Category Archives: Americana

Possible Effects of Prohibition on 1920s American Literature and Wit (Dorothy Parker and her Vicious Circle, in Particular)

“I love to have a martini, two at the very most. Three and I’m under the table…

Four and I’m under the host!”

An “Everything Must Go!” Prohibition Sale, June 24th, 1920.

Though we don’t expect you all to know this, we recently acquired (in collaboration with The Book Shop, LLC) a large collection of Temperance-related material. We have songbooks, cookbooks, pamphlets, announcements, postcards – all devoted to the righteous Temperance movement! The sheer amount of information on the dangers of alcohol got us thinking about the Prohibition and the 1920s. How was the lifestyle of some of the literary geniuses of “the day” influenced by the government’s chains? More specifically, did it actually affect the writing of the “Algonquin Round Table” – a group of popular and (usually) similar-minded 1920s authors, playwrights, actresses & editors who met daily at New York’s Hotel Algonquin and traded barbs, insults and witticisms until the entirety of America was aware of their eccentric and deviant lifestyle. The unofficial daily luncheon of the Algonquin table began 1919. Just one year later the Prohibition Ban was instituted, and remained in effect until 1933, long after the “Vicious Circle” had dispersed. Is it merely coincidence that the rise of the group known for their wit and sharp tongues coincides with the onset of a strict government law? Or did interference of administration in the personal lives of the American people somehow help these writers achieve the greatness they were to be known for?

Art Samuels, Charles MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker & Alexander Woollcott – some of the founding members of the Algonquin Round Table or the “Vicious Circle” as they came to be known.

As to a small background on the Algonquin Round Table mentioned above, the members included several well-known names, not only Dorothy Parker but also Robert Benchley, Franklin Pierce Adams, Marc Connelly, Ruth Hale, Robert E. Sherwood, John Peter Toohey, Harold Ross (founder of The New Yorker magazine), Harpo Marx, Edna Ferber & Alexander Woollcott. Other members drifted in-and-out of the original circle throughout the years. The daily luncheon was not the only interaction of these people, however. They constantly wove through each other’s circles, working together, playing together, writing together… basically they never left each other’s sides (or stayed out of each other’s personal lives, it seems). What does the Prohibition have to do with the Vicious Circle, you may ask?

Dorothy Parker in 1943.

Kathleen Morgan Drowne has written a book entitled Spirits of Defiance: National Prohibition and Jazz Age Literature, 1920 – 1933. Not only is it an easy read, it is a fantastic fount of information about the references to the Prohibition and illegal behavior in Jazz Age Literature. She mentions members of the Algonquin Round Table, with a slight focus on Dorothy Parker. Parker, as one of the founders of the Vicious Circle, was becoming well-known for her quick wit, thinly veiled barbs and sardonic one liners (“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think” is one of the many attributed to Dottie Parker), as well as her often scathing performance reviews, such as the ones she wrote for Vanity Fair at the beginning of her career. It is well-known that members of the Vicious Circle frequented New York speakeasies (of which, throughout the 1920s numbered above 30,000… and no, that is not a typo). Drowne argues that Parker and her contemporaries used speakeasies “as places where their characters willingly make themselves vulnerable to the consequences of law enforcement… important spaces in which they can act outside the law, demonstrate their disdain for outdated behavioral codes, boost their social status in certain circles, and, of course, satisfy their desire to drink… demonstrat[ing] how characters who defy Prohibition by patronizing speakeasies come to see lawbreaking itself as casual – even insignificant- behavior” (Drowne, p. 99). Many of Dorothy Parker’s poems and short stories contain alcohol references (to champagne, “bathtub gin”, and martinis, specifically), and the Algonquin Round Table group were regulars at speakeasies throughout the Prohibition (Dorothy Parker’s signature drink apparently a Johnny Walker whiskey, neat… in case you were wondering). Parker’s slightly crude and roguish attitude towards sex and drinking made her immensely popular at the height of the Jazz Age. Using Parker as an example, you could argue that wit, a sense of humor, a caustic style of writing and an affinity for breaking the rules (the author even divorced in the late 20s) seemed the recipe for success within the Vicious Circle.

Did Prohibition suddenly become an obsolete subject in literature once the repeal was enacted? Of course not! The intense interference of the government in the personal lives of Americans and the fanatical response it triggered in the desperation for alcohol and breaking the rules cannot deny having endured. Times like the magnificent yet seedy house-parties held by Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous work were later recalled by authors who wrote about the 30s as full of corruption and alcoholism. Drowne mentions John O’Hara’s 1934 work Appointment in Samarra, for example, and the explicit portrait the writer paints of seedy and unprincipled American following the Prohibition. Not seemingly written as a knock on the repeal, but more as a telling of what government interference in the personal lives of it’s citizens can accomplish in just a few years – a rise in degradation, desperateness, corruption and immoral behavior. Was this the attitude of the Round Table members? Who can tell! Parker went on to Hollywood following the demise of the Algonquin Vicious Circle and wrote screenplays (many of which see actors at bars with a martini, a choice not unnoticed when delving into the psyche of thoughts on alcohol), her love for drink continuing until her death in 1967.

A Famous Caricature of the Vicious Circle, from a 1962 piece by Al Hirschfeld.

Prohibition was repealed in December of 1933, a few years after the disintegration of the Round Table. Though it caused a good few years of strife in the lives of many average American citizens, it was not to the detriment of all (gangster boss Al Capone reportedly made $60 million a year, untaxed, throughout the Prohibition years). Not only did Al Capone make a splash throughout these years, but perhaps the Prohibition was not the worst thing for these authors to have experienced, seeing as it sharpened their wit & style. Parker’s attitude and behavior (characteristics which one could argue were partially shaped during the Prohibition) were some of the things that made the author so interesting to the general public. In this vein, perhaps the Vicious Circle’s wish to break against the chains of the 1920s and be witty, crude and sometimes even inappropriate is, even if only partially, indebted to the law of Prohibition itself.

No, we are not sure what exactly this picture is about, for or against. It simply makes me giggle.

