Joseph McCabe biography
Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) - a brief biography

xxxA- Raised in working class Manchester

xxxB- Catholic - good student - encouraged to enter Franciscan monastery

xxxC- Dissatisfied with monastic education (anti-intellectual)

xxxD- Left monastery on bad terms in 1896

xxxE- Settled in London -befriended Leslie Stephen (prominent intellectual)

xxxxxx 1- Stephen, father of Virginia Woolf, encouraged McCabe to write and to join rationalist groups

xxxxxx 2- Joined Rationalist Press Association (RPA, founded 1899)

xxxxxx 3- Joined South Place Ethical Society (SPES, founded 1793)

xxxF- Published Twelve years in a Monastery (1897)

xxxG- Translated Ernst Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe (1900)

xxxxxx 1- As popular as Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time

xxxxxx 2- Early profit center for RPA

xxxH- Lecture tours around UK

xxxxxx 1- Organizers booked halls distributed posters, handbills

xxxxxx 2- Profits shared (like Chautauqua)

xxxI- Lectured on a wide range of topics

xxxxxx 1- Science, especially evolution

xxxxxx 2- Catholic church and its role in modern society

xxxxxx 3- The devil in Milton & Goethe

xxxxxx 4- The scholastic side of Dante

xxxxxx 5- Popularized evolution in Britain as Carl Sagan popularized astronomy in America

xxxJ- Gave Darwin Centenary lecture at SPES - February 21, 1909

xxxK- Toured Aus,NZ,US, 1900-30, 4,000 for his last Melbourne lecture

xxxL- Fell out with RPA shortly after Price debate

xxxM- Wrote many "blue books" for Emmanuel Julius-Haldeman who he met on American tour


References

Cooke, Bill, A Rebel to his Last Breath, Joseph McCabe and Rationalism. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY (2001)

McCabe, Joseph, Eighty Years a Rebel, Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, KS (1947)