Edward Atkinson (February 10, 1827 – December 11, 1905) was an economist, inventor, and a founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League. Biography Early years Edward Atkinson was born in Brookline, Massachusetts and educated in private schools. He received a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College and an LL.D. from the University of South Carolina. In the decade before the Civil War, Atkinson was a successful entrepreneur as an executive of some of the leading cotton mills of New England. Later, he was President of Boston Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Company and the Mutual Boiler Insurance Company of Boston. Atkinson married Mary Caroline Heath in 1855; they had 9 children, 7 of whom survived to adulthood. One of his sons, Robert Whitman Atkinson (1868–1934) was a musician and composer best known for composing "The Party at Odd Fellows Hall", a popular waltz of the 1890s, to words by J. Wendell Jr. In 1886 Atkinson invented an improved kitchen stove known as the "Aladdin cooker," a slow-cooking device that used a minimal power input, akin to the principle employed by the modern crock pot. Political activity Atkinson fought against slavery by supporting the Free-Soil Party and the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that aided escaped slaves. Growing weary of compromise, he began raising money to pay for rifles and ammunition to support the insurgent guerrilla force of John Brown. In 1866, he was chosen a delegate to the national union convention held in Philadelphia, but he took no part in its deliberations. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1879. He was inspired by the ideas of Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, and John Bright, and he became a leading publicist for free trade. In many ways, he can be described as the American counterpart to Frédéric Bastiat. He spoke out against the inflationist ideas of William Jennings Bryan and others but, unlike some, favored the total denationalization or privatization of money. He campaigned for Grover Cleveland and participated in the formation of the Clevelandite National Democratic ticket in 1896. Atkinson was appalled by the colonialist and imperialist policies of the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations in the wake of the Spanish–American War. He reacted by becoming a full-time activist in the American Anti-Imperialist League, and was opposed to U.S. intervention against Spain in Cuba and the Philippines. As a vice president of that organization, Atkinson wrote to the United