Welcome to a website dealing with the history of the early American Marxist movement.

This is not intended to be a political website, but rather a historical resource. We all have our own political views in the present; the goal of the historian is to understand the political ideology and actions of others in the past. Whether one accepts the economic doctrine of the labor theory of value, the existence of distinct classes and the primacy of class struggle as the vehicle of social change, and the analytical framework of historical materialism as valid guides to action in the world today -- or whether one views these principles of Marxism to be quaint relics of a secular religion from a bygone century -- is of little import to us here... The questions which should concern us all, regardless of our contemporary political views or organizational affiliations are WHAT HAPPENED? and WHY?

Priests and politicians absolve or condemn; historians attempt to understand and explain. This mission statement implies that one must immerse oneself in the documents of a given period to really absorb the set of ideas (economic, political, social) which guided or constrained action. One must absorb great piles of primary source material before any sort of true understanding can be reached. Once the big picture is grasped, the mentality of the participants absorbed, and the fine detail begins to become clear, then the task of the historian changes. Rather than reading, the order of the day becomes writing: the vast quantities of source material must be distilled, translated into coherent prose for a largely uninitiated audience. It is a great and exciting task, one full of reward and frustration.

If you have research questions or comments or would like to help produce pdf documents for distribution through this site, please do drop me a line:-- MutantPop@aol.com.

Thanks for your interest.

--- Tim Davenport // Corvallis, OR

 

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P.S. If you come upon this frame only on your journey through cyberspace and want to restore the full site structure, please click the link below.

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html