Anti-Imperialism and Liberty by M. Patrick Cullinane

Gamaliel Bradford

Birth/Death: 1831 / 1911

League Membership:             Faneuil Hall Meeting, June 15, 1898
                                               Committee of Correspondence
                                               The Anti-Imperialist League, 1898-1899
                                               New England Anti-Imperialist League
                                               The Anti-Imperialist League, 1904-1921

Role in League:                      Founder of Boston Movement
                                               Executive Committee Member
                                               Committee of Correspondence

Occupation: Banker

Brief Biography

Although this site refers to Gamaliel Bradford as the founder of the Boston movement, that reference is most pointed to his role in prompting the Faneuil Hall meeting that eventually created the Anti-Imperialist League. He originally sought to have the meeting in May, but with the war only just beginning his fellow Bostonians suggested a postponement. The Boston Evening Transcript published Bradford's "Cry for Help" on June 2, 1898 and the movement began. The Bradford Family can trace its roots to the Plymouth colony and Gamaliel was descendant of these New England revolutionaries. He made his fortunes in banking but was a prolific writer and editorialist. An abolitionist Republican prior to 1886, Bradford like so many other Boston mugwumps voted for Grover Cleveland and Democratic candidates ever since.

Primary:

Gamaliel Bradford Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Bradford Family Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Gamaliel Bradford, 'Congress and the Cabinet,' Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 4, No. 3. (November, 1893).

———, The Lesson of Popular Government (New York: MacMillan, 1899).

———, Political Essays for the Massachusetts Campaign: 1906 (Boston: 1906).

Secondary:

Beisner, Robert L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.

Blodgett Geoffrey T. 'The Mind of the Boston Mugwump,' The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 4. (March, 1962).

Dementyev, Igor. USA: Imperialists and Anti-Imperialists (Moscow: Progres Publishers, 1979).

Lanzar-Carpio, Maria, 'The Anti-Imperialist League,' Philippine Social Review, (1930-1933).

Schirmer, Daniel B. Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing, 1972.

Tompkins, Berkeley E. Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890-1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.

Wood, Gordon S. 'The Massachusetts Mugwumps,' New England Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4. (December, 1960).

M. Patrick Cullinane, Liberty and Anti-Imperialism, May 9, 2008.

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