William Babcock Weeden

Background

William Babcock Weeden was descended from James Weeden, who settled in Newport, R. I, in 1638. He was born in Bristol, R. I, the son of John Edward and Eliza (Cross) Weeden.

Education

His early education was received in the public schools of Westerly, R. I, and at the Connecticut Literary Institute, Suffield, Connecticut. He was a student at Brown University with the class of 1852.

Career

He left before graduation in order to accept employment with Bradford & Taft, wool merchants of Providence. So successful was he in this capacity that, with the dissolution of the partnership about 1864, he became a member of the new firm of Taft, Weeden & Company. Weeden's business activity was interrupted by his service during the Civil War. He first served as a second lieutenant in the Rhode Island light artillery, but was advanced to a captaincy after the battle of Bull Run. He continued in active service through the Seven Days' Battle, when he resigned his commission and resumed his business connections in Providence. The important phase of his business life began in 1864, when he organized the Weybosset Mills, control of which he retained until their purchase by the American Woolen Company in 1902. These mills were devoted to the large-scale manufacture of cassimeres and worsteds in the Blackstone Valley and in Providence, and raised Weeden to a position of leadership among men of affairs in southern New England. While probably bestknown among his contemporaries as a manufacturer, Weeden will undoubtedly be remembered by posterity chiefly as an historian. As a businessman he was content to tread the paths worn by his predecessors. It was in the seventies that his interest began to turn to public questions and to history. His first literary effort of importance was The Morality of Prohibitory Liquor Laws (1875). This was followed by The Social Law of Labor (1882), and Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization (1884), which appeared in the Johns Hopkins University Studies. In the last-named work he began the cultivation of a field which was to engage his attention for many years. His studies resulted in his most important and widely used work, Economic and Social History of New England, covering the period from 1620 to 1789. Despite its undeniable defects of arrangement and organization, this work stamps Weeden as one of the handful of men in America who, when history was still politics, dared to embrace a broader and more all-inclusive view of the subject. Like his contemporary, John Bach McMaster, Weeden was a social historian who sought faithfully to reproduce the life of the people in different periods. Like McMaster, too, he wrote social history of the static sort, as opposed to the dynamic, interpretative variety associated with Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard. He died in Providence, survived by his wife and six of his seven children.

Achievements

• Weeden is undoubtedly remembered as an historian. As a writer of history he ranks as a pioneer. He wrote numerous other articles and books, the most important of which were War Government, Federal and State 1861-1865 (1906), and Early Rhode Island, a Social History of the People (1910). His activity as a writer of history earned for him membership in such learned organizations as the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Quality, the Prevailing Element in Representation (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Quality, the Prevailing Element in Represent...)

  • Three Commonwealths, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island: Their Early Development (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Three Commonwealths, Massachusetts, Connecti...)

  • Early Rhode Island: A Social History of the People (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Early Rhode Island: A Social History of the ...)

  • Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789.: II

    (Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)

  • Early Rhode Island: A Social History of the People

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

  • Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization

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

  • The Social Law of Labor

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

  • War Government, Federal and State, in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana, 1861-1865

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

  • Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789, Volume 2

    (This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)

Connections

Weeden was married three times: first, on October 12, 1859, to Amy Dexter Owen; second, on December 5, 1867, to Hannah Raymer Balch, by whom he had seven children; and third, on April 18, 1893, to Jeanie Lippitt, daughter of Henry Lippitt.

Father:

John Edward Weeden

Mother:

Eliza (Cross) Weeden

Spouse:

Hannah Raymer Balch

Spouse:

Amy Dexter Owen

Spouse:

Jeanie Lippitt