The American social theorist Albert Brisbane (1809-1890) was the leading advocate of the kind of socialism known in the United States as Fourierism.

Albert Brisbane was born on Aug. 22, 1809, in Batavia, N.Y. His father was an influential landowner and his mother a talented and cultivated woman. At the age of 18, already concerned with the progress of man and society, he decided to pursue his studies with the great social thinkers in Europe and left for Paris.

In France, Brisbane studied under such distinguished philosophers as Victor Cousin and François Guizot but could not seem to find what he sought. He moved to Berlin, took instruction from G. W. F. Hegel, the grandest theorist of all, and enjoyed the city's progressive intellectual circles. Still unsatisfied, he traveled through eastern Europe and the Turkish Empire.

On returning to Paris, Brisbane's interest in ending human degradation was greatly...