George Brown, the cobbler anarchist of Philadelphia

Robert P. Helms traces the life of this anarchist shoemaker from freethinking Northamptonshire to Philadelphia’s burgeoning anarchist movement of the 1890s. Never famous, and only occasionally infamous, Brown was typical of many of the militants who made the movement what it was, and his story sheds a fascinating light on the microcosm of a social movement. Leafing through newscuttings, letters and memoirs Helms has restored Brown’s life and activism to view. But this biograpy does more than restore the name of one militant. Never a ‘leading light’, Brown’s story highlights the activities of the grassroots anarchists of Philadelphia (like Brown and his partner and comrade Mary Hansen); the views and divisions of anarchists on sexual liberation at the turn of the twentieth century and fractious debates within the Arden Single-Tax colony.