The Reading Wars in Retrospect: Uncovering the Ideologies that Changed American Schools (A Series)

INTRODUCTION:

I am contentedly, and finally, in the place where I can see the Reading Wars in hindsight. I remember reading about major battles (Blumenfeld, 1973/2023). They weren’t pretty. The minds of Americans were, for a time, kidnapped by foreign ideas; and the outcome was debilitating. If I were to recount the wars for you, it would take a book of a thousand pages, and it would probably be incomplete and boring. Instead, I’ll use the Blog Method and outline some of the major players and battles, as historians typically do when they observe wars in retrospect, and I’ll begin with the line of thought which led the way to the annihilation of what is now seen as the Science-of-Reading.

Part One: Edward Bellamy & Looking Backward: 2000-1887

"Bellamy's communism rests on an ethical base rather than upon a view that is sometimes called 'scientific' because of its abstraction from considerations of human well-being." (John Dewey, Common Sense Magazine, 1934)

In the year 1888 a Science-Fiction-style Utopian Romance (Bellamy, 1888) was published in Boston. It used a clever story line, like that of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle.

The novel’s protagonist, Julian West, begins his first-person story during a time of labor wars. West was in an unfortunate position forced upon him by striking laborers. He was awaiting the completion of the construction of his home, which would become his residency once he was married to his fiancé Edith Bartlett. The date of his upcoming marriage was continually postponed by the cancellation of building contracts made by laborers.

On the night of May 30, 1887, after returning home from an afternoon with his fiancé, West was unable to fall asleep for the second night in a row. As was his habit, when facing insomnia, he requested the services of Doctor Pillsbury, a mesmerist who put him to sleep. He was awakened in the year 2000 by Dr. Leete and his beautiful daughter Edith.

At the end of the novel, West discovered that Edith Leete, with whom he had fallen in love, was the granddaughter of his nineteenth-century fiancé.

My stripped-down version of the storyline is enough to demonstrate the surface interest in reading the book. The ulterior motives of the novel, however, are found in conversations between West and Leete.

Leete teaches West about the evolution of society during the time of West’s 113-year trance, and he and Edith provide tours of Boston which demonstrate the new socialistic order.

Within two years of publication, sales had reached the 200,000 mark (Mott, 1947). The ideas presented in the book were taken hold of by social and political reformers, and this led to the formation of Nationalist Clubs and Bellamy Societies.

Nearly five decades after the publishing of Looking Backward, the educational reformist John Dewey wrote a glowing appreciation of Bellamy’s work (Dewey, 1934), in which he lauded the author's ability to indict the injustices of the nineteenth century economic system through imagination and thereby setting forth what was possible.

Dewey also praised the underlying ethical foundation of the book, stating that "Bellamy's communism rests on an ethical base rather than upon a view that is sometimes called 'scientific' because of its abstraction from considerations of human well-being."

Bellamy excited the populous, and Dewey grabbed hold on the opportunity.

Coming next: Part Two: Ransacked, Robbed, Bewildered, Misdirected & How John Dewey Led the Charge Against Phonics

Please sign up for our newsletter at Alpha-Phonics.com to continue reading my series:

The Reading Wars:

Uncovering the Ideologies that Changed American Schools

References & Links to Original Sources

Bellamy, E. (1888). Looking backward: 2000–1887. Ticknor and Company. Retrieved online February 8, 2026.

Blumenfeld, S. L. (2023). The New Illiterates (Revisited) (M. R. Dawson & D. L. Ryan, Eds.). The New Paradigm Company. (Original work published 1973). Retrieved online February 8, 2026.

Dawson, M. R. (2023). Dyslexia No More: Saved by the ABC’s. The New Paradigm Company. Retrieved online February 8, 2026.

Dewey, J. (1934). "Great American Prophet." Common Sense, 3(4), 6-7. Retrieved online February 8, 2026.

Mott, F. L. (1947). Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. Macmillan. Retrieved online February 8, 2026.

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