Evans, George Henry (1805–55)

GEORGE HENRY EVANS was an American social activist and labor and agrarian reformer. He attempted to [Page 329]improve the conditions of working-class Americans during the early and mid-1800s. Evans was born in Bromyard, Herefordshire, England, on March 25, 1805. He immigrated to New York City in 1820 with his father and brother. He died in Granville, New Jersey, on February 2, 1855. Early in life he became an apprentice in the printing trades, which has often been an occupation of social reformers.

Evans became radicalized in his social and political beliefs primarily as a result of the intense upheaval experienced in the depression of 1819 and the years of economic hardship that followed. Indeed others were radicalized as well. In the 1820s, for the first time in American history, working people began to organize into separate political parties that expressed their own beliefs. Evans led a number of working-class parties from 1827 to 1837. In 1826, Evans edited a newspaper that was sympathetic to the Owenite communities.

Evans became involved in a movement in 1829 that resulted in the founding of the Workingmen's Party. Evans established in 1829 a newspaper, the Working-man's Advocate, which served as an organ of the Work-ingmen's Party (and was the first labor newspaper in the United States). He was to edit several other social reformist publications in his career: the Daily Sentinel, The Man, Radical, and others. For Evans his publishing activities were a means to an end, that end being social change and the development of a new society, one that was more egalitarian and more respectful of the rights of all citizens in society, no matter their race, social class, or status.

Evans advocated many reforms, including the abolition of slavery, chattel, or wage; landownership limitations; the free-soil movement; the homestead movement; labor rights; and a host of others. He organized the Agrarian League toward the goal of land reform. He was a longtime advocate of Native American rights. He traveled widely to promote the new Republican Party. On one of these trips, he was caught in a snowstorm and died of pneumonia.

Evans can be viewed as one of the notable social reformers in American history in his attempts to mitigate the harshness of the effects of the Industrial Revolution and laissez-faire capitalism. While not being completely successful in his pursuit of social reform in his lifetime, several developments occurred after his death that would have pleased him: the elimination of slavery and the advance of Native American rights, to name but two.

He was a man of strong beliefs, so strong that he spent most of his life trying to achieve or put into practice those beliefs toward a more just, egalitarian, and humane society.