Now-forgotten Lippard was a Philly original

While working for The Inquirer, Mark Twain revealed his preference for Philadelphia over New York City. "Unlike New York," the Missouri sage remarked, "I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in it."

For this plaudit, the city owes much to another writer, George Lippard. Twain admitted as much: "Lippard . . . rendered the Wissahickon sacred in my eyes."

Unfamiliar to modern readers, Lippard was one of the best-selling and highest-paid novelists in antebellum America. His social activism and wild, Caravaggio-like personality contributed as much to his public notoriety as his literary output.

Born on a farm in Chester County, Lippard (1822-54) became homeless at an early age. His father's death and an inheritance dispute left Lippard penniless, forcing him to live on the streets of Philadelphia.

Sleeping in abandoned buildings, Lippard saw firsthand the widespread starvation, poverty, and unemployment in the city. This social and economic misery inspired him to become a "writer for the masses."

Lippard quickly became one of the best-selling authors of the early 1800s, with The Quaker City (1844), Washington and His Generals (1847), and The Killers (1850).

Through his writings, Lippard pilloried the corrupt practices of politicians and wealthy urbanites. His Gothic tales rival Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron in their exposition of hypocrisy and debauchery, often with a "city's best men committing its worst crimes by night, every night."

The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk-Hall is perhaps Lippard's most famous work, "more attacked and more read than any work of American fiction" at the time of its writing. The novel takes place in a South Philly mansion doubling as lecherous private club, where date rape and drug abuse are portrayed as the preferred pastimes of Philadelphia's political and professional classes.

Out of these and other beliefs, Lippard founded the Brotherhood of the Union (later the Brotherhood of America) in the mid-1800s. He envisioned this secret benevolent society as a unifying force for workers, propelled by the belief that "this continent was given by God to toiling men, as the Palestine of regenerated labor."

To remove any possible doubt as to his role within the brotherhood, Lippard gave himself the unambiguous title "Supreme Washington."

The brotherhood, which grew rapidly in its early years, supported several labor reforms, including shorter workdays, as well as educational and political changes. The organization grew for more than 100 years, at one point having 10,000 members, until it disbanded in the 1980s.

After a number of personal tragedies, including the deaths of his young wife and two children, Lippard died in Philadelphia of tuberculosis at age 31. He is buried in Lawnview Cemetery in Rockledge.