William English Walling

William English Walling (March 18, 1877 – September 12, 1936) (known as "English" to friends and family) was an American labor reformer and Socialist Republican born into a wealthy family in Louisville, Kentucky. He founded the National Women's Trade Union League in 1903. Moved by his investigation of the Springfield Race Riot of 1908 in the state capital of Illinois, he was among the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

He wrote three books on socialism in the early 20th century. He left the Socialist Party because of its anti-war policy, as he believed United States participation in the Great War was needed to defeat the Central Powers.

Early life and education

William English Walling was born into wealth in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Willoughby Walling, a physician who had inherited much real estate, and Rosalinda (née English) Walling. After his grandfather English died while Walling was in college, the young man inherited a private income. He became a socialist. After moving to New York in 1900, he became active in state social movements and politics.

Career

Walling became involved in labor and political movements, first working at Hull House in Chicago, an early settlement house and University Settlement Society of New York. He vowed to live on the equivalent of a worker's wage. Moving to New York City in 1900, Walling worked as a factory inspector. In 1903, he founded the National Women's Trade Union League.

In 1906, following a lengthy trip to Russia to report on the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905, he married Anna Strunsky, a Jewish immigrant and an aspiring novelist from San Francisco, who had lived as a child with her family on New York's Lower East Side before they moved to California. They had four children together: Rosamond, Anna, Georgia and Hayden.

In 1908, Walling published Russia's Message, a book inspired by the social unrest that he and his wife had observed in Russia. He joined the Socialist Party (1910–17), but resigned several years later at the time of the Great War because of its anti-war stance. Walling became convinced that United States intervention in the war was needed to defeat the Central Powers. His marriage to Anna Strunsky ended at this time, in part due to their disagreement over the United States' role in the conflict. He appealed for a "large and powerful body of citizens to come to their aid." Walling served initially as chairman of the NAACP Executive Committee (1910–1911).

Walling later worked full-time for the American Federation of Labor.

Works Books Russia's Message: The People Against the Czar (1908) Socialism As It Is – A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement (1912/1918) The Larger Aspects of Socialism (1913) Progressivism and After (1914) The Socialists and the War (1915) Sovietism: The ABC of Russian Bolshevism—According to the Bolshevists (1920)

Selected articles

Footnotes