Henry George was a writer and thinker who spent his whole life asking one big question: why do some people have so much while others have so little? He grew up poor and never forgot what it felt like. His ideas about fairness spread all around the world and people still think about them today!
Henry was born on September 2, 1839, in Philadelphia. His family did not have much money, so he left school when he was just 13 years old to help earn money. He became a sailor and traveled the world, then moved to California. There he watched the city of San Francisco grow from a small, quiet town into a big, busy, booming city almost overnight!
When Henry walked through San Francisco, he noticed something strange. The city was getting richer and richer, but many people were still very poor. Fancy mansions stood right next to people sleeping in the streets. He wondered how that could happen.
Henry wrote a famous book called Progress and Poverty that asked this very question. He believed that when a city grows and land becomes very valuable, that good fortune should be shared with everyone — not just the people who happened to own the land. His book was read by millions of people around the world!
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