Bērziņš , Karl Radek , Julian Borchardt , Fritz Platten , Zeth Höglund and...
, such as S.J. Rutgers and Anton Pannekoek
Antonie Pannekoek
Antonie Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist. He was one of the main theorists of council communism .- Biography :...
. The Review opined again and again against the arms buildup of the Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
administration, conducted under the slogan of "Preparedness
Preparedness Movement
The Preparedness Movement, also referred to as the Preparedness Controversy, was a campaign led by Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt to strengthen the military of the United States after the outbreak of World War I...
."
With the American declaration of war against Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on April 7, 1917, the anti-militarist
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
International Socialist Review became subject to an intensifying series of repressive government actions, including United States Post Office Department
United States Post Office Department
The Post Office Department was the name of the United States Postal Service when it was a Cabinet department. It was headed by the Postmaster General....
surveillance, and denial from the mails. Cut off from its ability to reach its subscribers, the publication was terminated early in 1918, the same year in which Marcy joined the revolutionary union the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW).
An attempt was made by Kerr & Co. to launch a successor publication, edited by Marcy and entitled The Labor Scrapbook, in March 1918, but the publication failed to achieve critical mass and was quickly terminated.
Somewhat ironically, as Charles H. Kerr & Co. was being effectively eliminated as a publisher of periodicals, the level of government surveillance was increased rather than lessened. The Marcys' home was ransacked by the U.S. Department of Justice searching for evidence about war resisters. She mortgaged this house to provide bail bond money for the political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s of the IWW, first on behalf of acting Secretary-Treasurer A.S. Embree
A.S. Embree
A.S. Embree, a former minister, was an experienced American union organizer and, briefly, a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World . Embree served as the secretary-treasurer pro tem of the national IWW for a period of two months after the national office was raided by federal agents.Embree...
and later, after Embree was convicted and imprisoned, to secure the release of William D. "Big Bill" Haywood.
Unfortunately for Marcy, the physically ailing and long-persecuted Haywood made the decision to jump bond and escape to Soviet Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, a decision which cost Marcy and her husband their home.
In the summer of 1919, when the Socialist Party was deeply divided along factional lines, Marcy produced a leaflet to be circulated among the delegates to the forthcoming 1919 Emergency National Convention
1919 Emergency National Convention
The 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party of America was held in Chicago from August 30 to September 5, 1919. It was a seminal gathering in the history of American radicalism, marked by the bolting of the party's organized left wing to establish the Communist Labor Party of...
of the Socialist Party called "A Revolutionary Party." Fearing factional disintegration of the 100,000-strong American Socialist movement, Marcy pleaded that the movement maintain "a solid front to the capitalist enemy." Marcy's argument went unheeded and the Socialist Party split asunder along factional lines, ending in the formation of two new communist organizations in addition to the regular SPA and beginning a catastrophic spiral of decline.
Death and legacy
Demoralized by the disintegration of the American left in the years after the conclusion of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and suffering depression from the loss of her home, Mary Marcy committed suicide December 8, 1922. Her last words were recorded as follows: "I want rest. No funeral, no flowers, cremation."
Her book, Shop Talks on Economics, is regarded as a classic of socialist propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
literature and was translated in its day into Japanese, Chinese, Ukrainian, Romanian, Finnish, French, Italian, and Greek.
Works
- A Satire on Civilization, and Other Fables. Chicago: Donohue Brothers, 1900.
- Out of the Dump. Drawings by Ralph ChaplinRalph ChaplinRalph Hosea Chaplin was an American writer, artist and labor activist. At the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman strike in Chicago, Illinois. He had moved with his family from Ames, Kansas to Chicago in 1893...
. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1909. - Shop Talks on Economics. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1911.
- How the Farmer Can Get His. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1916.
- Stories of the Cave People. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1917. — Children's book.
- Breaking Up the Home. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. [1910s].
- Wages in Mexican Money. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. [1910s].
- Why Catholic Workers Should Be Socialists. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. [1910s].
- Women as Sex Vendor: or, Why Women are Conservative, Being a View of the Economic Status of Woman. With Roscoe B. Tobias. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1918.
- Industrial Autocracy. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1919.
- "A Revolutionary Party." (leaflet) Chicago: Mary Marcy, n.d. [1919].
- The Right to Strike. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. [c. 1920].
- Open the Factories. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. [c. 1921].
- A Free Union: A One Act Comedy of "Free Love." Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1921.
- Rhymes of the Early Jungle Folk. Woodcuts by Wharton H. Esherick. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1922. — Children's book.
- You Have No Country!: Workers' Struggle Against War. Franklin Rosemont, editor. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., 1984.
Further reading
- Jack Carney, Mary Marcy, n.c.: n.p., n.d. [1923].
- Allen Ruff, "We Called Each Other Comrade": Charles H. Kerr & Co., Radical Publishers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
External links
- Mary Marcy Internet Archive. Marxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet Archive is a volunteer based non-profit organization that maintains a multi-lingual Internet archive of Marxist writers and other similar authors...
.