Thomas W. Woodrow's Appeals for Socialism Based on Religion and Economics

Abstract

During the early 1900s, Oklahoma contained one of the largest socialist parties in the United States. In his magazine, Woodrow's Monthly, Thomas W. Woodrow, a socialist Christian pastor in Hobart, Oklahoma, created a wide variety of appeals for socialism. Woodrow's socialist philosophy directly reflected his economic and religious context in rural Oklahoma in the early 1900s. Examining the religious and economic situation of Oklahoma during this time period reveals why Woodrow made the appeals he did and why his appeals would have been likely to produce his intended effect.