Jack London - A Biography

John Griffith "Jack" London was born on January 12, 1876 to a single mother in San Francisco. His mother, Flora Wellman, hired a former slave, Virginia "Jennie" Prentiss, to be a wet nurse for the boy. Prentiss ended up staying with the family and helping to raise Jack London. Due to his closeness to a black family London was the victim of bullying and grew up having to fight other children. When London was 15 years old, Prentiss loaned him the money to buy his first sailboat. She ended up becoming a well known figure in the local black community, being involved in groups such as the Federated Negro Woman's Club.

Being raised in a working class environment, London was mostly self-taught, relying largely on books from local libraries. Librarian Ina Coolbrith, (who became California's first poet laureate,) took London under her wing and helped guide his learning. At the same time he began working various jobs; newspaper boy, oyster pirate, laborer, factory worker, sailor, cannery worker, etc.

1893 saw a large depression hit the United State's economy and the country was swept with labor protests. London joined Coxey's Army - the first large protest march on Washington D.C. The protesters were demanding the government take action to help lower the high unemployment rates. This march began his time as a railroad hobo and tramp, including 30 days spent in jail for vagrancy. It was while traveling around the country that he was first exposed to socialism.

Not long after, he returned to Oakland and entered high school and got accepted into UC Berkeley. Though attending Berkeley was always a dream of his, he dropped out after one semester, realizing that academia was the "passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence." At this time he joined the Socialist Labor Party and became one of their more successful orators, drawing large crowds to the speeches he gave downtown.

Due to a need for money London joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1987 but suffered from scurvy and returned to Oakland in 1898. After returning he learned of the death of his step-father and decided to financially support his mother as best he could. To escape working in hard labor he decided to sell his brains rather than his body. He began a fury of writing in hopes that some of it would get published. Eventually he did see success and over time became the best-selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time.

Along with being a prolific writer, London kept agitating for various socialist parties, going so far as to twice run for mayor of Oakland. He is most well known for his adventure stories, but much of his literary work was of a political nature. The War of the Classes, is a compilation of essays that explicitly described some of London's political views. The People of the Abyss, is a book describing the living conditions of the working-class in England. He is also the author of one of the first modern dystopian novels, The Iron Heel, where his socialist view are a part of the story. In 1905, Jack London helped found the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, a group dedicated to teaching college students about labor history, class analysis and "the world-wide movement of industrial democracy known as socialism." The 1960's radical group Students for a Democratic Society was a direct descendant of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.

Later in his life, London would sail to different parts of the world, but always came back to California. As his writing career became more and more successful he began to become disillusioned with the socialist movement. He supported the Allies during the First World War and quit the Socialist Party in 1916 claiming it was "because of its lack of fire and fight, and its loss of emphasis on the class struggle." Though this may also have been to himself being criticized by socialists for purchasing thousand acre ranches and using his fame to promote products such as grape juice and men's suits. In one interview he stated: "I've done my part, Socialism has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. When the time comes I'm going to stay right on my ranch and let the revolution go to blazes."

Though he turned away from socialism in the later years of his life, Jack London is recognized as having spread socialist ideas and to this day his literary works exposes readers to ideas that are often missing from American political discourse.

Jack London's place of birth is commemorated by a plaque on the Wells Fargo building at 3rd Street and Brannan in San Francisco. Oakland's Jack London square is named after the author. Inside the square you can find a small wood cabin that was recreated using logs from an Alaskan cabin that the author lived in along with a plaque. Also in the square is Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon, a historic saloon made out of an old whaling ship. Opened in 1883, The saloon has changed little over the years. While living in Oakland, Jack London would study and write inside of this saloon and be mesmerized by sailors' tales of the open sea. It is believed much of what he heard here would influence his life and his books.

Finally, north of the Bay Area, past the city of Sonoma is the Jack London State Historic Park. The park has 39 acres including a museum, the cottage London lived in and London's gravesite.