Fun Facts About Prohibition:

18,000 people CURRENTLY live in “dry counties” throughout the United States, where Prohibition is virtually still in effect! (Who would’ve thought?!)
Some desperate and rather unfortunate people during Prohibition falsely believed that the undrinkable alcohol in antifreeze could be made safe and drinkable by filtering it through a loaf of bread. It couldn’t.
In Los Angeles, a jury that had heard a bootlegging case was itself put on trial after it drank the evidence. The jurors argued in their defense that they had simply been sampling the evidence to determine whether or not it contained alcohol, which they determined it did. However, because they consumed all the evidence, the defendant charged with bootlegging had to be acquitted.
Prohibition, though cutting down on the amount of liquor consumed in many areas of the United States, corresponded with a startling rise in crime in the US, as gangsters fought over bootlegging rights and butted-heads with the US government on many occasions, and regular civilians were put in jail for trying to have a good time. Not only were the gangsters and bootleggers in constant conflict, but the sudden desperate desire for illegal substances placed thousands of lives at stake due to the imperfect or contaminated bootlegged alcohol that was consumed. Thousands died, went blind or were paralyzed from imbibing contaminated bootlegged liquor throughout the United States.
After Prohibition was repealed (at 4:31pm on December 5th, 1933… not that we’ve been counting the minutes since or anything), President Franklin D. Roosevelt is said to have declared, “What America needs now is a drink.” (ProhibitionRepeal.com)

Gourmets, Drunks & a (Short) History of Cookery Books

Leave a reply

Tavistock Books’ recent acquisitions contain a large focus on Cookery titles. Not only have we recently had in stock the cookbook with the 1^st English Language recipe for tacos, but also The Cook’s Oracle, the first cookery book published out of Stockton, California (a more exciting purchase than you might think, which generated enthusiasm from around the country). The influx of interest in the food genre persuaded us to write this short, slightly perverse and tongue-in-cheek history of Cookery Books.

The Roman Gourmet

An error of 19th c. scholarship attributed the work API CAE to an “Apicius Coelius”, but modern scholarship shows that the name is almost certainly Marcus Gavius Apicius.

We can assume that the first person to ever cook something (let’s face it… most likely a woolly mammoth or something equally as strange) probably did it completely accidentally – perhaps by dropping their meat on an open flame and deciding to eat it anyway. Lo and behold! It’s so much better when it isn’t dripping blood on you! (Unless it’s steak tartar, which I highly doubt cave men had, but what do I know?) The first cookery book and collection of recipes known to man is a work falsely attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius (falsely, as the surviving copy dates from the 4^th or 5^th century AD, and Apicius lived in the 1^st, but that’s a whole different can of worms and I don’t really feel like going into it), a Roman gourmet and lover of food in the time of the Emperor Tiberius. Though impossible to prove his connection to the cook book “Apicius” (yet quite obviously named in his honor), it should be understood that this man was quite possibly the most food-obsessed person in the world. Legend has it that Apicius poisoned himself after realizing with horror that out of his fortune of some hundred million sesterces, he was down to his last million – having spent the majority on lavish feasts and immense amounts of food and drink. With the “prospect of starvation before him,” the Roman gourmet ended his life. Now that is devotion to the art of cookery!

Though M. G. Apicius is not the author of the 4^th/5^th century work API CAE (a title on the famous manuscript of the cook book), it is said that he did produce cookery recipes in his time, and gave many tips & hints in the art of cooking to those in his inner circle. It is said that Apicius himself developed a way of producing pork liver, in a similar fashion to how goose liver was served at the time. The name “Apicius” has been attributed to several gluttons (I mean “foodies”) since, with at least 3 in Ancient Rome alone.

The Grotesque Middle Ages

In preparing for this blog article, I read Old Cook Books, An Illustrated History by Eric Quayle. It is recommended that everyone read this book, as it is filled to the brim with fun anecdotes about the history of cooking and writing about it. BE WARNED, however, that you shouldn’t read the first few chapters when about to eat, when thinking about eating, or just after eating. Maybe read it when you’re on some kind of juice cleanse. Not only did the recipes included for Grilled Womb, Boiled Parrot & Stuffed Dormice pretty much determine that I was going to be drinking water for dinner after, but Quayle’s description of feasting in the Middle Ages was, to me, positively disgusting.

She really loves her life right now.

Apparently in the Middle Ages everyone was obese and drunk all the time, and it was a competition to see who could walk away from the feasting area without passing out in their dishes. You know what? I’m not doing it justice. Let’s quote some of Quayle’s write-up on Medieval feasts, shall we? (Just remember what I said about not eating at this time, you’ll thank me later). “In Medieval days, the banquets and feasts enjoyed depended for their success almost entirely on the ravenous appetites and unrefined palates of the unwashed mobs that thronged the rough-hewn tables… The over-filling of empty bellies and the immediate allaying of pangs of hunger… were the prime objectives of the sweating cooks and minions who dished out the helpings… Anything even remotely edible had been tossed into these same cauldrons… in the background, the spits turned with their heavy carcasses, dripping with fat, before glowing fires of heaped-up logs. When the revels commenced, immense quantities of food and strong drink were consumed at a single sitting, the plates being scooped clean in greasy handfuls as each new course arrived… The less stalwart were the first to go, as many collapsing across the tables as slid beneath them. Great pride was taken in being the last to submit” (Quayle, Ch. 2). In translation… everyone was plastered and unsightly in the Middle Ages and it wasn’t half as sexy as TV makes it out to be.

This quote had basically nothing to do with this blog subject, it simply pleased me to force you all to share my current pain. Let us return to the matter at hand. It was in the Middle Ages that the first work of cookery in English is known to have been printed. The Boke of Cokery, printed by Richard Pynson in 1500, is known in only 1 copy throughout the world (at the Library of the Marquess of Bath). This work not only gives the reader recipes for use at feasts or in an aristocratic household, but is a historically significant work. Pynson, possibly with the help of others, details many royal feasts that allow us 21^st century minions to know exactly what was served to King Henry IV with the Spaniards and Frenchmen as they jousted in Smyth Felde! This noteworthy work, the first of its kind in the English vernacular, opened a door for publishing English-language recipe books – a genre that has remained popular ever since.

Cook Books in the United States when it was Not the United States Yet

Our 1796 edition of the states’ early work, “The Frugal Housewife.”

The idea of printing recipes in a book only grew in popularity with this publication from Pynson in 1500. Once printing for the masses became commonplace, cookery books entered the fray same as political broadsides and religious prayer books. The earliest American Cookery Book (to our knowledge) was printed in 1742, before the United States had broken away from our meat pie loving friends (Still bitter about this… I love meat pies). This book, entitled The Compleat Housewife; or, Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion was printed in Williamsburg and was a publication of the original British work printed in 1727 of the same name. Other early cookbooks were to follow, in 1762 with The Cyder-Maker’s Instructor, Sweet-Maker’s Assistant, and Victualler’s and Housekeeper’s Director and The Frugal Housewife, or Complete Woman Cook in 1772 (which, oh, we happen to have a copy of for sale!). These books have, in actuality, exceedingly long titles (as was common for books – see Eleanor Lowenstein’s Bibliography of American Cookery Books 1742 – 1860 to view full write-ups) that describe the multitude of foods whose recipes you will find inside their volumes (pastries, soups, stews, creams… even methods of roasting, boiling, frying, potting, preserving, candying and pickling). These all-around instruction manuals were important to the ladies of early American households, as help with recipes or household chores could be difficult for some early communities to find when in remote areas.

