Louis Pio
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| Louis Pio | |
 Louis Pio, around 1870
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| Born | December 14, 1841 Roskilde, Denmark |
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| Died | June 27, 1894 Chicago, Illinois |
| Occupation | journalist, socialist political organizer |
| Known for | founding Danish Social Democratic Party |
Louis Pio (1841-1894) was one of the principal founders of the organized worker's movement in Denmark, and the principal founder of the Danish Social Democratic Party.
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[edit] Early life
Pio was born December 14, 1841 in Roskilde, Denmark. His father was an officer in the Danish Army, of French ancestry, and his mother came from a North Jutland bourgeois family. Pio's childhood was not especially happy: the family was poor and his parents divorced when he was 12. He was expelled from school due to disciplinary problems, but nevertheless managed to work as an adjunct teacher at a private school with a progressive curriculum (the Borgerdydskole). He tried, without success, to enter a teacher's seminary and, later, to obtain an officer's commission. Eventually, he began to study Danish folklore and had some success as a writer, issuing a book on Holger Danske. In 1869, Pio began to write articles for a paper (Dags Avisen) established by his cousin Harald Brix. In 1870, Pio began to work for the Danish postal service, where he made the lasting contribution of inventing the red postbox, seen everywhere in Denmark even today.[1]
[edit] Activist for Socialism
After only a year at the Danish postal service, he resigned, determined to set up a Danish section of the Socialist International, together with Harald Brix and Poul Geleff. During the day, Pio worked as a tutor for a wealthy bourgeois family, and during the evenings he wrote for Socialisten, Brix's new weekly newspaper whose first edition came out on May 21, 1871. The paper was very successful, and Pio became the main writer for its articles as well as the main theoretician for the group of socialists. On October 15, 1871, the Danish section of the Socialist International was founded, with Pio as its foreman. His leadership was controversial since other Danish socialists considered his style somewhat dictatorial, but he established good contacts with socialist movements elsewhere in Europe.[2]
On May 4, 1872 Pio, Brix, and Geleff were arrested for calling a public workers' meeting, in defiance of a government prohibition against such meetings. Widespread disturbances followed their arrest. Pio was sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was cultivated as a martyr by the socialist movement, and continued to write articles which were smuggled from prison and published in Socialisten. Released early, he reestablished himself as the movement's leader in 1875. The movement had become increasingly popular, and the newspaper, now called Social Demokraten had a wide circulation. But the movement became increasingly unhappy over Pio's authoritarian leadership style. In 1877, he left Denmark, to the great indignation of Danish socialists, who discovered that he had been threatened with going to jail again unless he left the country. He traveled to Smoky Hill River, Kansas, to found a socialist colony, which soon failed because of the lack of agricultural expertise among the colonists. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he lived in poverty, working at small jobs, until he died on June 27, 1894.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Short biography on Louis Pio (in Danish)
- ^ Short biography on Louis Pio (in Danish)
- ^ Short biography on Louis Pio (in Danish)
