It influenced a generation of American and European reformers, and its place as the most important American depiction of utopia remains secure and unchallenged.
Although it might be possible to discover hints of some of Bellamy's mature thought in published and unpublished writings of his earlier years, there is little in either Bellamy's life or work prior to 1888 to suggest his sudden emergence as an important social thinker. Bellamy was born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, the son of a Baptist minister, Rufus King Bellamy, and Maria Putnam Bellamy. He was a descendant, on both sides of his family, from generations of solid, earnest, but otherwise unexceptional New England clergymen, educators, and merchants. Family tradition held that Bellamy's paternal great-grandmother had been related to Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The author's great-grandfather, Joseph Bellamy, was a student and friend of Jonathan Edwards, and became a locally renowned preacher in Connecticut. Joseph Bellamy was perhaps most notable as an unbending defender of Calvinist orthodoxy; his unwavering commitment to principle was passed on to his children and grandchildren, and probably constituted the most important family influence on Edward Bellamy.
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