James F. Morton

James F. Morton was an anarchist writer and political activist of the 1900s through the 1920s, whose work focused on the single tax system, racism, and advocacy for women. After about 1920, he was beter known as a Bahá'í, a notable museum curator, and an esperantist. He was a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft.
==Biography==
===Early years===
Morton was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, and lived in Andover, New Hampshire.Harvard University's General Catalogue Issue. His family reached back to the Pilgrims landing in 1620; his grandfather was Rev. Samuel Francis Smith. A newspaper article from 1906 refers a little to his youth -- that he worked as a "newsboy, bootblack, an organ blower, and an employe (sic) in a jelly factory". In 1892, he earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University,"Memorial of James F. Morton", Morning Call of Oct 8, 1941. simultaneously, in Classical Philology, earning a "Gorham Thomas" scholarship, graduated cum laude and was a member of the honors society Phi Beta Kappa. He was a classmate of W.E.B. Du Bois"Morton, Jr., James Ferdinand (1870-1941)", The Margaret Sanger Papers Electronic Edition: Margaret Sanger and The Woman Rebel and carried on some correspondence with him.W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), The Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois; 1803 (1877–1963) 1979. He gained skills in Greek, Latin and French. The Harvard Secretary's Report of 1896 noted by then he was in the temperate Independent Order of Good Templars, the animal rights-oriented New England Anti-Vivisection Society, and had campaigned under the People's Party.Harvard College (1780- ) Secretary's Report. 
Even at this early period, he was actively involved in the amateur journalism movement, appearing in newspaper coverage of the developing practice in 1891,("Young reformers", Boston Post 17 Jun 1891) and elected president of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) in 1896. In his earlier days in New England, he explored a number of alternatives to mainstream culture.An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. 
===Anarchism and the Tour to the West and back===
He converted to anarchism, especially as individualist anarchism in the United States, anarchism and issues related to love, sex and freethought ,and went on a cross-country speaking tour in 1899-1900 to the West in support of these ideas. Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years Made for America, 1890-1901.
By 1901, he was active on the West Coast.
When living in the West, Morton wrote for or edited various anarchist journalsAnarchist Periodicals in English Published in the United States (1833-1955): An Annotated Guide such as Free Society,Radical, Libertarian, Individualist and Anarchist Periodicals: An Index Discontent, The Demonstrator, Truth Seeker, and Emma Goldman's Mother EarthThe Libertarian Labyrinth and lived at the Home, Washington anarchist commune, which had been raided, though Morton was not arrested, and was still present when the news of the assassination attempt against US President William McKinley occurred. Morton's writings clarified that he favored a "non-retaliatory" anarchism. In 1904, he made his way back to the East Coast,"To talk on Amateur Journalism", The St Louis Republic and a talk of his on anarchist/free-thought and morality was carried in several newspapers.
===Initiatives ===
As early as 1903, Morton is visibly against racism in his writing for the anarchist Distcontent, campaigned actively for civil rights for blacks, published The Curse of Race Prejudice and challenged productions like Thomas Dixon's The Clansman in 1906. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's The Crisis listed his work among its suggested reading materials in many editions over the years. He served on various committees of the NAACP in the 1910s, and continued to speak on the issue across several years. In 1922, he contributed to a conference on the history of racism.
Perhaps no other subject consumed Morton's energy and focus in the earlier half of his life than the subject of a single-tax as originated by Henry George -- it was one of the topics he spoke across several years about.
A third topic was of lasting concern to Morton -- the facets of advocacy for women -- suffrage.
In addition to particular topics that had his voice across the decades, and practicing law for some years in New York and Massachusetts, he wrote or gave talks on a wide range of topics:
*racism against red-heads
*antisemitism in Russia
*conventionality in religion and politics,
*Thomas Paine
*tyranny in the postal system (which got echoed in more than one newspaper)
*workers' rights and social reform
*funerals in general and of Thaddeus B. Wakeman in particular
*baseball games on Sunday
*"Mob spirit"
*contraceptionBirth Control, Or, the Limitation of Offspring
*radicalism
===Literature and friendships===
In addition to various individual topics, he was also invested in several over a long term. From about 1915, he was a prominent member of the Blue Pencil Club of Brooklyn, named after the traditional Blue pencil editor's corrections, and supported appreciation of literature in a number of talks.
==== Association with Lovecraft ====
His close friendship with the author H. P. Lovecraft (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia) is today perhaps the feature of his biography which arouses the most interest. Morton promoted Lovecraft to be president of National Amateur Press Association in 1922.H. P. Lovecraft, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner; H. P. Lovecraft, Letters from New York, Portland and San Francisco. 
