Cyrus Field Willard

Cyrus Field Willard (August 17, 1858 – January 17, 1942) was an American journalist, political activist, and theosophist. Deeply influenced by the writing of Edward Bellamy, Willard is best remembered as a principal in several utopian socialist enterprises, including the late 1890s colonization efforts of the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (BCC).

Biography

Early years

Cyrus Field Willard was born August 17, 1858, in Lynn, Massachusetts, a member of a family of six children. The Willard family moved from Lynn to Boston in 1866, where Cyrus attended public school before gaining employment as a newspaper reporter for the Boston Globe.

Willard had a wide circle of political friends and acquaintances and maintained correspondence with prominent figures of the English and American socialist and anarchist movements, including William Morris, Sidney Webb, Benjamin R. Tucker, and Peter Kropotkin. Willard was additionally fluent in German, which enabled him to attend socialist meetings in the Boston area conducted in that language.

Nationalist Willard was deeply influenced by Edward Bellamy's 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward, and spent more than a decade after its publication working as a socialist activist.

In 1888 writer Edward Bellamy published the book Looking Backward: 2000–1887, a best-selling work of utopian fiction which depicted a futuristic American society of coordinated production and ameliorated social problems. Although the book sold slowly following its initial release in January 1888, Cyrus Field Willard was one of the first to read the novel, published as it was in his hometown of Boston. A correspondence with Bellamy ensued, in which Willard suggested the possibility of establishing a network of local political groups to attempt to put Bellamy's fictional vision of the future into practical existence. Willard lamented that Bellamy had abandoned "his truest friends" so as to "play at politics" with his Boston rivals Mason Green and Henry R. Legate, the latter of whom Willard believed to be a "corrupt politician." He and Borland were also place in charge of the purchasing of land there for colonization, making possible the establishment there of the Burley Colony.

In Washington the colonization effort abandoned the banner of the Social Democracy of America to become a new organization called the Cooperative Brotherhood. Willard played a leading role in this organization, appearing as the lead signatory on the group's deed of trust for purchase of communal land, and was additionally chosen as the first Secretary of the organization.

Willard would remain a resident of the Burley Colony for two years, before giving up on the project and leaving for the sunnier climes of Southern California.

Mason

Willard was also an active Freemason, attaining the status of 32nd Degree. On October 1, 1928, Willard joined with other leading Masons in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to launch the Philalethes Society, a Masonic research organization. The society was based upon the previously existing Académie Française and limited its membership to just 40 fellows, among whom was Willard. He was 83 years old at the time of his death.

Willard was the second cousin of Frances Willard, founder of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and prominent suffragist.

Ancestry Cyrus Field Willard was a 5th great-grandson (8th generation descendant) of the Massachusetts colonist Simon Willard (1605–1676).

Works

"The Nationalist Club of Boston: A Chapter of History," The Nationalist [Boston], vol. 1, no. 1 (May 1889), pp. 16–20. "The Social Democracy," The New Time [Chicago], vol. 1, no. 6 (Nov. 1897), pp. 337–338. "Brotherhood: The Hope of the World," Universal Brotherhood [New York], vol. 13, no. 6 (Sept. 1898), pp. 333–334. "The Higher Degrees in Germany," The New Age Magazine, vol. 26, no. 6 (June 1918), pp. 243–247. Autobiography of Cyrus Field Willard (manuscript). Morgan Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.