Voluntary Poverty and Global Citizenship in 20th Century Britain

FAIN: FT-52467-04

Seth David Koven
Rutgers University (Villanova, PA 19085-1478)

This project examines how and why a group of six women and men, children of "eminent" Victorians whose lives intersected in the slums of London, recast their parents' assumptions about social activism and social justice, class and racial exploitation in forging a radical new vision of global citizenship in post-World War One Britain. I begin with the publication of their dramatic manifesto embracing "voluntary poverty" in March 1921, retrace the paths that led them to take this bold step, and then analyze their subsequent engagement in local and global movements ranging from grassroots experiments in workers' education to Gandhi's campaigns for Indian nationalism.