George Henry Evans (March 25, 1805February 2, 1856) was a radical reformer who was in the Working Men's movement of 1829 and the trade union movements of the 1830s. Evans was born in Bromyard, Herefordshire, England, the son of George Evans and Sarah White, and had a younger brother,

Frederick William Evans Frederick William Evans (9 June 1808 – 6 March 1893) was a Shaker writer who served as an elder in the Mount Lebanon Shaker Society for many years. Evans was the younger brother of the land reformer George Henry Evans. Biography Evans was bo ...

, who became a Shaker and served as an elder in the

Mount Lebanon Shaker Society Mount Lebanon Shaker Society, also known as New Lebanon Shaker Society, was a communal settlement of Shakers in New Lebanon, New York. The earliest converts began to "gather in" at that location in 1782 and built their first meetinghouse in 1785. ...

. In 1844, Evans, the

trade unionist A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

John Windt, the former Chartist Thomas Devyr and others founded the National Reform Association, which lobbied Congress and sought political supporters with the slogan "Vote Yourself a Farm." Between 1844 and 1862, Congress received petitions signed by 55,000 Americans calling for free public lands for homesteaders. Free land was depicted as a means of attracting the excessive eastern population westward, and, as a result, bringing about higher wages and better working conditions for the laboring man in the eastern industrial areas. For many years the public domain had been regarded as the

safety valve A safety valve is a valve that acts as a fail-safe. An example of safety valve is a pressure relief valve (PRV), which automatically releases a substance from a boiler, pressure vessel, or other system, when the pressure or temperature exceeds ...

of the American political and economic order. The efforts of Evans and his allies—notably Horace Greeley—led to the

Homestead Act The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

of 1862. Evans, thus, deserves the title of "Father of the Homestead Act." Evans was a publisher, and the editor of a series of radical newspapers including: ''Workingman's Advocate'' (1829–36, 1844–45), '' New York Daily Sentinel'' (1830), ''The Man'' (1834), ''The Radical'' (1841–43), ''The People's Rights'' (1844), and ''Young America'' (1845–49). He also spent the period 1837–41, and the period after 1848, on his farm in New Jersey. George Henry Evans died in 1855, at Granville (now known as Keansburg), New Jersey.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, George Henry 1805 births 1855 deaths American activists English activists English emigrants to the United States People from Bromyard Radicals