The Long Loneliness

Peter Maurin was a French immigrant who loved to discuss his ideas about a “green revolution,” in which urban workers would go back to the land and become pastoral workers. He befriended Day when he was in his mid-fifties, and together they started The Catholic Worker newspaper, which Day asserts he wanted to use as a mouthpiece for his ideas. They also began the Catholic Worker Movement, which provided food and housing for the poor. He thought of his land movement as the fix for the unemployment issues plaguing the United States, and wanted to make a society “‘where it is easier for men to be good,’” a simpler structure where people could feel like they governed and had stakes in their own communities (181). He also believed in “cult, culture and cultivation,” which implied that people were creating communities that became cultures that allowed them to be self-sufficient. For the last five years of his life he could not express complex thoughts, but felt like his work was finished. 

Forster was Dorothy Day’s partner in her early years, while she lived on Staten Island. Day loved Forster with a passion, but they were opposites. Forster was quiet and preferred to be out fishing on the water. Day was content to socialize and discuss theory with the neighbors. They also fundamentally disagreed about the spiritual forces that might govern human lives. Forster was more practical and connected to the inner-workings of practical theory, while Day believed that there was a greater, supernatural power at work in the world. When she got to the point that she wanted to have a child, and baptize her, so she would be part of the Catholic faith, Forster became distraught. First of all, he didn’t want a child brought into this chaotic world, and secondly, he was an anarchist who did not believe in God. After Day had their daughter baptized, Forster left. He could not handle the idea that Day had gone behind his back, and that his daughter would be forever connected to religion.

Day’s daughter had a significant influence on Day’s life, as it was the birth of Tamar that inspired Day to become a Catholic herself. She did not want her daughter to be the only one that was baptized, and she also wanted to complete her journey to the faith. Tamar was very self-sufficient, finding ways to occupy herself when Day was ill, or discussing theory late into the night. She grew up to marry a man interested in the movement, and they bought a farm together. She was also the one who inspired Day to title her book, The Long Loneliness, when she suggested that mothers became very lonely when they were raising children because they were isolated from adult company. Overall, Tamar was a resourceful and intelligent person who was a companion and inspiration to her mother.

Prohme was one of Day’s friends from her university days. Prohme became an active communist and ended up traveling around the world fighting for the welfare of the worker. She always threw herself into whatever activity she was passionate about and never looked back. This applies to her dedication to the communist cause, for which she went to China and met Sun Yat-sen, and then onto Russia, where she passed away at a young age. Day laments that Rayna never met a Catholic, and never applied any sense of what her work might mean not only in life, but how it might also bring people closer to spirituality.

A German carpenter who had owned a farm in Suffern, New York, and then lost it, Hergenhan began to sleep on a park bench in New York City. He also spent time in Union Square, discussing theory with Peter Maurin. Hergenhan did not think that men who did not work should receive charity, while Maurin believed in mercy above all else. Hergenhan agreed to be the foil to Peter’s discussions and take up a counter-position. They put on a good show at many meetings. He agreed with Maurin’s philosophy that people should be farmers. He passed away of cancer in a Home of the Cancerous Poor. Day watched his baptism on a bed with other sick men, and found it both uncomfortable and inspiring.

Hennacy was a Christian anarchist from Ohio who contributed to The Catholic Worker. He mostly wrote about his time spent in the Atlanta Penitentiary during World War One for refusing to fight in the war. He was influenced by another anarchist there, and became a pacifist who believed that the revolution could only begin if people like him took charge. He also wrote about his life on the land after getting out of prison. Day equates him to Thoreau.