Charitable Cooks in the later 19^th and early 20^th Centuries

Let’s skip ahead a few hundred years (because continuing down this road will only ensure that you will all end up passing out on top of your desks… or under them, apparently), to the 19^th and 20^th centuries of “Charitable” Cooks and their publications. Cook Books began to be readily available to the average civilian in the later 19^th century, as the literacy rate grew and cook books were written for chefs in average households, not purely for aristocratic or wealthy ones. In America in the 1860s, the first fund-raising “receipt books” were compiled and sold at Sanitary Fairs held to raise money for military casualties and their families during the Civil War. This idea of publishing cook books to raise money for the war effort spread like wild-fire. After the war came to an end, the Ladies’ Aid Societies around the country found a myriad of other local charities to devote their efforts to – hospitals, churches, schools, temperance organizations, etc. Throughout the United States, benefit cookery books continued to be printed well into the 20^th century. As Margaret Cook states in her foreword to America’s Charitable Cooks: A Bibliography of Fund-Raising Cook Books Published in the United States, “Though the recipes in early locally-published cookery books are often amateurish, they reflect the cooking fashions of the period in various parts of the United States more accurately than the standard works by professional authors… the great fascination of these early regional cookery books for collectors and local historians is their elusiveness” (p. 7). Charitable cook books in California alone make up the 359 titles in Liselotte & William Glozer’s compilation California in the Kitchen – proving their immense popularity as the hundreds of titles extend merely from 1870 to 1932. Seldom copy-righted, these amateur cook books present a window in time to the average American household fare – and ought to be cherished as such!

Tavistock Books has just issued a Cookery List, full of Charitable Cook Books, Cookery Advertisements, Pamphlets, Brochures, Cookery Education – the whole nine yards – to a handful of cookery customers. If you would like to receive this list privately, please contact Margueritte at msp@tavbooks.com. We promise… there are no recipes for Grilled Womb anywhere in those titles.

(However, if you’d like us to scan that recipe and send it to you, that is a definite possibility – and we promise not to tell TOO many people what you’re having for dinner.)

The same recipe can be used for flamingos?!?! Well why didn't you say so before??

The same recipe can be used for flamingos?!?! Why didn’t you say so before??

Tavistock Books’ Almost-Annual Reference Book Workshop

Leave a reply

There is a significant difference between booksellers who advertise their wares with professional descriptions, a clear understanding of the item in question, an honest assessment with regard to the item’s condition… and your typical eBay/Amazon blasters: “FREE SHIPPING! May or may not have highlighting and/or missing pages.” The pride in being a Good (or VG+) bookseller comes from the ability to sell something about which you are knowledgeable and which is priced confidently and accurately.

Oftentimes, as booksellers, we hear the question “Why?” Why is this book worth $495? Why would I pay that much for a book which Joe Shmoe, Bookseller offers for $29.99? There is no shame in asking these questions. Even booksellers can look at their colleagues’ wares and stare confusedly at the screen while waiting for the computer to sprout tiny-computer legs and giggle, while simultaneously erasing that last 0 or two. All that being said, however…. what can give booksellers the ability to price confidently and describe accurately? Two words.

Reference Books.

If you are reading this blog, there is a good chance you have looked at listings of antiquarian books before and have noticed some crazy notations in our write-ups. What is a BAL11092? Or a Gabler G2390? An average person has a good chance of not particularly understanding what the numbers mean. Heck, another bookseller might not even have a clue to what you are referring. A good bookseller will know, however, that the inclusion of those small jumbles of letters and numbers beyond their edition statements represent the dedication and honesty of the person offering the item. They have gone to the trouble of understanding what they hold in their hands, so that their customer can have the guarantee and peace-of-mind that they are buying a 1st/1st, a 1st edition thus, or a reprint. What allows a reference book to (sometimes) up the price or (often) lower the price? Well… I guess you’ll just have to take the Tavistock Books’ Reference Book Workshop to find out!

This year’s course took place this past Saturday, the 23rd of August. The day-long course consists of an intense look at different genres of reference books, their scope, and their usefulness to the book-selling, book-collecting and book-cataloguing trades. Sections covered include Literature (do the acronyms NUC or NCBEL mean anything to you? Here’s where you will find them explained!), Americana (with an emphasis on Western Americana & California… can you say Kurutz three times fast?), Children’s Books, Early Printed Books, and Online Reference Tools. This course is a fast-paced survey, useful for any bookseller, collector, or librarian interested in understanding the tools booksellers use to identify and price their books.

Workshop 2014

This year’s workshop was attended by 4 booksellers (some new, some slightly seasoned), two librarians, and a lover of all things book-related. Intelligent questions were asked, anecdotes shared, and quite a bit of knowledge imparted on these smiling (though, by the end of the day, slightly haggard) faces. Due to the limited amount of space in the shop (where the workshop is held), we cap the number of “pupils” at 7 per year. Should you be interested in attending, please email msp@tavbooks.com and ask to be included on our mailing list, so that when the reminder comes about next spring to sign up, you can be first on the list!

The workshop truly is helpful to those dealing with the book-trade, and the Tavistock Books Reference Collection of over 3,000 reference volumes alone are worth the trip to see! And, as per tradition, lunch is on us at a great sushi place on our charming island of Alameda, CA. Interested in attending a workshop one day? Let us know!

Temperance, Prohibition, and the WCTU

Leave a reply

Nast_Harpers_Bar_Destruction

The above cartoon by Thomas Nast appeared in Harper’s Weekly on March 21, 1874. The following page bore another temperance cartoon by Michael Angelo Woolf called “The Social Juggernaut.” The issue also included a story of a temperance demonstration at a New York bar and an illustrated poem called “Like Father, Like Son,” which tells the story of a father and son who both fall into alcoholism. The back page cartoon depicts a bottle of rum in prison for “manslaughter in the greatest degree.”

