Background

Albert Brisbane was born on August 22, 1809 in Batavia, New York, where his father, James Brisbane, of Scotch descent, was one of the more prominent landowners. His mother, Mary (Stevens) Brisbane, was of English stock, and a student of no little ability. From both of his parents Albert Brisbane inherited a sturdy and vigorous constitution, being, according to his father, "as withy as a rattlesnake. "

Education

It was his mother from whom Brisbane got much of his early education, particularly in history and the sciences. When about fifteen years of age he was placed in a Long Island boarding-school, but soon removed to New York City where he studied under several tutors, the most important being John Monesca, whose teaching and social philosophy made a great impression.

Before leaving Batavia, Brisbane tells us, he had begun to consider seriously the social destiny of man, and his contact with Monesca furthered his interest in the subject and inclined him to study the problem under the great thinkers of contemporary Europe.

At the age of eighteen, therefore, he left New York for Paris where he studied for a time under Cousin, Guizot, and others. Disappointed in the French thinkers he next went to Berlin where he studied social philosophy under Hegel.

Leaving Berlin, he next journeyed to Constantinople to study at first hand the civilization of the Turkish Empire and southeastern Europe. Returning to western Europe, he reached Paris shortly after the Revolution of 1830, convinced that the human misery he had witnessed could be alleviated only by a fundamental reconstruction of society.

Career

In 1839, however, Brisbane organized a society and began lecturing in Philadelphia and New York, and the following year widened his appeal by publishing his Social Destiny of Man; or, Association and Reorganization of Industry, an exposition of Fourierism. This was followed in 1843 by Association; or, A Concise Exposition of the Practical Part of Fourier's Social Science. The earlier work so much interested Horace Greeley that he not only offered Brisbane the use of the New York Tribune but even got out with him a paper devoted wholly to Associationism, the Future, which ran for two months, when it was dropped for a column in the Tribune.

In order to forward his educational campaign still more vigorously Brisbane also took over the editorship of the Chronicle, wrote twice a week for a radical democratic paper, the Plebeian, edited (1843 - 45) with Osborne Macdaniel, the Phalanx, the "organ of the doctrine of Association, " and wrote occasionally for the Dial.

Under the excitement of the new ideas some forty small and poorly financed experiments in practical associationism were started, a development for which Brisbane was quite unprepared and in which he took no part. The results were disastrous, convincing Brisbane of the unwisdom of "too hasty propaganda". Following the failure of these practical experiments in Fourierism, public interest in the subject waned, and Brisbane dropped his educational propaganda, although many years later, in 1876, he published a General Introduction to Social Sciences, the first part of which was devoted to an introduction to Fourier's theory of social organization, and the second part to a translation of the master's Theory of Universal Unity.

The later years of Brisbane's life were devoted to study and travel, and to his inventions, of which his system of transportation by means of hollow spheres in pneumatic tubes and a new system of burial became best known.

He died in Richmond, Virginia.

Achievements

• Albert Brisbane has been listed as a noteworthy reformer by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A concise exposition of the doctrine of association, or Plan for a re-organization of society : which will secure to the human race, individually and collectively, their happiness and elevation : (Based on Fourier's theory of domestic and industrial association.)

    (Pages 94 It is the reproduction of the old book published...)

  • A concise exposition of the doctrine of association, or Plan for a re-organization of society : which will secure to the human race, individually and ... theory of domestic and industrial assoc

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Social Destiny of Man, Or, Association and Reorganization of Industry

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A Concise Exposition of the Doctrine of Association

    (Plan for a re-organization of society, which will secure ...)

  • Albert Brisbane: A Mental Biography

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • A concise exposition of the doctrine of association, or, plan for a re-organization of society: which will secure to the human race, individually and of domestic and industrial association

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • General Introduction to Social Sciences: Part First.--Introduction to Fourier's Theory of Social Organization

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Social Destiny of Man, Or, Association and Reorganization of Industry

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • General Introduction To Social Science: Introduction To Fourier's Theory Of Social Organization, Social Destinies (1876)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • A Concise Exposition Of The Doctrine Of Association Or, Plan For A Re-Organization Of Society

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Association; or, A concise exposition of the practical part of Fourier's social science

    (This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)

  • Social destiny of man 1840 Hardcover

    (Lang:- eng, Pages 518. Reprinted in 2015 with the help of...)

  • A CONCISE EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ASSOCIATION, OR PLAN FOR A RE-ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY, WHICH WILL SECURE TO THE HUMAN RACE, INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, THEIR HAPPINESS AND ELEVATION. SECOND EDITION.
  • Philosophy of money: A new currency and a new credit system
  • The Harbinger, Devoted to Social and Political Progress
  • Albert Brisbane, a mental biography with a character study by his wife, Redelia Brisbane

Views

As a practical reformer, however, Brisbane was not a success. Not only was the scheme he advocated Utopian in character, but Brisbane himself, modest and somewhat self-distrustful, was quite lacking in any real capacity for leadership. Intellectually, as well as historically, Albert Brisbane belongs among those Utopian socialists of his generation who sought in some new order of society a universal panacea for the evils they saw in the society about them.

Quotations: Socially he found Berlin very pleasant, being welcomed into intellectual circles of a liberal character, but Hegel disappointed him for, he says, "I found in Hegel and among his disciples no idea of a higher social order than the European civilization".

For a time he dallied with the reform ideas of Saint-Simon, but these he eventually rejected. A few months later, however, he read Charles Fourier's Traité de l'Association Domestique-Agricole (1821 - 22), and was much impressed. "Now for the first time, " he says, "I had come across an idea which I had never met before--the idea of dignifying and rendering attractive the manual labors of mankind". Further investigation convinced him that in Fourier's theory he had "found a hypothesis which explained what I had been seeking to discover--a just and wise organization of human society".

Brisbane, wrote one of his contemporaries, was "a well and highly educated man, of active and vigorous mind, with a keen and analytical vision, and a large power of generalization. With a great deal of candor, good temper, and kindliness, he exhibits a certain innocent simplicity of character, and a fervor of faith in abstract convictions, which can rarely fail to awaken in a high degree the confidence, interest and esteem of those who are brought into any intimacy of contact with him".

Brisbane cast the adoption of Fourier's system in millennial terms, asserting that:

"Association will establish Christianity practically upon Earth. It will make the love of God and the love of the neighbor the greatest desire, and the practice of all men. Temptation to wrong will be taken from the paths of men, and a thousand perverting and degrading circumstances and influences will be purged from the social world. "

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  He studied under the personal direction of Charles Fourier for two years, during which Brisbane satisfied himself of the wisdom and validity of Fourier's theories.

Connections

Brisbane married twice, his first wife being Sarah White by whom he had three children, and his second wife Redelia Bates. He was the father of the editor Arthur Brisbane.

Father:

James Brisbane

Mother:

Mary Stevens

1st wife:

Sarah White

2nd wife:

Redelia Bates

Daughter:

Alice (Brisbane) Thursby

1859–1953

Son:

Arthur Brisbane

editor

1863–1936

Son:

Albert Brisbane

Son:

Fowell Brisbane

1866–1911

Son:

Hugo Brisbane

1862–1871

mentor:

John Monesca

philosopher

References

• Freedoms Ferment
• The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America
• Albert Brisbane: A Mental Biography With a Character Study (Classic Reprint)