Elihu Burritt was an American diplomat, philanthropist and social activist. He was a prolific lecturer, journalist and writer, who traveled widely in the US and Europe.
Early life
Elihu Burritt was born December 8, 1810, in New Britain, Connecticut. He was a descendant of William and Elizabeth Burritt from Stratford, Connecticut. He first worked as a blacksmith. As an adult he was active as a lecturer in many causes, opposing slavery, working for temperance, and trying to achieve world peace. In the early 1840s Burritt began to tour New England, speaking against war and promoting brotherhood. His sobriquet "Learned Blacksmith" arose from a period when he earned a living as a blacksmith in Worcester, Massachusetts. He founded a weekly paper, the Christian Citizen, in Worcester in 1844. By this time, Burritt had emerged at the head of a group of radical pacifists within the American Peace Society, and took on George Cone Beckwith, who supported a gradualist attitude on multiple fronts. There was a confrontation in 1845. Burritt was given the chance to take over as editor of The Advocate of Peace, the organ of the American Peace Society, but Beckwith employed delaying tactics. When Burritt came into post at the beginning of 1846, he renamed the publication as The Advocate of Peace and Universal Brotherhood. But when Beckwith had mustered enough support, in May, the decision was reversed. The infighting cost the Society its President, Samuel Elliott Coues, who resigned.
Move to England
In the summer of 1846, the disillusioned Burritt left the cautious Beckwith, and went to England. He stayed initially with Joseph Sturge. Setting off in July on a walking tour, he went to Worcester, the namesake town, to speak. He travelled widely around a new home in Harborne, then a rural village, largely on foot. He was sympathetic to the industrial and political culture of Birmingham, and became a friend of many of its leading citizens, so that what he wrote about it was largely positive. During his time in Birmingham he lived in a house which he named New Britain Villas. It was later home to Edward Chitham, who also wrote a book on the Black Country. Burritt was actively involved the local community, taking part in the committee for the rebuilding of St. Peter's Church, Harborne. During a trip abroad in 1846–47, Burritt was touched by the suffering of the Irish peasantry.
League of Universal Brotherhood
Burritt founded the peace organization the League of Universal Brotherhood in 1846. He launched it at Pershore, and it was supported by Sturge, James Silk Buckingham, and John Jefferson of the London Peace Society. The Quaker Edmund Fry became its Secretary, and Charles Gilpin a supporter. Burritt edited the monthly Bond of Brotherhood, from London. The League promoted the use of free-labour produce. Female auxiliaries, called 'Olive Leaf Circles', raised funds for the League by selling articles made from free-labour cotton and other raw materials. By 1850 there were around 150 of such circles in Britain. "The peace movement", as an umbrella term that included supporters of William Lloyd Garrison and the "moral force" Chartists, as well as the League and Peace Society radicals, was popularised by Burritt from 1847. Burritt organized the first international congress of the Friends of Peace, which convened in Brussels in September 1848. The League was shortly an international movement, but its British branch became part of the London Peace Society in 1857. It influenced the later work in the United Kingdom of Priscilla Peckover. A second "Peace Congress" met in Paris in 1849, presided over by Victor Hugo. Burritt attended the "Peace Congresses" at Frankfurt in 1850, London in 1851, Manchester in 1852 and Edinburgh in 1853. The outbreak of the Crimean War and then the American Civil War jolted his views.
Later life
Burritt's first stay in Britain ended in 1853. He returned to New England, taking an interest in farming and agricultural methods. Burritt advocated that Britain, which introduced the Uniform Penny Post in 1840, should introduce an international "ocean penny post" and reduce the cost from one shilling to threepence. He argued this would increase international correspondence, trade, and hence universal brotherhood. He urged the use of illustrated propaganda envelopes. Postal rates were gradually reduced, but his objective was not entirely achieved in his lifetime. In 1856–7 Burritt spent much time on abolitionist lecturing in the USA. He was promoting his version of "compensated emancipation". Burritt was appointed United States consul in Birmingham, England by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. When Ulysses S. Grant was elected in 1868, he was not reappointed to the post. He died on March 6, 1879 in New Britain, Connecticut.
Works
Burritt published at least 37 books and articles. They included:
Walks in the Black Country. It recorded his thoughts on the industrialization of communities in the Black Country, and brought the term "the Black Country" into widespread common usage. It was the third of the travel books he wrote about Britain for American readers. He was the author of the famous early description of the Black Country as "black by day and red by night", adding appreciatively that it "cannot be matched, for vast and varied production, by any other space of equal radius on the surface of the globe".