Interest in temperance and prohibition continued to grow over the next several decades, culminating in the ratification of the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919. By this time, the temperance movement had been around for over a century. In 1784, Benjamin Rush wrote An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind. His treatise blamed alcohol for a wide range of physical and psychological problems. By 1789, a group of Connecticut farmers formed a temperance association and applied Rush’s work, banning the production of whiskey in their county. By 1800, Virginia also had a temperance association, and New York followed in 1808.

Most activists at this time supported moderation, rather than complete abstinence. But as the movement grew, leaders tried to use their increased audience to promote other issues like attending church on Sundays. That approach backfired. The movement splintered and fell apart completely by 1820. Despite a lack of cohesive support, the idea of temperance had taken hold. Many states, counties, and cities were dry. That didn’t mean that alcohol consumption had waned; in fact, from 1800 to 1830, per capita alcohol consumption reached its highest level in American history. It was three times today’s rate, and most of that consumption was hard liquor drunk undiluted. One historian actually labeled the US at this time the “alcoholic republic.”

To garner support, temperance leaders modeled their rallies after religious revivals. They primarily relied on moral and religious arguments, and some began lobbying for the regulation and/or prohibition of alcohol. In 1826, the American Temperance Society was founded, lending the movement new momentum. By 1838, the organization had over one million members and more than 8,000 local groups. This time, there was a definitive split between moderates (who supported drinking in moderation) and radicals (who believed in complete prohibition of all alcohol).

The radicals were, predictably, much more vocal and soon dominated the movement. By the early 1850’s, thirteen states had banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Alcohol consumption had fallen significantly, and more people were opting for beer instead of hard liquor–a preference that some culinary historians attribute in large part to the influx of German immigrants.

But the Civil War derailed the temperance movement completely. Both the North and the South struggled to fund the war, and they turned to distillers and brewers for financial support. Drinking also became a sort of bonding activity for soldiers, who were away from their wives and families. Support for temperance and prohibition dried up.

After the war ended, the nation experienced an explosion in the retail liquor industry. The number of dealers went up 17% between 1864 and 1873…even though the population grew only 2.6%. It wasn’t until the end of the Reconstruction that prohibitionism gained steam again. First, it took root in the South; the ideals of prohibition and protecting the home dovetailed with “traditional Southern values,” such as traditional gender roles and even racial stereotypes.

Soon prohibitionism had entered politics. Most temperance advocates were Republicans, but leaders of both parties tried to distance themselves from the most divisive issues. Ultimately prohibition advocates decided that neither political party adequately represented their interests, and the Prohibition Party was born. The party still exists today and has nominated a presidential candidate for every election since 1872. Though it faded into obscurity with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Prohibition Party is the oldest third political party in the United States.

Unfortunately, women were still excluded from politics, so they sought other ways to support the movement. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union all began with Dr. Dio Lewis. A prominent proponent of temperance, Dr. Lewis traveled the country for decades, telling a story about how his mother and other women had inspired local business owners to turn away from alcohol sales with prayer and scripture.

Inspired by Dr. Lewis in December 1873, a group of women banded together to take direct action against saloons and liquor sales in what came to be known as the Women’s Crusade of 1873-1874. At first, women would gather at saloons and drop to their knees-for pray ins. They would sing hymns and demand that the establishment stop serving alcohol. With these grassroots demonstrations, they managed to halt alcohol sales in 250 communities. Then in the summer of 1874 at a pre-organizational meeting in Chautauqua, members decided to hold a national convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

In Cleveland, Annie Wittenmyer was elected the first president of the WCTU. Wittenmyer had been a nurse during the Civil War and would go on to author Under the Guns about her experience. Under her guidance, the WCTU took up temperance as a “protection of the home.” The organization’s watchwords were “Agitate-Educate-Legislate.” Local chapters were called unions, and they were largely autonomous. The WCTU quickly became the largest women’s organization in the country.

The WCTU’s protest against alcohol was ultimately much more than that: it was a means of protesting women’s lack of civil rights. At the time, women couldn’t vote. Domestic abuse and rape cases almost never found their way to prosecution. Women had no right to property or custody of their children if they got divorced. And in some states, the age of consent was still as low as seven. Meanwhile, most political meetings were held in saloons, which informally excluded women from participation in politics.

A banner from the now defunct Placer County, California chapter of the WCTU

In 1879, Frances Willard became president of the WCTU. Her personal motto was “Do everything,” and she believed that the organization should expand its scope to address a full range of social problems, which were, after all, interconnected. Use of substances like drugs and alcohol was really just a symptom of greater societal ills. By 1894, the WCTU had taken up the cause of women’s suffrage and had become one of the first organizations to keep a professional lobbyist in Washington, DC.

The WCTU undertook a number of initiatives to promote temperance. People often opted to drink beer or liquor because there was no access to clean drinking water. So the WCTU advocated the installation of public drinking fountains. And in cooperation with Mary Hunt, the WCTU established a curriculum for formal temperance instruction in classrooms across the nation. Their goal: “teach that alcohol is a dangerous and seductive poison; that fermentation turns beer and wine and cider from a food into poison; that a little liquor creates by its nature the appetite for more; and that degradation and crime result from alcohol.”

When the 18th Amendment was finally ratified, the WCTU continued to advocate temperance, but shifted its focus to other social issues. The repeal of the amendment sparked another shift in focus. Today, the WCTU addresses the abuse of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, along with gambling and pornography.

Related Books

The Prohibition Songster
Compiled by John Newton Stearns, The Prohibition Songster was intended for “Prohibition Campaign Clubs, Temperance Organizations, Glee Clubs, Camp Meetings, Etc, Etc.” It was first published in 1884 by the National Temperance Society and Publication House. Such items were frequently produced for use during political campaigns, and the National Temperance Society says of this particular publication, “This is a new collection of words and music for Temperance Gatherings, with some of the most soul-stirring songs ever published. Music by some of the best composers, and words by our best poets.” One hundred copies could be purchased for $12. OCLC records five institutional copies. Details>>

Autograph Album-Leeds Town Hall (1861-1895)
This rare album contains the autographs of visitors to the Leeds Town Hall. The album was owned by a J. (or F.) N. Dickinson who has signed the ffep and added the date Oct 9th 1861. Each of the 59 pages (beginning on the verso of the ffep) contain numerous autographs, primarily of musicians who we assume were performing there on the dates noted. Among the dignitaries to sign the autography book are Charles Dickens, Charles Stratton (aka, Tom Thumb), Scottish explorer John MacGregor (better known as Rob Roy). Lady Isabella Somerset, former president of the British Women’s Temperance Association, also signed. All in all it’s a truly fascinating artifact. Details>>

