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Radical saloon keeper in New York City
Justus Schwab
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Schwab.png/220px-Schwab.png) |
Born
| 1847
(
1847
)
|
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Died
| 1900
(1900-00-00)
(aged 52?53)
New York City, United States
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Occupation
| Barkeep
|
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Justus H. Schwab
(1847?1900) was the
keeper
of a radical saloon in
New York City
's
Lower East Side
.
An emigre from Germany, Schwab was involved in early
American anarchism
in the early 1880s, including the anti-authoritarian
New York Social Revolutionary Club
's split from the
Socialistic Labor Party
and
Johann Most
's entry to the United States.
Life
[
edit
]
The
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
commemorated Schwab's saloon with a plaque in 2012.
Justus H. Schwab was born in Germany in 1847.
His father was a
Forty-Eighter
.
Schwab immigrated into the United States in 1868. He ran a saloon in
New York City
's
Lower East Side
(50
East First Street
) that was popular among radicals. Emma Goldman and the periodical
Sturmvogel
used the saloon as their mailing address. Writers including
Ambrose Bierce
,
Sadakichi Hartmann
, and
James Huneker
also frequented the bar.
The bar was advertised as "the gathering-place for all bold, joyful, and freedom-loving spirits".
A
financial panic in 1873
set off an
economic depression
that lasted the rest of the decade with progressively worsening unemployment, homelessness, starvation, and general hardship. This depression gave rise to the American militant labor movement with demonstrations by the afflicted.
As one such
January 1874 demonstration in Tompkins Square Park
devolved, Schwab walked towards the square with the
Paris Commune
's
red flag
, for which he was arrested for
incitement to riot
.
He sang "
The Marseillaise
" during his arrest.
Schwab was cast out of the
Socialistic Labor Party
for opposing alliance with the
Greenback Party
in the
1880 election
.
He was involved in the formation of the splinter
New York Social Revolutionary Club
to pursue the
Gotha Program
in late 1880.
[6]
Schwab represented the club at the
1881 Chicago Social Revolutionary Congress
, where he was a key figure.
Schwab spoke at the Social Revolutionary Club's reception for
Johann Most
's arrival in New York.
Schwab became an
anarchist
in early 1880s,
a
term that emerged during this period
and was synonymous with social revolutionary, anti-authoritarian socialism.
Schwab kept correspondence with
Albert Parsons
during the latter's imprisonment. Parsons carved a tugboat with his pocketknife and asked Schwab to raffle it with proceeds to go to Parsons' family, which it did, for $150 (equivalent to $5,087 in 2023).
Personal life
[
edit
]
Schwab was tall, with thick blond hair "like a Viking" and a deep voice.
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Avrich, Paul
(1984).
The Haymarket Tragedy
. Princeton University Press.
ISBN
978-0-691-04711-9
.
- Falk, Candace, ed. (2003). "Schwab, Justus H.".
Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years
; Volume One: Made for America, 1890?1901
. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 555.
ISBN
978-0-520-08670-8
.
- Goyens, Tom (2007).
Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880?1914
. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
ISBN
978-0-252-03175-5
.
- Goyens, Tom, ed. (2017).
Radical Gotham: Anarchism in New York City from Schwab's Saloon to Occupy Wall Street
. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
ISBN
978-0-252-08254-2
.
- Gutman, Herbert G. (1965). "The Tompkins square 'Riot' in New York City on January 13, 1874: A re-examination of its causes and its aftermath".
Labor History
.
6
(1): 44?70.
doi
:
10.1080/00236566508583955
.
ISSN
0023-656X
.
- Hillquit, Morris (1906).
History of Socialism in the United States
(4th ed.). New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- Messer-Kruse, Timothy
(2014).
The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks
. The Working Class in American History. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
ISBN
978-0-252-09414-9
.
Further reading
[
edit
]