The Columbia History of Urban Life
Kenneth T. Jackson, General Editor
Deborah Dash Moore, At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews, 1981
Edward K. Spann, The New Metropolis: New York City, 18401857, 1981
Matthew Edel, Elliott D. Sclar, and Daniel Luria, Shaky Palaces: Homeownership and Social Mobility in Bostons Suburbanization, 1984
Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 17881890, 1985
Andrew Lees, Cities Perceived: Urban Society in European and American Thought, 18201940, 1985
R. J. R. Kirkby, Urbanization in China: Town and Country in a Developing Economy, 19492000 A.D., 1985
Judith Ann Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present, 1987
Marc A. Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 1987
Jacqueline Leavitt and Susan Saegert, From Abandonment to Hope: Community-Households in Harlem, 1990
Richard Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis, 1990
David Hamer, New Towns in the New World: Images and Perceptions of the Nineteenth-Century Urban Frontier, 1990
Andrew Heinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity, 1990
Chris McNickle, To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City, 1993
Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City, 1994
Clarence Taylor, The Black Churches of Brooklyn, 1994
Frederick Binder and David Reimers, All the Nations Under Heaven: A Racial and Ethnic History of New York City, 1995
Clarence Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools, 1997
Andrew S. Dolkart, Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development, 1998
Jared N. Day, Urban Castles: Tenement Housing and Landlord Activism in New York City, 18901943, 1999
Craig Steven Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn, 2000
A Scott Henderson, Housing and the Democratic Ideal, 2000
Howard B. Rock and Deborah Dash Moore, Cityscapes: A History of New York in Images, 2001
Jameson W. Doig, Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port of New York Authority, 2001
Lawrence Kaplan and Carol P. Kaplan, Between Ocean and City: The Transformation of Rockaway, New York, 2003
Franois Weil, A History of New York, 2004
Evelyn Gonzalez, The Bronx, 2004
Jon C. Teaford, The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-Urban America, 2006
Lisa Keller, Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London, 2008
Jonathan Soffer, Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City, 2010
Frederick Douglass Opie, Upsetting the Apple Cart: Black-Latino Coalitions in New York City from Protest to Public Office, 2014
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright 2015 Edward T. ODonnell
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53926-5
Portions of have been reprinted from Edward T. ODonnells Soggarth Aroon: The Rise and Fall of Rev. Edward McGlynn in Catholics in New York: Society, Culture, and Politics, 18081946, ed. Terry Golway, 14761 2008. Used by permission of Fordham Univerity Press.
Portions of . Used by permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ODonnell, Edward T., 1963
Henry George and the crisis of inequality : progress and poverty in the gilded age / Edward T. ODonnell.
pages cm. (Columbia history of urban life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-12000-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-12001-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-53926-5 (e-book)
1. George, Henry, 18391897. 2. EqualityNew York (State)New York. 3. PovertyNew York (State)New York. 4. Labor movementNew York (State)New York. 5. New York (N.Y.)Social conditions19th century. I. Title
HM821.0664 2015
330.092dc23
2014040179
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .
Cover design by Diane Luger
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
For Stephanie
for believing
Everywhere is it evident that the tendency to inequalitycannot go much further without carrying our civilization into that downward path which is so easy to enter and so hard to abandon. Though knowledge yet increases and invention marches onand cities still expand,civilization has begun to wane when, in proportion to population, we must build more and more prisons, more and more almshouses, more and more insane asylums.
Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 1879
It came to the weary and heavy laden as the talisman of a lost hope. All their lives long they had been taught that poverty was a dispensation of Providence needful to keep them humble and teach them patience, but if cheerfully borne, it would somehow contribute to their happiness in the dim beyond. Progress and Poverty reversed all this, teaching that poverty is an artificial condition of mans invention. Workingmen and women, learning all this,commenced to wrestle with their chains.
Labor activist C. P. Atkinson, on the impact of Henry George and Progress and Poverty on American workers, 1886
You know it has taken you a really long time to finish a book when your oldest daughter, who once used to refer to it as your book about Curious George, is now twenty-four years old. I will not revisit here the many things that emerged over the years to prevent me from completing this book. Instead, I will use this space to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the people who played a role in the process, some by providing helpful criticism on the manuscript and others for urging me on as I worked to complete it.
I will begin by thanking the extraordinary scholars Elizabeth Blackmar, Alan Brinkley, Richard Bushman, David Cannadine, Daniel Czitrom, Barbara J. Fields, Eric Foner, Joshua Freeman, John A. Garraty, Kenneth T. Jackson, Ira Katznelson, Thomas Kessner, Eric McKitrick, Kerby Miller, James P. Shenton, and Alden Vaughn, all of whom played such an important role my development as a historian and in the shaping of this book. I also need to thank the many historian friends I have made over the years. Walter Friedman, David Gerwin, Terry Golway, Mike Green, Seth Kamil, Kevin Kenny, Peter Maguire, Andy Meyers, Yanek Mieczkowski, Phil Napoli, Max Page, Adam Rothman, Michael Sappol, Jeffrey Sklansky, Vernon Takeshita, Thorin Tritter, Eric Wakin, Michael West, Andrew Wiese, and Craig Wilder provided both friendship and scholarly insight into my work on Henry George. I am likewise indebted to my many fine colleagues at the College of the Holy Cross, especially Stephanie E. Yuhl, for their friendship, support, and inspiration.