Captain Jack Crawford, “The Poet Scout,” in His Wonderful Entertainments, “The Camp Fire and the Trail”
John Wallace “Jack” Crawford was an American adventurer, educator, and author known as one of the most popular performers in the late nineteenth century. His daring actions to carry the news the 350 miles to Ft. Laramie in six days of General George Crook’s victory in the Battle of Slim Buttes during the Great Sioux War made him instantly famous. After his stints in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and “General Crook’s Horsemeat March,” Crawford served as a special agent for the US Department of Justice, spending four years investigating illegal liquor traffic and fighting alcoholism on Indian reservations. During his work for the US Government, he began his career as an entertainer in 1893 which continued until 1898. He wrote poetry and held “lectures” across the United States where he told of his many adventures in the Wild West, and where he asked his audiences to be careful and foreswear liquor in order to lead a more fulfilled life. He was a prolific writer and published seven books of poetry, wrote more than one hundred short stories and copyrighted four plays. In fact, his poem “Only a Miner Killed” has been said to be the basis for Bob Dylan’s song “Only a Hobo”. Only one institutional holding is found on OCLC. Details>>

Dealings with the Dead
This volume includes collected commentary by noted antiquary and temperance advocate Lucius Manlius Sargent on Boston society (among other things), as was initially published in a series of Boston Evening Transcript articles. Per the DAB, “though he showed enthusiasm for the past, his efforts were generally directed towards blasting something offensive to him out of existence.” This, the first book edition, was published in two volumes in 1856. OCLC records just four copies of this work in institutional hands. Details>>

Back from the Mouth of Hell
This book’s drop title reads “Or The Rescue from Drunkenness. The Causes, Progress and Results of Intemperance, with the Possibility and Effectual Methods of Accomplishing Permanent Reform.” It was published anonymously in 1878 “By a Former Inebriate.” But this copy bears the an inscription on the ffep from the author, James E. Abbe. The title does not appear in Amerine & Borg. It’s still bound in the publisher’s original half-sheep binding with marbled paper boards and pale peach colored endpapers. Though it has some modest binding wear, mostly to the extremities, it’s withal a Very Good+ copy. Details>>

Poems for the Times: Devoted to Woman’s Rights, Temperance, Etc
The author, Frances A Rowley, notes that her purpose is to “touch upon the most, if not all of the great evils of the day, and have placed the language in the poetic form, thinking that perhaps in this way I might reach the minds of those of my sex that would not be as well pleased with the practicabilities in prose…” Poems for the Times is a somewhat uncommon work addressing women’s suffrage, etc. It was first published in 1871. This first edition is bound in the original publisher’s purple cloth with gilt stamping and bevelled edges. The spine is sunned, but otherwise this is a square and tight Very Good+ volume. Details>>

Arlington WCTU Cookbook, in Memory of Mother Wilkins
The last page of this cookbook concludes with a recipe for ‘Husbands’: “One of the lectures before the Baltimore Cooking School recently gave this recipe for cooking husbands. A good many husbands are utterly spirited by mismanagements. Some women go about it as if their husbands were bladders, and blow them up. Others keep them constantly in hot water. Others let them freeze by their carelessness and indifference… Tie him in the kettle by a strong silk cord called Comfort, as the one called Duty is apt to be weak. Make a clear, steady fire out of Love, Neatness and Cheerfulness. Set him as near this as seems to agree with him. If he sputters and fizzes, do not be anxious – some husbands do this till they are quite done… Do not stick any sharp instrument into him to see if he is becoming tender. Stir him gently, watching the while, lest he lie to flat and close to the kettle; and so become useless. If thus treated you will find him very relishable, agreeing nicely with you and the children: and he will keep as long as you want, unless you become careless, and set him in too cold a place.” This item is rare in the trade; OCLC records five institutional holdings. Details>>

Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.

Why California Isn’t Called “Nova Albion”

Leave a reply

On June 17, 1579, Francis Drake claimed California for England. He anchored his ship, the Golden Hind, just north of present-day San Francisco and named the new territory “Nova Albion.” But despite Drake’s claim in the name of Queen Elizabeth I, he was not the first European to explore California.

Drake Lays Claim to California

Drake set out from England on December 13, 1577 with five ships. His mission was to raid Spanish holdings along the Pacific coast in the New World. Drake was forced to abandon two ships during the Atlantic crossing. Then the expedition encountered a series of storms in the Strait of Magellan. One ship was destroyed, and the other returned to England. Only the Golden Hind reached the Pacific. Drake raided Spanish settlements and captured a heavy-laden Spanish treasure ship.

Drake continued up the West Coast of North America in search of the fabled Northwest passage. He got as far north as present-day Washington, stopping near the San Francisco Bay in June 1579. In July, Drake’s expedition set off across the Pacific, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope and returning to England. Drake returned to Plymouth, England on September 26, 1580. Queen Elizabeth I knighted him the following year on a visit to his ship.

A Portuguese Explorer for the Spanish Crown

California gets its name from a mythical island populated by Amazon women who use golden tools and weapons. It appeared in a popular romance novel called Las Sergas de Esplandian by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. The book went through several editions, though the earliest extant copy dates from 1510. When Spanish settlers explored what’s now Baja California, they believed that they’d discovered the mythical island.

It was Portuguese adventurer Joao Rodruigues Cabrilho, better known as Jose Rodriguez Cabrillo, who disabused the Spaniards of the notion that California was an island. Little is known of Cabrillo’s life before 1519, when his name first appears in the ranks of those serving conquistador Hernan Cortes. Cabrillo participated in the conquests of both Mexico and Guatemala. He was also involved in military expeditions to southern Mexico, Guatemala, and San Salvador.

Cabrillo eventually settled in Guatemala and by 1530 had established himself as a leader of Santiago, Guatemala. He returned to Spain briefly to find a wife, marrying Beatriz Sanchez de Ortega. The couple would have two sons. Then in 1540, a major earthquake destroyed Santiago. Cabrillo’s report to Spain on the devastation is considered the first piece of secular journalism published in the New World.

Soon Spain was looking to expand northward. Francisco de Ulloa had recently explored the Gulf of California and proven that California was not an island after all (though the misconception persisted back in Spain). Now, Guatemala governor Pedro de Alvarado commissioned Cabrillo to lead a mission up the coast. He believed that Cabrillo and his men would find the fabled wealthy cities of Cibola, which were thought to be somewhere along the Pacific coast north of New Spain. The explorers also held out hope of discovering the “Straits of Arain,” rumored to connect the North Pacific and the North Atlantic.

