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Elihu Burritt (December 8, 1810March 6, 1879) was an American diplomat, Philanthropy, social activist, and blacksmith.Arthur Weinberg and Lila Shaffer Weinberg. Instead of Violence: Writings by the Great Advocates of Peace and Nonviolence Throughout History. New York, Grossman Publishers, 1963.(p. 340-45). He was also a prolific lecturer, journalist and writer who traveled widely in the United States and Europe.
In the early 1840s Burritt began to tour New England, speaking against war and promoting brotherhood. His sobriquet "Learned Blacksmith" arose from a period when he earned a living as a blacksmith in Worcester, Massachusetts. He founded a weekly paper, the Christian Citizen, in Worcester in 1844.
By this time, Burritt had emerged at the head of a group of radical within the American Peace Society, and took on George Cone Beckwith, who supported a gradualist attitude on multiple fronts. There was a confrontation in 1845. Burritt was given the chance to take over as editor of World Affairs, the organ of the American Peace Society, but Beckwith employed delaying tactics. When Burritt came into post at the beginning of 1846, he renamed the publication as The Advocate of Peace and Universal Brotherhood. But when Beckwith had mustered enough support, in May, the decision was reversed. The infighting cost the society its president, Samuel Elliott Coues, who resigned.
During a trip abroad in 1846–47, Burritt was touched by the suffering of the Irish peasantry.
"The peace movement", as an umbrella term that included supporters of William Lloyd Garrison and the "moral force" Chartists, as well as the league and Peace Society radicals, was popularized by Burritt from 1847.
Burritt organized the first international congress of the Friends of Peace, which convened in Brussels in September 1848. The league was shortly an international movement, but its British branch became part of the London Peace Society in 1857. It influenced the later work in the United Kingdom of Priscilla Peckover.
A second International Peace Congress met in Paris in 1849, presided over by Victor Hugo. Burritt attended the "Peace Congresses" at Frankfurt in 1850, London in 1851, Manchester in 1852 and Edinburgh in 1853. The outbreak of the Crimean War and then the American Civil War jolted his views.
Burritt advocated that Britain, which introduced the Uniform Penny Post in 1840, should introduce an international "ocean penny post" and reduce the cost from one shilling (12 pence) to threepence. He argued this would increase international correspondence, trade, and hence universal brotherhood. He urged the use of illustrated propaganda envelopes. Postal rates were gradually reduced, but his objective was not entirely achieved in his lifetime.
In 1856–1857 Burritt spent much time on abolitionist lecturing in the USA. He was promoting his version of compensated emancipation.
Burritt was appointed United States consul in Birmingham, England by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. When Ulysses S. Grant was elected in 1868, he was not reappointed to the post. He died on March 6, 1879, in New Britain, Connecticut.
Burritt College, which operated in Spencer, Tennessee, from 1848 to 1939, was named in his honor.Francis Marion West, ‘’ Pioneer of the Cumberlands: A History of Burritt College’’ (master’s thesis, Tennessee Technological University, 1969). Accessed at ‘’Restoration History’’ website, 4 March 2015.
The library at the Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut is named in his honor – The Elihu Burritt Library. It holds an archive of his work and correspondence. Another archive is held as part of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
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