Morton was a key member of the Kalem Club, the close circle of friends around Lovecraft in New York City in the mid 1920s. (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia) During the early part of that period, he lived in Harlem, New York City, a predominantly black neighborhood.
===Paterson Museum===
Morton was an active student of mineralogy and a leading member of the Thomas Paine Natural History Association. In the mid 1920s, he was offered and took the post of head museum curator at the new museum at Paterson, New Jersey -- then a regional locus of anarchism -- where he would build a mineralogy collection which was admired by nationally and internationally. This job enabled him to marry the writer Pearl K. Merritt in 1934 though the couple had no children. Morton became a leader in the American Association of Museums, and a leading member of the New York Mineralogical Club. Locally, he enjoyed walking with the radical Paterson Rambling Club.
In the 1934 he was interested in his family history and wrote congratulating a local historian on research important to overcoming some limits in his own research. An avid walker, he died in 1941, due to being struck in the back while walking to a meeting by a moving car.
==Religion ==
Beginning in 1907, Morton also published a series of articles under "Fragments of a Mental Autobiography" in a journal named LibraLetters to James F. Morton which outlines his religious background beginning with Baptist family heritage, goes through Unitarian relatives, and Theosophy exploration, (he was president of the Boston Theosophical Society in 1895) and placing Jesus and the Buddha among those on the highest level of his admiration, even if he found fault with all scripture and organized religion. In this period, Morton was an avid "evangelist" atheist (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia) and often spoke out against religion, but he had already encountered the Bahá'í Faith:
He became a convert to the religion in later life.A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft Morton is visibly in Bahá'í circles from 1915 on the program of presenters at Green Acre,"Program for Green Acre Conferences" The Portsmouth Herald. a Bahá'í center of lectures and conferences from about 1912, and got into some debates with a critic of the religion circa 1916. The debates followed the publication of "The Persian Revival to Jesus, and his American Disciples" .The Open Court, August 1915 He also served as a alternate delegate from New York to a national convention of the religion in 1918."Monday Afternoon Session", Star of the West. He received two letters (aka "Tablets") from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, in 1919 which were later published in the Bahá'í journal Star of the West."Recent Tablets from Abdul-Baha to American Bahais" Star of the WestJanuary 19, 1920; "Tablet to Bahais in American received in 1919 and 1920" Star of the West February 7, 1921. Morton increasingly gave public talks related to the religion from the late 1910s through the 20s and into the 30s."The Souvenir Feast at West Englewood" Star of the West August 1929.
During the same period, he addressed the topic of Esperanto, sometimes as a Bahá'í specifically Letters to the Editor from 1911 and 1922 quoted in Esperanto in The New York Times."The relation between the Baha'i movement and Esperanto" Star of the West October 1926.
He was vice-president of the Esperanto League for North America, and was the lead teacher of that language at the Ferrer Center (a long-running anarchist school) in New York City.
=== Similarities, parallels and connections===
It is worth noting perhaps that other Bahá'ís were interested in the single tax movement originated around the ideas of Henry George, and other ideas also in common with the young Morton.The Baha'i Faith in America Among these were Paul Kingston Dealy and Marie Howland. Both had joined the religion some years earlier around 1897-98. Dealy and Howland had joined the religion in different cities -- Chicago, the first national community of Baha'is in the US in the case of Dealy, and Howland in Enterpririse Kansas, the second such in the States. Dealy had also previously run for office under the People's Party circa 1895, but in Chicago. Howland and her husband had also been interested in the ideas of sexual freedom against the norms of the day, and the cultural situation of women, though Howland's husband soon died. 
Both Dealy (and his family) and Howland, independently, also moved to commune of sorts, although this one was different, at Fairhope, Alabama, circa 1898-99. There Howland established the first library and worked on the first newspaper, another interest of Morton's, of the colony.
Another Bahá'í couple -- Honoré Jaxon and Aimée Montfort --show similar interests as well. Jaxon had been an anarchist a decade before and been involved in another commune of sorts at Topolobampo Mexico, and then joined the religion about 1897 in Chicago, shortly before Aimée. They had married and pursued worker's rights involvements, though their long-term interested turned to Canada.Honoré Jaxon: Prairie Visionary, The Origins of the Bahá’í Community of Canada, 1898-1948. It is not known if Morton, Dealy, Howland, Jaxon or Montfort ever knew of each other. Additionally Thornton Chase, called the first Bahá'í in the West, was a student of Morton's grandfather, Rev. Samuel Francis Smith, in his youth.Thornton Chase: First American Bahá'í. 
==Selected Bibliography==
*"A Few Memories" (1955)
== References ==
Category:Lovecraft's Correspondents
Category:Kalem Club
Category:Deceased (Real World)
Category:Lovecraft's Inspirations (authors)