Herbert Newton Casson

Herbert Newton Casson (September 23, 1869 – September 4, 1951) was a Canadian journalist and author who wrote primarily about technology and business.

Life and work

Casson was born in Odessa, Ontario. His father was the Reverend Wesley Casson, a Methodist missionary, and his mother was Elizabeth Jackson, related to the Ulster Jacksons and Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. The family moved around due to Casson's father's postings. After spending years in Manitoba, the family went back to Ontario in 1880, just before the outbreak of the North-West Rebellion. With no formal schooling, Casson turned to the world around him for education. Casson went to Victoria College in 1890 hoping to study philosophy, but was instead given a theology scholarship. He graduated with a dual degree in 1892.

At twenty-three, Casson became an ordained Methodist minister, but was soon tried for heresy and, after being found guilty, resigned his position. He moved to Boston in 1893 and started his career in the publishing field. While in Boston, Casson's attention was called to the immigrant slums. He was so shocked by the conditions he found there, he became a socialist, leading demonstrations and making friends with Keir Hardie in 1897 (British Socialist leader) and Samuel Gompers (American Trade Union). With Hardie he helped form the Independent Labour Party. Then with Walter Vrooman, married to heiress Amne Grafflin, Casson helped buy a college for leaders, flourishing since as Ruskin College at Oxford in 1899. He was inspired by Anglican Christian socialist William Dwight Porter Bliss's ministry in the Church of the Carpenter to found a Labor Church in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1894. Deserted by his followers for opposing the 1898 Spanish–American War, Casson moved to the Ruskin Colony, a socialist commune in Tennessee started by Julius Wayland. He left after six months and went to Toledo and worked alongside Samuel M. Jones and ghost-wrote the book The Eight Hour Day.