William J. Ghent

William James Ghent (April 29, 1866 – July 10, 1942) was an American socialist journalist and writer. His main focus was on socialism and on the history of the Westward Expansion of the early United States.

Early years

William James Ghent was born on April 29, 1866, in Frankfort, Clinton County, Indiana, the son of Ira Keith Ghent and Mary Elizabeth Palmer. Ghent's ancestors had already been residents of America for a century, having settled in the state of North Carolina prior to the American Revolution.

He attended public school and learned the printing trade as a young man, working as a compositor for a number of newspapers and magazines before moving into the field of journalism.

Socialist activities

Ghent became interested in socialism in 1892, becoming active in a Bellamy Club, and initially espoused the English evolutionary socialist ideas of Fabianism. Ghent would go on to contribute to such publications as the New York-based magazine The American Fabian from 1897 to 1898. Ghent's initial foray into politics came in the late 1890s, when he served as an aid to Samuel Jones during his campaigns to become Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, and Governor of Ohio.

On March 6, 1903, the Collectivist Society of New York was organized. Ghent was a member of its executive committee.

Ghent remained aloof from the organized socialist movement for more than a decade, finally joining the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1904. At the time of his entry into the SPA, Ghent was already well known among American socialists for his authorship of the widely read radical tome Our Benevolent Feudalism (1902). He soon followed this with another well recognized volume, 1904's Mass and Class.