Bouck White

Bouck White ( October 20, 1874 , † January 7, 1951 ), maiden name Charles Browning White , was a parish pastor of the Congregational Church , follower of "Jesusism", an American socialist, an author, a potter and a hermit.

Early years

Bouck White was born near Middleburgh in Schoharie County to Charles Addison and Mary (Bouck) White. White used Middleburgh as a background in his book "The Mixing" (1913) and described the barely veiled residents as "degenerative Dutchmen". Middleburgh residents sued him, stating that White was "a male child born in the village a few years ago, whose early stupidity gave no indication of his future precociousness."

education

After graduating from Middleburgh High School, he attended Harvard College in 1894, studied journalism, and graduated in 1896. He initially worked as a reporter for the Springfield Republican, until he felt called to religious duties and attended the Boston theological seminary. In 1902 he graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and then worked as a pastor in the Ramapo Mountains near West Point . He published his first book Quo vaditis ?: A call to the old moralities in 1903. A typical selection shows that he was against the money-making mentality from the start. “I have seen a people mad with new wealth, a drunken people, a people dizzy with great estates. They had a savagery about them, but it was not savage for what is really desirable in life. "

After a year in Ramapo, he became the pastor of the Thousand Islands Congregational Church in Clayton, New York for the next three years. White was ordained a priest in 1904 by the Congregational Church. He then took on the position of director of a social service for men at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, where he stayed until he was released in 1913.

Socialist activities

While working at the Church of Holy Trinity, White authored several books. “The Book of Daniel Drew” (1910) was “a study of Wall Street psychology . A fascinating story of the psychological evasions and ethical juggling achievements of a hopeless prisoner in the system. ”The 1937 film The Toast of New York, starring Cary Grant , Edward Arnold and Frances Farmer , was based on this book. He had gone too far with the book The Call of the Carpenter (1911), which depicted Jesus of Nazareth as a worker, agitator and social revolutionary. The result was his discharge from Holy Trinity Church. White founded his own church, "The Church of the Social Revolution". Eugene V. Debs then stated that White was "the only Christian pastor" in New York. In “The Carpenter and the Rich Man” (1914) “Bouck White ... shows in a vivid and compelling way Jesus as the leader of the great proletarian uprisings of his time. The immorality of being rich when other people are poor is the keynote of this book, and the author builds it on the carpenter's message as found in the parables. "

White remained a member of the Socialist Party of America until he was expelled for his religious beliefs. On May 10, 1914, White appeared at a Church service, including the Rockefeller family, to discuss the question, "Did Jesus teach that it is immoral to be rich?" He was arrested for improper conduct and three Days later, he was sentenced to six months in prison on Blackwells Island . Because of his success in converting workhouse prisoners to socialism, he was transferred to the more isolated Queens County Jail. Upton Sinclair published a letter in the New York Times urging White supporters to advocate his release. In this letter he compared Bouck White with Jesus, the magistrate who had condemned him with Pilate and the "Calvary Baptist Church" with the biblical temple.

Creed

After he was released, he published the "Letters from Prison" in 1915, which contain his creed:

“I believe in God, the most powerful master, rebel of heaven and earth. And on Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, who was born of the proletarian Maria, worked at the workbench, descended into the working hell, suffered under Roman tyranny in the hands of Pontius Pilate, crucified, died and buried. It is not our power that brings freedom; he rose from the dead to the master of democratic progress, sworn enemy of stagnation, maker of popular uprisings. I believe in work, in the self-respecting workers, the sanctity of beauty, freeborn producers, the fellowship of comrades, the resurrection of workers and the industrial community, the eternal realm of the cooperatives. "

He was put back in prison for desecrating the US national flag in 1916, despite claiming that it was part of a religious ceremony to burn several flags from different countries at the same time as an invitation to international fraternity.

Next life

White went to Europe either to learn more about pottery or to work as a war correspondent, and married Andree Emilie Simon, a 19-year-old girl, whom he brought back to his original home in Marlboro, Ulster County, New York. Because he mistreated her, the locals tarred and feathered him. The marriage was annulled and White left Vermont in the summer of 1921. He eventually moved to New Scotland, Albany County, NY in the Helderberg Mountains area and, with the help of two Swedish brothers, built a primitive castle with his own hands in the mid-1930s local limestone. He called his buildings "Federalburg" and "The Spirit of the Helderbergs", but the local residents called them "Helderberg Castle". He earned his living selling “Bouckware” ceramics with a new glazing technique that does not require heat. Fire destroyed his apartment at the castle in 1940 and in 1944 White suffered a stroke that forced him to move to a home for old men in Menands, where he died in 1951.

