Document Type
Manuscript
Files
Date
1910
Summary
This is one of twelve sermons Earl Davis kept together in a twine-bound bundle. While these manuscripts are undated, internal evidence clearly dates them to the years 1909-1911. The United States went through a recession in 1908, and there was increasing labor unrest, including a general strike in Philadelphia in 1910. These difficulties provide some of the backdrop to these manuscripts, including this one here.
One of the manuscripts, “What about City Government,” has a clear notation that it was written for the “Pipe and Pen Club,” presumably some periodic gathering to discuss issues of the day. It is possible that all – or nearly all – of these manuscripts were prepared for that gathering, as they do not read like sermons.
Earl Davis writes about the current class struggle in the United States. He notes that there is a resistance to thinking of the United States in terms of classes because it was founded, in a way, to make a clear break with feudalism's class structure. However, in place of that class structure we have the Capitalistic class structure, and the class struggle therein. He makes reference to the 1910 general strike in Philadelphia. Socialism is his solution to the class struggle.
Keywords
Earl Clement Davis, minister, Unitarianism, religion, class, capitalism, socialism
Recommended Citation
Davis, Earl Clement, "The Class Struggle [Twine Bound Bundle)" (1910). Manuscripts. 27.
https://commons.clarku.edu/pittsfield_manuscripts/27
Rights Statement
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/