The United States lacked a comprehensive critique of industrial capitalism until pioneer socialist writer Laurence Gronlund analyzed the state of the nation in order to forecast its future. His major work, The Co-operative Commonwealth in Its Outlines: An Exposition of Collectivism (1884), introduced socialism to the American milieu and influenced several prominent reformers.

Gronlund was born on 13 July 1846 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of middle-class parents. His postsecondary education was interrupted in 1864 when he served in the German-Danish War. The scholar resumed his studies following his discharge from the military, opting to concentrate on the field of law. After receiving a master's degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1865, Gronlund continued to study law before immigrating to the United States two years later. He adjusted smoothly to American life. He traveled to Milwaukee, where he found work as a teacher, providing German lessons in the public schools of the...