George Lippard
George Lippard (born April 10, 1822 in West Nantmeal Township, Chester County , Pennsylvania ; died February 9, 1854 in Philadelphia ) was an American social reformer and writer. With numerous sensationalist novels and short stories, he became one of the most widely read authors in the United States during his lifetime, but has now been forgotten.
life and work
George Lippard was born to a farmer in rural Pennsylvania. After an accident at work, his father was unable to work, sold his farm and moved to Philadelphia. George and his sisters grew up in poor conditions with their German-speaking grandparents in Germantown . He later attended schools in Philadelphia and Rhinebeck (New York). He broke off training as a Methodist priest, as well as studying law. He eventually became a journalist for the Philadelphia-based Spirit of the Times . He soon made a name for himself with sharp-tongued comments and lively reports on criminal and court cases and began his writing career in 1842 with the first short story Philippe de Agramont published in the prestigious Saturday Evening Post .
His first work The Ladye Annabel (1844) was a horror novel that did not leave out any of the clichés - witchcraft, torture cellars, secret societies, alchemy - of this genre, but portrayed them in a particularly drastic manner. He became famous with his second novel The Monks of Monks Hall (1845), in which he "exposed" in an equally garish manner the wrongdoings of the better society of Philadelphia, whose members indulge in murders, rape and pagan secret rituals. Lippard put the pornographic qualities of the book at the service of his ideological convictions, according to which the industrial capitalists of the upper class had united in a conspiracy to force the simple factory workers into slavery . The Monks of Monks Hall sold exceptionally well, although most of the copies sold were pirated prints . To this day, this work is best known under the title The Quaker City , as it was titled as one of those illegal editions.
In the following years Lippard wrote a large number of short stories and historical novels, which, however, were less based on historical facts than on Lippard's utopian ideals. They were also extremely popular and some even went down in American folklore - especially the story "The Fourth of July, 1776" (today under the title Ring, Grandfather, Ring ). The fact described therein that the Liberty Bell would have rung on the day of the American Declaration of Independence until the bell had ruptured is often mistaken for a historical fact to this day.
In 1850 Lippard founded the secret society Brotherhood of the Union , which was committed to the implementation of social reforms, especially improving the living conditions of factory workers. This organization even enjoyed some popularity and is said to have had 30,000 members by 1917. Lippard's final years, however, were tragic. In 1847 he married Rose Newman and had two children with her, both of whom died in infancy. His wife died in 1851. Lippard died of tuberculosis in Philadelphia in 1854.
Works
- The Ladye Annabel; or, The Doom of the Poisoner (1844)
- The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk-Hall (1845)
- The Nazarene (1846)
- Blanche of Brandywine (1846)
- Legends of Mexico (1847)
- Memoirs of a Preacher (1849)
- Washington and His Generals (1847)
- Paul Ardenheim, the Monk of Wissahikon (1848)
- Washington and His Men: A New Series of Legends of the Revolution (1849)
- The Killers: A Narrative of Real Life in Philadelphia (1850). New edition, ed. by Matt Cohen and Edlie L. Wong: University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2014, ISBN 978-0-8122-4624-7 .
- The Empire City (1850)
- Thomas Paine, Author-Soldier of the American Revolution (1852)
- New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million (1853)
- David S. Reynolds (Ed.): George Lippard, Prophet of Protest: Writings of an American Radical, 1822-1854 . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main and New York 1986, ISBN 0820402745 .
Secondary literature
- John Bell Bouton: The Life and Choice Writings of George Lippard . HH Randall, New York 1855.
- Timothy Helwig: Denying the Wages of Whiteness: The Racial Politics of George Lippard's Working-class Protest . In: American Studies 47: 3/4, 2006, pp. 87–111.
- Dustin Kennedy: Revising the Public Sphere: George Lippard, Class, and US Nationalism . In: ESQ 59: 4, 2013, pp. 585–617.
- David S. Reynolds: Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville . Knopf, New York 1988, ISBN 039454448X .
- David S. Reynolds: George Lippard . Twayne, Boston 1982, ISBN 0805773509 (= Twayne's United States Authors Series 417).
- David S. Reynolds: Radical Sensationalism: George Lippard in His Transatlantic Contexts . In: Jennifer Phegley et al. (Ed.): Transatlantic Sensations . Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, VT 2012, pp. 77-96.
- Mary Unger: 'Dens of Iniquity and Holes of Wickedness': George Lippard and the Queer City . In: Journal of American Studies 43: 2, 2009, pp. 319-39.
- Nathaniel Williams: George Lippard's Fragile Utopian Future and 1840s American Economic Turmoil . In: Utopian Studies 24: 2, 2013, pp. 166–83.
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lippard, George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American social reformer and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 10, 1822 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | West Nantmeal Township, Chester County , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 9, 1854 |
| Place of death | Philadelphia |