Individuals >> Andrews, Stephen Pearl ( Pantarch ) (1812-1886)

Essayist, Lecturer, Reformer, Lawyer.

Often referred to as "Pearl" by his family and friends, "Andrews was a passionate publicist for nearly every cause of the mid-nineteenth-century reform era--abolition, phonology, universal language, Fourierism, individualist anarchism, phrenology, spiritualism, women's rights, free love, hydrotherapy, communism, temperance, and Swedenborgianism--not to mention his own original contributions to the ferment, Pantarchy and Universology" (P. Wilson). He was a fierce supporter of the abolitionist movement; as a child he helped four runaway slaves find shelter with his family, telling his mother, "These are my brothers" (P. Wilson). In 1839 he traveled to Texas and convinced several wealthy slave-holders that "they would become rapidly rich from the sale of land if immigration were induced by throwing the country open to free labor" (Wilson & Fiske 76). Andrews's abolitionist cause took him to England, where he discovered the system of phonology and came to view it as an ideal tool for giving slaves the power of literacy. He returned to the United States in 1845 and published The Complete Phonographic Class-Book, Containing a Strictly Inductive Exposition of Pitman's Phonography, Adapted as a System of Phonetic Short Hand to the English Language; Especially Intended as a School Book, and to Afford the Fullest Instruction to Those Who Have Not the Assistance of the Living Teacher, which "introduced phonology to the United States" (P. Wilson).

Andrews was "a linguist of amazing ability, reputed to be master of thirty-two languages, including Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Chinese" ("Stephen Pearl Andrews"). His mastery was made even more impressive by the absolute lack of effort it required; his "mental effort was performed without effort or fatigue" (Wilson & Fiske 76). Andrews moved to New York City in 1847 where his various attempts to promote phonology eventually failed, and he was hired by Horace Greeley to cover senatorial news for the New York Tribune (P. Wilson). But only a few years later, Andrews and Greeley would clash over Andrews' anarchistic/utopian ideology. In 1851 Andrews helped create a "village founded on the principles of Equitable Commerce and unfettered Individuality" called Modern Times (P. Wilson). The community supported total freedom for all, and was harshly criticized by moral reformers of the time, including Greeley. "Andrews engaged in public debate on the subject with Horace Greeley and Henry James Sr. (the Swedenborgian/Fourierist father of the novelist) in the letters column of the New York Tribune; the letters--including several long Andrusian screeds that Greeley had refused to print--appeared as Love, Marriage and Divorce, edited by Andrews" (P. Wilson). The Modern Times community disbanded in 1857 and its name was changed to Brentwood in 1864.

In 1855 Andrews started another communal experiment, a "Brownstone Utopia" or "Unitary Home," in New York City. "In effect, this home was a sort of communal hotel or boardinghouse for Individual Sovereigns--such as an apostate monk, a homeopathic physician, an opera baritone, and many authors, including . . . the poet Edmund Clarence Stedman" (P. Wilson). Andrews also garnered attention for his support of female suffrage and his work to make Victoria Woodhull a candidate for President of the United States of America.

In the final years of his life, Andrews published in journals like Popular Science News and The Truth Seeker. In 1882 he organized several meetings "known as the Colloquium, for the interchange of ideas between men of the utmost diversity of religious, philosophical, and political views" (Wilson & Fiske 76). The "Colloquium Document No. 1" reveals Andrews' view of the world: "In things proven, Unity; in whatsoever can be doubted, Free Diversity; in things not trenching upon others' rights, Liberty; in all things, Charity" (qtd. in P. Wilson).

Andrews died on May 21, 1886. His loss was deeply felt by his friends and disciples who believed that "More mental force went out with him than is left in any one person on the planet," but outside of this small circle, Andrews was quickly forgotten (P. Wilson).

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References & Biographical Resources

Haynes, John Edward. Pseudonyms of Authors: Including Anonyms and Initialisms. New York, 1882. [more about this work]

This text identifies the following pseudonym: Pantarch (72). [pages: 72]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

A member of Clare 's coterie of Bohemians. He is identified as an "advocate of Free Love, Alwato, the proposed universal language, or the Volapük of that day, and author of the 'Basic Outline of Universology,' and by general consent Pantarch of the Universe. He said Ada was a spark from the divine fire, the over soul" (103). [pages: 103]

Stansell, Christine. "Whitman at Pfaff's: Commercial Culture, Literary Life and New York Bohemia at Mid-Century." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 10.3 (1993): 107-126. [more about this work]

Andrews is described as an "anarchist and sex radical" who presided over the New York Free Love League, "a discussion group of men and women" (120). [pages: 120]

"Stephen Pearl Andrews." 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://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

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

Appleton cites Andrews' work as an abolitionist, his interest in phonography, and his theory of "Integralism." [pages: 76]

Wilson, Peter Lamborn. "Stephen Pearl Andrews." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 250: Antebellum Writers in New York, Second Series. Ed. Kent P. Ljungquist. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 3-15. [more about this work]