The Joy of All Joys: The Fate of Roland D. Sawyer’s Christian Socialism
ABSTRACT:
Following the Industrial Revolution, Americans were required to adapt to the nation's new form of capitalistic society. Witnessing the subsequent struggle of working-class families, 20th century Christian socialist, minister, and legislator Roland D. Sawyer resolved to advocate for a reformed economic structure. For this research project, which draws from the Sawyer Papers in the Â鶹app’s Milne Special Collections, I studied his sermons, socialist writings, and autobiography, The Making of a Socialist, to understand how America’s social, economic, and religious climate at the turn of the 20th century shaped Sawyer’s understanding of a good life and how Americans were to achieve it through the adoption of a socialist doctrine.
Growing up during America’s Industrial Revolution, Sawyer’s earliest memories consisted of his family’s struggling shoemaking business. Shoes were no longer being made by craftsmen in small towns, but by innovative machinery in newfound urban centers. His upbringing and later the greed he encountered in the ministry became the impetus for his socialist ideology. Sawyer found that Christian congregations were pursuing profit instead of spiritual support, driving a wedge between ministers and working-class Christians. Rather than abandoning his Christianity, he combined it with an economic doctrine of equality with hope to transform American lives for the better. He championed causes of morality and anti-corruption, founding America’s anti-profanity league and advocating for Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants and anarchists who were accused of a robbery and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts and refused a fair trial. However, in the end, Sawyer’s own socialist mission largely followed the trajectory of the socialist movement broadly in the United States: gaining brief momentum at the turn of the twentieth century but ultimately failing to engage a substantial American audience. The heterogeneity and individualism of American culture, as well as the nation’s unique political system, could not be surmounted by socialist activists, regardless of whether their beliefs hinged on an essential American tradition such as Christianity.
This research was conducted for a course entitled "Introduction to Historical Thinking." The full-length paper may be accessed in UNH’s . I would like to thank Milne Special Collections and University Archives for the opportunity to study the Sawyer Papers and Professor Lila Knolle and University Archivist Kai Uchida for their support in my research.
Author and Mentor Bios
Maggie Buglino is an English and history double major from Titusville, New Jersey. She plans to pursue a master's degree in library science post-graduation and become an archivist.
Lila Knolle is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the Â鶹app.
Copyright 2026 © Maggie Buglino
