Spiritual Republic, The.
Devoted to Radical Reform / A Journal of Spiritual Philosophy. It Comprehends the Soul and Body of American Ideas.
The Practical, the Practical!
1867-1867 Weekly
Chicago, IL. Publisher: Religio-Philosophical Publishing Association, and then Central Publishing House. Editor: F.L. Wadsworth and James Osgood Barrett; corresponding editors: Mary F. Davis, S.J. Finney, J.S. Loveland, Hudson Tuttle, Emma Tuttle; Mrs. Hannah F.M. Brown, W.F. Jamieson.

Succeeds and succeeded by: Religio-Philosophical Journal

1/1, January 5, 1867-September 3, 1867. $3.00 a year. 14 pp., 10 1/2 x 14. Barrett (1823-1898) was another Universalist minister, excommunicated for teaching "angel ministry." On Brown, see the notes under the Agitator, Little Bouquet, and Lyceum Banner. The journal was the result of a revolution among the more radical shareholders of the Religio-Philosophical Association that led to the ouster of the association's initial president, S.S. Jones. See the note under the Religio-Philosophical Journal, and also H.C. Childs, H.H. Marsh, F.L. Wadsworth, C.K.W. Howard, To the Stockholders of the Central Publishing House, and the Subscribers of the Spiritual Republic (Chicago: Central Publishing House, 1867). The faction that replaced Jones elected H.C. Child as its president and changed the name of the association to Central Publishing House. It stopped the Religio-Philosophical Journal at the end of 1866, and started the Spiritual Republic in its stead at the beginning of 1867. Though it still prominently featured spiritualism, the journal was more devoted to reform and was led by the more radical of spiritualist reformers, many tainted with the label of "free love." "Having a heart in every reform, it is the medium of inspired truth in the reconstructive work of the 19th century." Notable among its contributors and those noted in its pages were Loveland, the Davises, J.M. Peebles, Mrs. H.F.M. Brown, H.T. Child, W.F. Jamieson, Lizzie Doten, S.J. Finney, Lyman C. Howe, Moses Hull, Warren Chase, Laura Cuppy, Lois Waisbrooker, Leo Miller, La Roy Sunderland, Austin Kent, G.B. Stebbins, Emma Hardinge, C.B. Peckham, Albert Brisbane, Kersey Graves, Mary A. Whittaker, and others. Originally the new journal intended to publish the more notable of speeches and lectures on spiritualism, but its real purpose was to "correct all the evil of the world and set things in general to rights." See F.W. Scott and E.J. Jones, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879 (1910). To attract a wider audience, the journal published serially Mrs. C.F. Corbin's novel "A Woman's Secret." Jones's faction re-seized control of the publisher in August 1867 and terminated the Spiritual Republic in September, at the same time announcing the re-appearance of the Religio-Philosophical Journal for January 1868. NSAC, Lily Dale; LOC; University of Rochester; University of Manchester.

Included in this collection is the September 14, 1867 announcement by S. S. Jones that "The unwise course that has been pursued during the last nine months, by the executive and editorial departments of that which once was a prosperous and greatly admired institution, bas been made, to a considerable extent, apparent to you, by the inferior quality and downward tendency of its publications," followed by a summary recitation of the excesses of the prior editorial group, and a statement of his intention to re-start the paper's operations: as the Religio-Philosophical Journal, essentially. This last courtesy of the St. Charles History Museum in St. Charles, Illinois.

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