Why Ingersoll
In his own lifetime he was one of the most famous men in America. He drew larger crowds than any senator or preacher. A generation after he died, almost no one read him. He's worth reading again.
His subjects were reason, liberty, and the dignity of the person. He thought clearly and wrote clearly. I keep going back to him.
What you'll find here
- Biography — a long account of his life, from a frontier childhood to the lecture stages of New York and London.
- Timeline — every event I've been able to date, plotted on a map and a list.
- Works — every word of the twelve-volume Dresden Edition, transcribed and verified.
- Connections — the people who knew him, debated him, or owed him something.
- Essays — my own commentary on his ideas, kept short, kept honest.
The Dresden Edition
The complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1900 and 1902. The edition takes its name from Dresden, New York, where he was born in 1833. His son-in-law Clinton P. Farrell edited it. The set holds his lectures, essays, political speeches, courtroom arguments, prose poems, tributes, and newspaper interviews. I've reproduced all of it.
On the design
EB Garamond for the body, Inter for the chrome, near-neutral paper, square corners, monochrome ink. A slider in the masthead changes typeface, size, spacing, and theme; it also switches on a ruler, paragraph numbers, and auto-scroll if you want them.
Who built this
I'm Jon Ajinga, a web designer in Colorado. I read Ingersoll a few years ago and was surprised that almost nobody was still talking about him. This site is my answer.
It's built and maintained by my studio, Pikes Peak Web Designs. Every change is in the git history.
If you'd like to help
If you find an error, want to write an essay, or know of a piece I haven't added, write to me.
“The more liberty you give away, the more you will have.”