Search >> Swinton, John (1829-1901)

Journalist, Reformer, Travel Writer.

John Swinton’s family relocated from his native Scotland in 1843, settling in Montreal, Canada, where Swinton worked as an apprentice in the printing industry. Though he briefly entered Williston Seminary in 1853, Swinton’s commitment to journalism led him across the United States; he worked on the Lawrence Republican in Kansas in 1856 as well as the New York Times after he moved to that city. In 1860 he began a ten year stint as chief of the Times editorial staff. He also worked as chief of the editorial staff at the Sun (1875-83). Remembered as a close friend of Walt Whitman during this period (Hollis 425-428, 434, Loving 236-37), Swinton used his influence to help the poet get his brother George returned from the Civil War (Reynolds 455). Whitman described Swinton as a leader of the crowd at Pfaff’s (Wolle 126) where he made a reputation for himself as "forceful with an edged tongue and trenchant habit of debate" (C. Rogers 199).

Swinton’s interest in labor issues was growing and in 1874 he participated in the demonstration in Tompkins Square and became the Industrial party’s candidate for mayor. He married widow Orsena (Fowler) Smith in 1877 and set up house in Brooklyn. After retiring from the Sun in 1883, he started the four-page weekly paper which was to make his name well known in labor circles: John Swinton’s Paper. The paper ran until 1887, at which time he resumed his editorship of the Sun in addition to serving as correspondent for European newspapers, publishing pamphlets, and attending labor rallies. He addressed the Social Democratic Festival in Chicago in 1881, and the American Federation of Labor’s gathering in 1892; he was referred to by Allan Pinkerton as a "newspaper writer and general agitator" (349).

In his last years Swinton published his European travelogue, John Swinton’s Travels, which was followed in 1894 by Striking for Life, his treatise on the labor movement. A friend of Marx and a staunch Scotch Calvinist, Swinton died in his Brooklyn home in 1901 after a brief illness.

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References & Biographical Resources

Allen, Gay Wilson. The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman. New York: MacMillan, 1955. [more about this work]

Swinton dined with Alcott, Thoreau, and Whitman in Brooklyn in 1856. Allen describes Swinton as "a colorful person, a Scotchman, educated in Canada and trained there as a printer, who had recently returned from Kansas, where he had managed a free-soil newspaper despite the violent opposition of the pro-slavery mobs" (204). Allen also lists Swinton as one of the "literary customers" at Pfaff's (229).

Swinton was managing editor of the Times in 1862, and helped Whitman with his articles about Brooklyn soldiers and their conditions by printing, paying for the articles, and contributing his own money (290). Swinton, with Dr. Ruggles, also assisted Jeff Whitman in helping to bring about George Whitman's release. Swinton was one of the first New York editors to "blow" for Grant, and Jeff thought he might have some influence (323). Jeff urged Walt Whitman to appeal to Gen. Grant through Swinton (324). A letter from Swinton, to Grant, forwarded by Whitman, led to a prisoner exchange on February 13, 1865 (326). [pages: 204,229,290,323,324-325,326,336,400,427,482]

Belasco, Susan. "From the Field: Walt Whitman's Periodical Poetry." American Periodicals. 14.2 (2004): 247-59. [more about this work]

Belasco speculates that either William or his brother, John Swinton (the new editor of the New York Times), may have written a negative review of Whitman that was printed in the New York Times on May 19, 1860. The review "castigated Whitman for his style and substance. Describing Whitman's earlier editions of Leaves of Grass as 'neither poetry nor prose, but a curious medley, a mixture of quaint utterances and gross indecencies, a remarkable compound of fine thoughts and sentiment of the pot-house,' the reviewer called the 1860 edition even 'more reckless and vulgar.'" Belasco corrects the assumption that the review was written as solely a review of Leaves of Grass, but was actually part of an article titled "New Publications: The New Poets." Both Swinton brothers were old friends of Whitman (255). [pages: 255]

Donaldson, Thomas. Walt Whitman the Man. New York; F.P. Harper, 1896. 276 p. [more about this work]

Donaldson cites Swinton's April 1, 1876, letter about Whitman's nursing and the days of his "splendid prime" from the New York Herald. [pages: 166-167,208]

Ghent, W.J. "John Swinton." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

This biographical entry gives an overview of Swinton's life and professional accomplishments.

