Bolton Hall

Bolton Hall (August 5, 1854 – December 10, 1938) was an American lawyer, author, and Georgism activist who worked on behalf of the poor and started the back-to-the-land movement in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

Early life and education

Hall was born in Ireland on August 5, 1854, the son of the Rev. John Hall, who later became pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Because he was a teenager when the family came to the United States in 1868, he continued to speak English with an Irish accent. In 1875, he was graduated from Princeton University (where he rowed crew). He received his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1881.

It was reported after the death of the elder Hall in 1898 that the minister had disinherited Bolton "because of the latter's friendly attitude to labor and his friendship for Henry George and his belief in the single tax." Bolton Hall denied the report.

Career

Hall was a prolific writer of books and pamphlets.

Around 1886, Hall was a member of the export firm of McCarty and Hall, which failed that year. He filed for bankruptcy but withdrew the action after settling with creditors.

Activism

Hall was active on behalf of various progressive movements. He was an admirer of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French politician, philosopher and socialist, of Benjamin R. Tucker, editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty, and Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, pacifist and Christian anarchist. He was opposed to Marxism and agreed with classical liberal political theorist Herbert Spencer, who called it "the coming slavery."