Fabian Society
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Fabian Society. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an organization in England, with headquarters in London, whose members are interested in the reorganization of society on a socialistic basis. In 1883 an American, Thomas Davidson, who was temporarily residing in London, made a practice of conferences, at which questions of social reform were discussed. From these informal meetings sprang the Fabian Society, so named after the Roman General Fabius, who by his tactics of delay saved Rome from invasion and capture. By this name it was indicated that the members of the society were in favor of evolutionary means to accomplish their ends, rather than revolutionary, or violent means. The leading figures in the activities of the Fabian Society have been the two Webbs; Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, two brilliant writers on economics, who have done more than any others to shape the politics of the Fabian prominent members have Society. Other been Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and Mrs. Annie Besant. The Fabian Society has stood for state socialism, and has published a number of volumes of essays by its members, advocating the gradual of government functions in extension e the public utilities and industry. Since war, however, this principle of reform has grown into disfavor, especially among the labor organizations, which have had a tendency toward syndicalism, or modifications of that theory, which implies the management of industry by labor organizations. The Fabian Society, also, has shown a broader interest in other plans for collectivist reorganizadirection of contion, especially in the sumers' co-operation.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an organization of socialists. There is an English organization, having headquarters in London, and an American organization. The English society maintains branches in the large industrial cities, and publishes "Fabian Tracts" from time to time. Pamphlets, known as "Fabian Tracts," are issued in advocacy of public ownership of land and of manufacturing plants. The American society publishes the American Fabian, a paper of like purpose.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Fabian Society still exists, still in London, and still publishes pamphlets in the line of descent from the "Fabian Tracts" Aiton's noted in 1910 formally affiliated to the Labour Party as a socialist society, with a few thousand members and a magazine, the Fabian Review. But its influence ran far beyond what Collier's could see in 1921: Sidney Webb drafted Labour's 1918 constitution, including the Clause IV commitment to common ownership of the means of production, and the Society had already founded the London School of Economics (1895) and the New Statesman (1913). Clause IV was rewritten by Tony Blair in 1995, and the Society, once the intellectual home of "state socialism," became a broad centre-left think tank rather than a movement with a programme. Two footnotes to the old accounts: Thomas Davidson, whom Collier's calls "an American," was in fact a Scot who had emigrated to the United States, and the Webbs' later enthusiasm for Stalin's Soviet Union badly damaged their reputation as sober economists.
Written for this edition, 2026.