John Radford (c1834-1906) and the O'Brienite colony in Kansas
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John Radford was not the most prominent of the O'Brienites - nor was he the most senior to make the journey to north-east Kansas where in the early 1870s they sought to establish a cooperative colony - but he was the foremost of those who chose to stay in Kansas and make his life there.
The photograph here shows Radford in Kansas City in 1903. The historian Gary Entz came across it courtesy of Radford's great-granddaughter, Debbie Osorio. It's published here with Gary's permission. Some years back, I wrote jointly with Gary Entz an entry about John Radford for the Dictionary of Labour Biography - it's posted below. |
The full citations details are: Gary R. Entz and Andrew Whitehead, 'John Radford', in the Dictionary of Labour Biography, vol. 12, edited by Keith Gildart and David Howell, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp.233-240
In the papers of fellow O'Brienite George E. Harris - which I have recently (August 2016) acquired from Harris's great-great-grand-daughter - there is a proof copy of this wonderful handbill soliciting support for a testimonial to John Radford as he and his family prepared to set sail in 1874:
Gary Entz has written the definitive history of the O'Brienite cooperative colony - set up at a place known as Llewellyn Castle near Wetmore in the north-east of Kansas. His book was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2013 and is entitled Llewellyn Castle: a worker's cooperative on the Great Plains.
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The cover of Gary's book features, I believe, a family photo of John Radford - he's the patriarch with the beard.
And Gary has unearthed an article by Radford in The Advocate, published in Topeka, Kansas, on 22 May 1895 in which he praises O'Brien's old hero, Robespierre! |
I'm also posting here a short article I wrote some years back about the O'Brienite colony in Kansas - and also have a look at the page elsewhere on this site about the New World, the journal associated with the colonisation project.
CITATION: Andrew Whitehead, 'The English Colony at Llewellyn Castle', Kanhistique (Ellsworth, Kansas), October 1987, pp14-15
Tags: Kanhistique, Llewellyn Castle, Goff, Atchison, Nemaha Country, O'Brienite colony, John Radford, Charles Murray, Edward Grainger Smith, John T. Bristow, Mutual Land Emigration and Co-operative Colonisation Company
