Background

Harry Frederick Ward was born near London, England, in Brentford, Middlesex County, the son of Harry Ward, a prosperous butcher and provisions merchant and a Methodist lay minister, and Florence ("Fanny") Jeffery. Ward worked in the family business and was appalled by his father's callous attitude toward employees. This early contact with capitalism influenced his later sympathy with labor.

Education

Ward attended a boys' school befitting his father's status as a tradesman. He enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1893 but then transferred to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. , the strong Methodism of which reinforced his earlier evangelism and probably determined his career. He received his bachelor's degree in 1897 and won a scholarship to Harvard, from which he received a master's degree in philosophy in 1898. Ward, a disciple of the Social Gospel, was named head resident of the Northwestern Settlement House in Chicago in 1898. He also studied for certification as a Methodist minister.

Career

Realizing the educational limitations imposed upon him by his social class, he immigrated to the United States in 1891. He lived for a time with relatives in Utah and Idaho and worked at odd jobs, including lay preaching (which he had done in England) and missionary work. In 1900, Ward was abruptly dismissed from the settlement house in a dispute with the governing council over administrative authority. He was accredited as a minister in 1902 and continued preaching at the Wabash Avenue Methodist Church in Chicago between 1900 and 1902. He served two more inner-city churches and one suburban church during the next decade. The spread of social and economic reform, the rise of organized labor, and the challenge of Socialist thought during the Progressive era paralleled his personal experiences and observations of the miseries of Chicago; to these factors Ward applied his own religious and philosophical insights. In 1907, Ward drafted "The Social Creed of the Churches, " a landmark church program for the benefit of workers. The statement invoked the Golden Rule and Christ's precepts and committed the Methodist Episcopal church to "equal rights and complete Justice for all men in all stations of life. " It also promoted most of the contemporary aims of labor advocates: conciliation and arbitration, health and safety for laborers, abolition of child labor, regulation of the labor of women, suppression of sweatshops, reduced working hours, expanded leisure, full employment, a six-day work week, a living wage, and fairer distribution of goods and services. This led to the formation in December 1907 of the Methodist Federation for Social Service (later, Social Action) as a propaganda agency for the creed among Methodists, but endorsements soon came from many other religious organizations. Ward served the federation as editor (1907 - 1911) and general secretary (1911 - 1944). The work of the federation is considered his most enduring contribution. For half a century, Ward remained a major social critic and activist. He composed manifestos, policy pronouncements, petitions, and letters to the editor, and wrote more than two hundred books and articles. Representative of his writings on religion and economics are The Labor Movement (1917), The New Social Order (1919), Our Economic Morality (1929), and Which Way Religion? (1931), while In Place of Profit (1933) reveals his view of the Soviet system. He also worked constantly through conferences, committees, and organizations and their internal networks. Most of Ward's articles were commentary on, or restatements of, his social vision; only a few of his full-length books contain original ideas. He generally eschewed traditional organized politics and participation in labor-union affairs. In 1913, Ward was appointed professor of social service at Boston University's School of Theology. In 1918 he was named professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from which he retired in 1941. Ward's faith in advocacy organizations is exemplified in four major commitments: to civil liberties, to the peace movement, to racial equality, and to a united antifascist front. He served as chairman of the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) during its first twenty years (1920 - 1940). His contribution to the early ACLU is obscured by his controversial resignation, personality and ideological clashes among board members, and the dominance of Roger Baldwin as director. The American League Against War and Fascism (after 1936 the League for Peace and Democracy) was founded in 1933 as a united front for farm, labor, church, minority, civil rights, and consumer organizations alarmed by the threat of international war and the rise of European fascism. Ward served as national chairman from 1934 until the league was dissolved in 1940. It was beset by internal dissension and external attacks throughout its brief history, and Ward was unable to create sufficient cohesion among its intellectuals, writers, and activists to permit real accomplishments. Even less successful was Ward's involvement from 1933 to 1938 with New America, which he launched among intellectuals to draw a blueprint for a new social order derived from the American revolutionary tradition. By the 1930's, Ward was increasingly on the defensive. His strong prolabor views, his interest in Marxism and socialism, and his defense of the rights of all, including American Communists and Communist sympathizers, led to charges of anticapitalism and pro-Communism. His invariable response was that he was a member of no party. This did not satisfy his opponents, who knew of his frequent association with, and defense of, Communists and Communist organizations and of his admiration for the Soviet economic system and his sympathy with Russian policies. Visits to India, China, and Russia also influenced his international outlook. He remained active as a speaker, agitator, and writer until a few years before his death in Palisades, N. J.

Achievements

• Ward is best remembered as the first national chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), leading the group from its creation in 1920 until his resignation in protest of the organization's decision to bar Communists in 1940.

Works

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  • Poverty and Wealth: From the Viewpoint of the Kingdom of God (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Poverty and Wealth: From the Viewpoint of th...)

  • A Year Book of the Church and Social Service in the United States: Prepared for the Commission on the Church and Social Service of the Fereral Council ... of Christ in America (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from A Year Book of the Church and Social Service...)

  • Colonial America: 1607-1763

    ( A complete overview of issues, problems, development an...)

  • The labor movement, from the standpoint of religious values

    ( About the Book Books about the History of Religion dis...)

  • Ford Hall Noon Lectures: The Labor Movement from the Standpoint of Religious Values

    ( About the Book Teaching methods comprise the principles...)

  • A year book of the church and social service in the United States, prepared for the Commission on the Church and Social Service of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America

    ( About the Book Biblical studies are a set of diverse di...)

  • The Opportunity for Religion in the Present World Situation. New York-1919

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • The Social Creed of the Churches. New York

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • A Year Book of The Church and Social Service

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Christianizing Community Life, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Christianizing Community Life, Vol. 2 This ...)

Religion

Ward viewed Jesus Christ as a revolutionary historical figure, only one of many such figures, whose basic ideas were added to, and even corrupted, in organized Christianity.

Politics

He was intrigued by Karl Marx, whom he saw less as an economic theorist than as a humanitarian.

Connections

On April 20, 1899, he married Harriet Mae ("Daisy") Kendall, the daughter of a Kansas City manufacturer, whom he had met at Northwestern; they had three children.

Father:

Harry Ward

Mother:

Florence ("Fanny") Jeffery

Spouse:

Harriet Mae ("Daisy") Kendall

References

• In the Trenches with Jesus and Marx: Harry F. Ward and the Struggle for Social Justice (Religion & American Culture)