“Bouck White went through Methodist ministry, congregational ministry and, after a stint as a youth worker, founded his Church of Social Revolution and angered all socialist and ecclesiastical organizations until he descended into notorious, eccentric activities in the mountains outside Albany, New York. "

Publications

• White, Bouck: The Book of Daniel Drew. Munich: Georg Müller, 1922, 1st – 3rd Thousand
• White, Bouck: The book of Daniel Drew: A glimpse of the Fisk-Gould-Tweed regime from the inside, ISBN 0-01-290227-6
• White, Bouck: Letters from prison; socialism a spiritual sunrise. ISBN 9781171838296
• White, Bouck: The call of the Carpenter
• White, Bouck: The Carpenter and the rich man,
• White, Bouck: Church of the Social Revolution: A Message to the World (1914) (Paperback) ISBN 9781436807081
• White, Bouck: The Free City; A Book of Neighborhood. ISBN 9781458873798

Web links

• Bouck White in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Literature by and about Bouck White in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ancestry.com. US Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007.
2. ↑ “Bouck White Dies at 76; 'Hermit of the Helderbergs'. ”The Enterprise, Altamont, NY January 12, 1951. Web. May 31, 2009 [1]
3. ↑ ^{a b} Hayes, John Joseph. "Secretary's Fifth Report By Harvard College (1780-)." Plimpton Press, 1916 [2]
4. ↑ Year: 1880; Census Place: Middleburgh, Schoharie, New York; Roll: T9_931; Family History Film: 1254931; Page: 213.1000; Enumeration District: 189; Image: 0200.
5. ^ ^{A b} White, Bouck, "The Mixing: What the Hillport Neighbors Did." Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913 [3]
6. ↑ “MIDDLEBURG WANTS NOVEL SUPPRESSED; Villagers Say the Rev. Bouck White Libeled Them in 'The Mixing.' "New York Times Archive, January 23, 1914. Web. May 30, 2009 [4]
7. ↑ Quinquennial catalog of the officers and graduates of Harvard university, 1636-1915 Cambridge: Harvard university press, 1915 [5]
8. ↑ White, Buck. "Quo vaditis ?: A call to the old moralities." The Civic press, 1903 [6]
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} White, Bouck. "Letters from Prison." Boston: Richard G. Badger. 1915. Web. May 30, 2009 [7]
10. ↑ Gordon, John Steele. 'Businessmen's Autobiographies. "American Heritage Magazine May / June 1995: Volume 46, Issue 3. Web. May 30, 2009 Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Goldstein, David, and Martha Moore Avery. "Bolshevism Its Cure." Boston: Boston School of Political Economy. 1915. Web. March 30, 2009 [8]
12. ↑ "White is Deified by Upton Sinclair." The New York Times. May 25, 1914. Web. June 1, 2009. [9]
13. ↑ Boxer, Sarah. "Word for Word / The Flag Bulletin; Two Centuries of Burning Flags, A Few Years of Blowing Smoke." The New York Times. December 17, 1995. Web. May 31, 2009. [10]
14. ↑ Mahan, Maryloe. "The First Hundred Years." IUniverse, 2002. Web. May 30, 2009 [11]
15. ↑ Publication Information: Dorn, Jacob H. "Socialism and Christianity in Early 20th Century America." Greenwood Press. Westport, CT. 1998. Page Number: 192. Web. May 30, 2009 [12]
16. ↑ Parry, Marc. "A majestic folly: Not your average abode, Helderberg Castle is in market for a new ruler." Albany Times Union. June 5, 2006. Web. May 30, 2009. [13]
17. ^ Friesen, Paul H. Review of "Socialism and Christianity in Early 20th Century America." American Society of Church History, 2001. Web. May 30, 2009. Socialism and Christianity in Early 20th Century America ( Memento from July 9, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
18. ↑ E-book  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.