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Equality Colony sketch, ca. 1898-1900, entitled "The Hatchery"
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| Title | Equality Colony sketch, ca. 1898-1900, entitled "The Hatchery" |
| Author | Ault, Erwin Bratton "Harry" (1883-1961) |
| Date of Publication | n.d. |
| Notes | In this "sketch" of life at Equality Colony, Harry Ault records his memories of "The Hatchery" -- the first "stopping place" for newly arrived members of the colony, where they were "hatched out into full-fledged cooperators". The Hatchery was the former home of "The Gardener", and had been expanded from being a "two-room shack" into a larger, poorly constructed dormitory building. The Hatchery hosted public events -- in the summer, the "Lady Editor" taught "the wonders of astronomy" to children from the colony, and in the winter, the colony gathered to hear "debates on aspects of the radical movement that would leave the listeners all at sea and the debaters physically exhausted". |
| Contextual Notes | "Harry" E. B. Ault (1883-1961) was a journalist and a prominent member of the socialist and labor movements in Washington state. In 1898, when Ault was in his teens, his family relocated from Kentucky to Washington state, where they joined the Equality Colony, a socialist commune located near Edison in Skagit County. Ault became editor of the colony's newspaper, "Industrial Freedom", later that year. Ault lived at Equality Colony for two years, after which he left for Seattle in 1900 to found a newspaper called "The Young Socialist". Ault had become involved in Eugene Debs' Social Democratic Party, and would join the new Socialist Party in 1901.
After a decade of prominent involvement in the Socialist Party, particularly working for the newspaper "The Socialist" and its publisher, Hermon Titus, Ault left the socialists for the more "mainstream" labor movement, working as the secretary of the Central Labor Council of Seattle from 1909 to 1913. In 1912, he took over the editorship of the council's newspaper, the Seattle Union Record, which he edited until the paper's termination in 1928. He then worked as a commercial printer, until re-entering active involvement in politics in 1936, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Congress from the 1st Congressional District -- a race he lost to Warren G. Magnuson. Ault was appointed a deputy U.S. Marshal for Tacoma, Washington in 1938, a position he held until his retirement 15 years later. |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Equality County (Skagit County, Wash.); Communal living--Washington (State)--Skagit County--History--19th century; Ault, Harry E. B. (Harry Erwin Bratton), 1883-1961 |
| Geographic Coverage | United States--Washington (State)--Equality Colony |
| Digital ID Number | PNW00823 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or inquire about permissions contact: photos@u.washington.edu. |
| Digital Collection | Pacific Northwest Historical Documents
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| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division. |
| Repository Collection | Harry E. B. Ault papers, Accession No. 0213-001, Box 6/69 |
| Object Type | Typescript
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| Physical Description | 1 leaf; 27.75 x 21.5 cm. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original text or image at 150 dpi saved in TIFF format, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2010. |
| Restrictions | For information on permissions for use and reproductions please visit UW Libraries Special Collections Reproduction & Use page: http://content.lib.washington.edu/sc-use.html |
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