Cabrillo Travels up the California Coast

On June 24, 1542, Cabrillo sailed out of the port of Navidad (modern-day Manzanillo). He took with him a crew of soldiers and sailors, along with merchants, a priest, slaves, livestock, and enough provisions to last two years. By September 28, 1542, Cabrillo had reached a “very good enclosed port,” now known as San Diego Bay. He and his crew stayed there for several days before heading up the coast. They visited a number of islands before turning around due to adverse weather conditions.

Cabrillo died of complications from a broken leg on January 3, 1543. His exploration helped to dispel geographical misconceptions and to expand the Spanish empire. Over three centuries later, Alex S Taylor, a resident of Monterey, California, wrote the history of Cabrillo’s expedition. First published separately in 1853, The First Voyage to the Coasts of California is considered an important work, indeed; it was the first work of California history actually published within California.

Other Works of Californiana

The Pony Express Courier
In 1860, countless men responded to advertisements for riders in the new Pony Express. At any one time, only about eighty men would actually be riders, though another 400 employees supported the operation. The Pony Express was a truly ambitious project, connecting the East coast with California. Mark Twain was lucky enough to witness the Pony Express in action, observing that the rider was “usually a little bit of a man.” The Pony Express Courier, published in Placerville, first appeared in 1934. It’s a wonderful resource for students of Western America, full of interviews, reminiscences, and more. This set includes 16 of 18 total issues, bound in eight books. They are custom bound in blue “marbled” cloth with gilt stamped lettering to the spine and front board. Details>>

Wi-Ne-Ma (The Woman Chief) and Her People
Also known as the Lava Beds War, the Modoc War began in 1872, making it the last of the Indian Wars to occur in California and Oregon. Wi-Ne-Man acted as interpreted for the peace commission during the conflict. Her efforts saved the life of Alfred Benjamin Meachum, Indian Superintendent of Oregon, Meachum would go on to write an account of the chieftainess called Wi-Ne-Man (The Woman Chief) and Her People. The first edition was published in 1876. APBC shows this title at auction last in 1997, with only one prior occurrence in 1991. Details>>

Documents in Relation to Charges Preferred by Stephen J Field and Others…
The Field-Turner feud is renowned in the annals of California history. Judge William R Turner had Field, an attorney, disbarred; Field ultimately got his revenge by, on election to the California Assembly, arranging Turner’s banishment, via judicial reorganization, to a remote “region in the northern part of the state.” [DAB]. This second edition includes testimonial and affidavits in Judge Turner’s defense from a host of local officials as well as a few national notables, including Andrew Jackson & Henry Clay. Furthermore, this copy contains rare associated ephemera: a handbill reprinting a contemporaneous review of the book entitled, “Judge Turner’s Book,” as published in the San Francisco Herald of Dec. 30, 1856; as well as a legal circular containing a statement by Judge Turner relating to his candidacy for re-election to the office of District Judge for the 8th District, dated Arcata, July 14, 1863. Additionally, contained within the circular are reprinted two letters with respect to Turner’s case before the Supreme Court, the latter advising Judge Turner “of the favorable and final decision of the Supreme Court in your case.” Details>>

All About California and the Inducements to Settle There
Attributed to JS Hittel, All About California includes the drop title “For Gratuitous Circulation.” The propaganda piece was designed to encourage settlement in California, and it’s full of pertinent data and factoids of the era. This, the second edition, was issued in 1870 just like the first. It includes a folding map of the railroad route for the “Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific RR Line,” along with a two-page map of California, a full-page wood engraving of the Grand Hotel, and a two-page map of “JT Little’s San Joaquin Valley.” This copy bears the stamp of the California Immigrant Union in the upper right corner of the front wrapper. There’s a small bit of bio-predation on the top pages of the last eight pages, but no text is affected. Details>>

An Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County, California
This account of California history stretches from the Spanish Occupancy, by the founding of the Mission San Gabriel Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876. This copy is a first edition, second issue, published in 1876. The volume is in its original printed paper wrappers. The wrapper edges chipped, with the upper corner lacking from front wrapper. A Japanese paper repair has been made to the spine. There’s occasional pencil marginalia. Overall, this is an about very good copy. Details>>

Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.

Charles Dickens’ Fraught Relationship with Harriet Beecher Stowe

Leave a reply

One hundred years after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published, Langston Hughes called the novel “the most cussed and discussed book of its time.” Hughes’ failure to comment on the literary merits of Uncle Tom’s Cabin hints at the persistent disagreement among writers, critics, and the reading public about the novel’s actual quality. Stowe’s contemporaries who found the book overly sentimental, extreme, or otherwise objectionable could not avoid discussing the book–on either side of the Atlantic. That included Charles Dickens, who initially endorsed Uncle Tom’s Cabin but came to resent the less than complimentary comparisons made between his own views and works and Stowe’s.

A Fortuitously Timed Publication

It seemed that Stowe had chosen precisely the right moment to publish an anti-slavery novel. The Fugitive Slave Act had passed in 1850, and the divisive legislation directly affected the Stowe household. Stowe had thought that one of her servants was a freed slave, but the girl had actually run away from a Kentucky plantation. When Stowe learned that the girl’s former owner was looking for her, Stowe immediately set out to find a safe hiding place for the girl. The episode would be one of many that inspired Stowe to undertake an abolitionist novel (though she would later claim that God himself was guiding her pen).

Such events happened all over the country, and the nation was ripe for just such a work as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. On May 8, 1851, the first installment of appeared in Washington DC’s National Era, which was owned by abolitionist Gamaliel Bailey. The piece was immediately popular; sales and readership of the National Era jumped from 17,000 to 28,000 while the story ran. Before the last installment had even appeared, Stowe already had an offer from John J Jewett & Co. to publish Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a single volume.

That edition was published on March 20, 1852. Over 100,000 copies had sold by the end of the summer, and over 300,000 copies had sold by March 1853. Dramatic versions of the novel appeared within months, and George L Aiken’s stage production remained among the most popular plays in England and America for the next 75 years.

Not everyone was quite so enthusiastic. Southerner William Gilmore Simms considered the novel both libelous and poorly researched. Reverend Joel Parker threatened to sue Stowe for her “dastardly attack” on his character. And Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been banned in the South at numerous points in history. The negative publicity induced Stowe to write The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) to defend herself. Either way, all the attention only served to increase Stowe’s fame.

