Intercollegiate Socialist Society

[1] One supporter in particular, novelist Upton Sinclair, was motivated to help advance the socialist idea among the political leaders of tomorrow by establishing a new organization targeted at college students.

[1] Sinclair made contact with a number of leading public intellectuals of the day, gaining formal endorsements for a new national college socialist organization from a number of important figures, including novelist Jack London, millionaire financier James Graham Phelps Stokes, socialist republican William English Walling, magazine publisher B. O.

Flower, attorney Clarence Darrow, writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, publicist Leonard D. Abbott, abolitionist hero Thomas Wentworth Higginson,[2] and Harry W.

[1] Their original call was written as follows:[3] In the opinion of the undersigned the recent remarkable increase in the Socialist vote in America should serve as an indication to the educated men and women in the country, that Socialism is a thing concerning which it is no longer wise to be indifferent.

The undersigned, regarding its aims and fundamental principles with sympathy, and believing that in them will ultimately be found the remedy for many far-reaching economic evils, propose organizing an association, to be known as the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, for the purpose of promoting an intelligent interest in Socialism among college men, graduate and undergraduate, through the formation of study clubs in the colleges and universities, and the encouraging of all legitimate endeavors to awaken an interest in Socialism among the educated men and women of the country.The new organization gathered for the first time shortly after the start of the new academic year, meeting on September 12, 1905, in a room at a restaurant in lower Manhattan.