The Biographical Dictionary and the Nineteenth-Century Secular Movement

What is it about?

This article argues that the biographical dictionary was a crucial way that nineteenth-century secularists imagined their own past, present, and future as a radical movement. As a reference work that aspired to identify freethinking individuals unconstrained by national boundaries or era, J. M. Wheeler's A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889) does not impose a singular narrative; the reader must draw their own conclusions about what constitute freethinking principles and exemplary lives. This important reference work helped freethinkers to navigate a tension at the heart of their movement in a way that traditional (auto)biographies of leading figures could not: the desire to work together to effect social change while upholding the right to diagree.

Featured Image

Photo by Romain Vignes on Unsplash

Photo by Romain Vignes on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Radical movements often try to create a historical lineage for themselves, and nineteenth-century people who rejected religion (calling themselves atheists, agnostics, secularists, and freethinkers) did this through compiling a biographical dictionary. This article shows far far they succeeded in identifying people from 'all ages and nations', and why a dictionary rather than a traditional narrative history book held people like James Mazzini Wheeler to encourage others to take up the secular cause. You can read the dictionary for yourself here: https://archive.org/details/abiographicaldi00wheegoog/page/n3/mode/2up

Perspectives