Hollis, C. Carroll. "Whitman and William Swinton: A Co-operative Friendship." American Literature. 1959. 425-449. [more about this work]

This source identifies John as Whitman's friend. [pages: 425-428,434]

Hyman, Martin D. "'Where the Drinkers & Laughers Meet': Pfaff's: Whitman's Literary Lair." Seaport. 26(1991): 56-61. [more about this work]

John is identified as a Pfaff's regular (59). [pages: 59]

Lalor, Eugene T. The Literary Bohemians of New York City in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Ph.D. Dissertation, St. John's University, 1977. 364 p. [more about this work]

[pages: 42]

Lalor, Eugene. "Whitman among the New York Literary Bohemians: 1859–1862." Walt Whitman Review. 25(1979): 131-145. [more about this work]

Lalor describes him as "the Bohemian apostate" with whom Whitman developed one of his few lasting friendships at Pfaff's (135). [pages: 135]

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkley Calif. : University of California Press, 1999. 568 p. [more about this work]

John later became managing the editor of The New York Times. Swinton was one of Whitman's best friends from Pfaff's. [pages: 236,237]

Parry, Albert. Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America. New York: Covici, Friede, 1933. [more about this work]

According to Parry, Swinton often remarked that Pfaff's "smelled atrociously," but he enjoyed Pfaff's coffee and sweet-breads (22). Parry also writes that when Whitman was in Washington, he often thought kindly of Pfaff and wrote to friends to ask after the restaurant owner and his establishment. Swinton responded to Whitman that "Pfaff looked as of yore" (42). [pages: 22,42]

Pinkerton, Allan. Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives. New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1878. [more about this work]

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. 671 p. [more about this work]

John is mentioned as editor of The New York Times. Swinton helped Whitman get his brother George returned from the Civil War (455). [pages: 455]

Rogers, Cameron. The Magnificent Idler, the story of Walt Whitman. New York: Garden City, Doubleday, Page and Co., 1926. 312 p. [more about this work]

Connected to the Times, Swinton is said to be "forceful with an edged tongue and trenchant habit of debate" (199). John is identified as a staunch defender of Whitman. A fictionalized conversation with Whitman is also given (203-04). [pages: 199-200,203-04,296]

Spaulding, Thomas Marshall. "William Swinton." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

The biography of William Swinton briefly mentions that he was the brother of John Swinton.

Starr, Louis Morris. Bohemian Brigade; Civil War Newsmen in Action. New York: Knopf, 1954. 367 p. [more about this work]

Swinton was military editor of the Times in 1862. He interviewed Grant that year at the Astor House; "Swinton elicited a few monosyllables on the war and the weather, tried other questions without avail, cleared his throat, shifted from foot to foot, and finally turned and fled" (274).

Starr also notes that John Swinton was managing editor of the Times for much of the war and later became a prominent Socialist editor and leader (358). [pages: 274,358]

"The Young Men of the New York Press." The Independent. 7 Jun. 1866: 4. [more about this work]

“It is a striking fact that the number of young men prominently connected with the New York press as writers is greater now than at any former period… the chief editorial work in these journals is done by men between the years of twenty-five and forty” (4).

“But all the rest of The Times men, we believe, are young—Stillman S. Conant, the two Swintons, Edward Seymour, Henry J. Winser, and the rest—though we believe we ought to except Mr. Morrison” (4).
[pages: 4]

Traubel, Horace L., Richard Maurice Bucke, and Thomas B. Harned, eds. In Re Walt Whitman. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893. [more about this work]

Traubel, Horace. Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman's Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1888-1892. Ed. Schmidgall, Gary. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001. [more about this work]

[pages: 127]

Waters, Robert. Career and Conversation of John Swinton, Journalist, Orator, Economist. Chicago: C.H. Kerr, 1902. [more about this work]

Whitman, Walt. Letter to Hugo Fritsch. 1863. 123-124. [more about this work]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume VI, Sunderland-Zurita. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

[pages: 12, 13]

Wolle, Francis. Fitz-James O'Brien: A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties. Boulder, Col.; University of Colorado, 1944. 309 p. [more about this work]

Whitman mentions him as a leader at Pfaff's. [pages: 126]