Co-operative Brotherhood
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Social Democracy of America
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|---|---|
| Founded | June 15, 1897 |
| Dissolved | 1900 |
| Preceded by | American Railway Union |
| Succeeded by | Social Democratic Party of America Cooperative Brotherhood |
| Ideology |
Democratic socialism Utopian socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| International affiliation | None |
The Social Democracy of America (SDA), later known as the Cooperative Brotherhood, was a short lived political party in the United States that sought to combine the planting of an intentional community with political action in order to create a socialist society. It was an organizational forerunner of both the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and the Burley, Washington cooperative socialist colony.
The party split into political and colonization wings at its convention in 1898, with the political actionists establishing themselves as the Social Democratic Party of America (SDP).
After being jailed in the aftermath of the 1894 Pullman Strike, Eugene V. Debs became interested in socialist ideas. Despite supporting William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential race, Debs announced his conversion to socialism in January 1897. In June of that year, he held a convention of his American Railway Union (ARU) in Chicago, where it was decided to merge the ARU with a faction of the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (BCC) and other elements to create a new organization, the Social Democracy of America. The newspaper of the ARU, Railway Times, was retitled to become official organ of the new organization, The Social Democrat. The convention establishing the SDA was opened on June 15, 1897 in Uhlich's Hall in Chicago—the former headquarters of the ATU during the Pullman strike. The session was attended by 118 delegates, predominately from the Midwest and the Western United States. The keynote address to the convention was delivered by Gene Debs.
Among the elements that joined in forming the new party was a faction of independent Midwestern socialists centered around Victor Berger. This mainly German American group kept up a loosely organized Social Democratisher Verein and published the oldest socialist daily in the country, the Milwaukee Vorwarts. This tendency emphasized electoral socialism, especially in local politics, in order to appeal to workers on issues of immediate, day-to-day importance. Prominent American adherents to this faction included Seymour Stedman and Frederic Heath.
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