The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.

In 1895, the Fabian Society of England came to the United States and helped establish an American society of intellectuals. Some of America's most influential writers, playwrights, authors, poets, industrialists, labor leaders, and politicians flocked to the new society.

This strategy derives its name from Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the dictator of the Roman Republic given the task of defeating the great Carthaginian general Hannibal in southern Italy during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC). At the start of the war, Hannibal boldly crossed the Alps and invaded Italy.

​Annie Besant Annie Besant had begun her career in England as a proponent of free thought, radicalism, fabianism (socialism), and theosophy and was an ardent supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule.