Antedating of "Socialism"

[Fred Shapiro]

socialism (OED 12 Aug. 1837)

1837 _Vermont Patriot & State Gazette_ 31 July (19th Century U.S.
Periodicals)  The New-York American deplores most feelingly and forcibly
the failure of the "New-York Review and Quarterly Church Journal."  This
review, says the American, "was destined to further the interests of
religion and letters -- to contribute to render the cause of God and
humanity now and forever one and inseparable."  It contained "an article
upon Thomas Jefferson -- full of fire and of collected thought,
wonderfully adapted to our present calamities -- _laying bare_ as it does
the _perfidy and socialism_ of that ACCURSED SOURCE of the ANARCHY, still
misnamed DEMOCRACY, among us."

NOTE:  The above citation seems to point to earlier usage in the
periodical quoted.

Fred Shapiro


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