An American Novel Goes Abroad

To expand her readership, Stowe sent presentation copies to a number of illustrious personages, from Prince Albert to the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Among the recipients was Charles Dickens, who received a little lavender-bound volume with a letter from Stowe. The American novelist evoked their shared mission, stating that “The Author of the following sketches offers them to your notice as the first writer in our day who turned the attention of the high to the joys and sorrows of the lowly.”

Dickens responded with guarded praise, complimenting Stowe’s noble cause. He was less restrained in expressing his opinion of the book later that year. Dickens reportedly told Sara Jane Clarke, a young American visiting Tavistock House, “Mrs. Stowe hardly gives the Anglo-Saxon fair play. I liked what I saw of the colored people in the States. I found them singularly polite and amiable, and in some instances decidedly clever; but then I have no prejudice against white people.” Clarke wrote, “Uncle Tom evidently struck him as an impossible piece of ebony perfection…and other African characters in the book as too highly seasoned with the virtues.” She noted that Dickens argued Uncle Tom’s Cabin was “scarcely a work of art.”

Stowe Proves Impossible to Ignore

This piece of music published the same year as the novel – most likely due to the intense popularity Stowe’s work enjoyed right from the beginning. OCLC records nine institutional holdings.

By mid-1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was selling quickly in both America and England. Dickens simply couldn’t avoid talking and writing about the novel because it was simply what everyone wanted to discuss and read about. Thus he and Henry Morley wrote an article for the September 18, 1852 issue of Household Words called “North American Slavery.” The article opened with a critique of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dickens called the novel a “noble work,” before pointing out its “overstraining conclusions and violent extremes.” But then Dickens turned his pen to the author: “Harriet Beecher Stowe is an honor to the time that has produced her, and will take her place among the best writers of fiction.”

Before the article ran, however, Dickens was dragged into a most unpleasant controversy. On September 13, 1852, Lord Denmon, the former Lord Chief Justice of England and a friend of Dickens, launched a rather vicious attack against Dickens. He published an article in the London Standard critiquing both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the first seven numbers of Bleak House. A staunch abolitionist, Denmon castigated Dickens for obstructing the abolitionist cause. He brought up the character of Mrs. Jellyby, “a disgusting picture of a woman who pretends zeal for the happiness of Africa…if it means to represent a class, we believe that no representation was ever more false.”

Denmon went on to publish five more columns in the Standard, which were subsequently republished for circulation in pamphlet form. In the third, Denmon satirized Dickens’ initial praise of Stowe, saying “Mrs. Stowe might have learned a more judicious mode of treating a subject from the pictures of Mrs. Dombey and Carker, of Lady Dedlock and Joe [sic]. Uncle Tom ought not to have come to his death by flogging. A railway collision, such as disposed conveniently of Mr. Carker, would have been much more artistic.” By the fifth piece, Denmon finally abandons Dickens to heap praises on Stowe’s “graphic skill and pathetic power in which she has so far surpassed all living writers.”

Dickens Tries to Quash the Controversy

Dickens didn’t publicly respond to Denmon right away. He probably would have preferred to avoid all discourse on Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin altogether, but that was impossible. Indeed, he gets drawn into talking about the novel in his correspondence on more than one occasion, most notably with the Duke of Devonshire (October 29, 1852) and three weeks later with Mrs. Watson.

Soran_Aunt_Harriet_Becha_Stowe_Nightingale

“Aunt Harriet Becha (sic) Stowe” was written for Kunkel’s Nightingale Opera Troupe. OCLC records five institutional holdings.

Mrs. Cropper, Denmon’s daughter, wrote Dickens a letter of apology toward the end of 1852. She said that her father had suffered a severe paralytic stroke on December 2, 1852 and was not himself. Indeed, he had been forced to resign his post as Lord Chief Justice because of similar strokes. Dickens’ response indicates his growing resentment toward Stowe, who was now receiving praise at Dickens’ expense from a host of critics. Dickens argued that the best means to further the cause of abolition was not exaggerated emotional appeals and painting slave owners in the worst possible light, but rather reason and rational argument.

Dickens also felt that Stowe’s novel was being used as an “angry weapon” against him. He observed that the “exactly four words of objection to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (amidst the most ardent praise of it)” had resulted in unjust attacks on him. Cropper had her brother George draft a response to Dickens, but Dickens replied on January 21, 1853 with an aim of ending the matter completely. He sent back Cropper’s letter unopened.

An Unexpected Encounter

Unfortunately for Dickens, he couldn’t end his exposure to Stowe quite so easily. Now famous on both continents, Stowe embarked on a tour of the United Kingdom, and Dickens was to meet her. Her travel schedule proved unpredictable, so Dickens had virtually no time to prepare. Stowe and her husband arrived in London on May 2, 1853, which happened to be the day that the Lord Mayor was hosting a large banquet. Eager to show Stowe the proper hospitality, the Mayor immediately extended an invitation. He seated the Stowes directly across from Dickens and his wife, Catherine.

Unaware that Dickens harbored a grudge, Stowe was thrilled to be in Dickens’ company. She was impressed with him and his wife, noting later that they were “people that one couldn’t know a little of without desiring to know more.” Once the crowd had had several rounds of alcohol, Thomas Noon Talfourd proposed a toast to the literature of England and America. He noted how both Dickens and Stowe “employed fiction as a means of awakening the attention of their respective countries to the condition of the oppressed and suffering classes.” Then Talfourd made a toast to Dickens. Dickens stood and offered kind words to Stowe. Thus the evening appeared to go pleasantly enough. A few days later, Dickens took Catherine to call on Stowe and her husband at Walworth. Stowe returned the visit, only to find that Dickens was ill and Catherine was busy ministering to him.

In 1854, Stowe published Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, recounting her visit to England. She specifically mentioned her meeting with Catherine Dickens, calling her a “good specimen of a truly English woman: tall, large, and well-developed, with fine, healthy color, and an air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability.” Perhaps Stowe was already predisposed to like Catherine. After all, she had championed an anti-slavery appeal, helping to collect about 500,000 signatures. The document, titled “An Affectionate and Christian Address from Many Thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to Their Sisters, the Women of the United States of America.” The document was bound in 26 huge volumes and sent to Stowe.

By this time, however, Dickens had a very different view of his wife’s character. Thus Stowe’s lavish praise rankled him. He was sure to mention to others that Stowe had called Catherine “large.” Dickens also found Sunny Memories quite trite and dubbed the book “Moony Memories.” He wrote to a friend, “the Moony Memories are very silly I am afraid. Some of the people remembered most moonily are terrible humbugs–mortal, deadly incarnations of Cant and Quackery.”

Stowe Returns for a British Copyright

Stowe made a second visit to England in 1856, but she would not again encounter Dickens. This time, she met Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, along with Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke, Lady Byron. The visit came on the heels of Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, another anti-slavery novel that was successful but not wildly popular like Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

During this second trip to England, Stowe and Dickens may have found common ground: Stowe’s primary purpose was to get a British copyright on her new book. She hadn’t held one for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, losing untold profit on all the copies sold abroad. Dickens, a long-time proponent of international copyright law, might have empathized with Stowe, given that he’d lost major sums thanks to pirated editions of his books in America.

A New Offense

For the next several years, there’s no evidence that Dickens discussed Stowe or Uncle Tom’s Cabin either in print or in correspondence. That changed in September 1869. That year, James T Fields, Dickens’ friend and American publisher, decided to run Stowe’s The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life in Atlantic Monthly. The piece delved into the Byrons’ private lives, unabashedly addressing the incestuous relationship between Lord Byron and his half-sister Augusta Leigh. Stowe intended to vindicate Lady Byron by exposing her husband’s depravity.

Dickens found such a work unconscionable. He’d always been vehemently opposed to prying into the lives of private figures; Dickens even called James Boswell an “unconscious coxcomb” for having written his biography of Samuel Johnson. Dickens was even sensitive once his own marriage fell apart and he started an affair with Ellen Ternan. Indeed, a simple indiscreet comment from William Makepeace Thackeray was among the first in a series of events that destroyed Thackeray and Dickens’ friendship. To protect his own privacy, Dickens even went to far as to make a bonfire at Gads Hill in September 1860, with the sole purpose of burning his own papers and correspondence.

Thus it should come as no surprise that on October 6, 1869 Dickens wrote to Fields, “Wish you had nothing to do with that Byron matter. Wish Mrs. Stowe was in the pillory.” And on October 18, 1869, he wrote to the actor Macready, “May you be as disgusted with Mrs. Stowe as I am.” He argued, “It seems to me that to knock Mrs. Beecher Stowe on the head, and confiscate everything about [the Byron affair] in a great international bonfire to be simultaneously lighted over the whole civilized earth, would be the only pleasant way of putting an end to the business.”

Yet Stowe’s brief foray into celebrity scandal would hardly remain a memorable part of her career. As she got older, she increasingly turned to more domestic subjects. None of her subsequent works would come close to reaching the popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Regardless of the book’s literary merits (or lack thereof), Uncle Tom’s Cabin has proven an incredibly powerful piece of literature. That’s evident in President Abraham Lincoln’s apocryphal greeting to Stowe, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started the Great War!” Whether that’s true or not, the fact that it could be true aptly demonstrates the incredible impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Related Posts:
Charles Dickens the Copyright Confederate
How the “Dickens Controversy” Changed American Publishing
The California Gold Rush, Slavery, and the Civil War
Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.

Lydia Francis Child, Tenacious Abolitionist Author

Leave a reply

Lydia Maria Francis Child established herself as a respected novelist before her rational approach to abolitionism cost her career. An influential thinker, Child managed to rebuild her reputation and became one of the most respected abolitionists of the time.

Child was born on February 11, 1802 in Medford, Massachusetts. Her father, David Convers Francis, was a successful businessman and sent her older brother, Convers, to Harvard. The same educational opportunity was not available to Child, but Convers supervised her education. When Child’s mother died in 1814, she was sent to live with her sister Mary Francis Preston in Norridgewock, Maine Territory. Child would stay there until 1820 and study at the local academy, which Convers supplemented with the works of Milton, Homer, and other classics.

In 1821, Child moved back to Massachusetts to live with Convers, who was by now a minister at the Unitarian church in Watertown. Just outside of Boston, Watertown was a veritable hotbed for progressive thought, and it was there that Child met such illustrious figures as John Greenleaf Whittier, Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Child also befriended Margaret Fuller.

By this time, Child had opened up her own girls’ school, but she still found time to write her first novel. Hobonok, a Tale of the Times (1824) was published when Child was only 22 years old. It recounted the story of Mary Conant, who is forbidden to marry her Episcopalian lover. Instead, she marries Hobonok, a member of the Pequod tribe and bears his child. While the literary community found the book scandalous, the novel became quite popular. Encouraged, Child published The Rebels; or, Boston Before the Revolution (1825), a novel about the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party. This book was popular among critics and readers alike.

In 1826, Child started Juvenile Miscellany, the first periodical in the United States that was solely devoted to children. She filled the journal with her own poems and stories, along with plenty of educational material. The venture proved more profitable than Child had anticipated, and it provided her a nice living for the next eight years.

Child met David Lee Child in 1828. He was a Harvard educated lawyer who practiced in Boston and had served in the state legislature. He also edited the Massachusetts Whig Journal. The couple soon married, and David introduced his wife to a new side of issues like Indian rights and abolition, including the radical ideas of William Lloyd Garrison.

Despite David’s education and credentials, he proved a poor breadwinner. Child supported them both with her writing. In 1829, she published The Frugal Housewife. The manual included tips on saving money, preparing home remedies, and educating girls. The book proved a success, and Child followed up with The Mother’s Book and The Little Girl’s Own Book in 1831. These volumes earned Child international renown.

In 1833, Child made a decidedly bold move. She published An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans. The abolitionist book represented a significant departure from abolitionist literature of the era: rather than making religious or scriptural arguments, Child appeals to reason and makes a political case for abolition. Child also went a step further than most abolitionists, presenting a case not just for eliminating slavery, but also for ending discrimination against freed African Americans. Child advocated immediate emancipation–without compensating slave owners for their “lost property” and spoke out against the colonization of Africa. The book is considered a tour-de-force in abolitionist literature, and it influenced leaders like Wendell Phillips, William Ellery Channing, and Charles Sumner.

Child faced immediate repercussions for her Appeal. The Boston Athenaeum revoked her free reading privileges. Book sales plummeted. People rushed to cancel their subscriptions to Juvenile Miscellany, and Child was forced to shut it down. Meanwhile her husband had opted to raise sugar beets instead of slave-produced sugar cane, which was a complete failure. Their savings slowly dwindled.

In 1841, Child accepted editorship of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the New York newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society. But she couldn’t agree with the use of violence and other extreme measures to further the cause and left the publication in 1843. Her departure caused a significant rift in the abolition movement. Her husband stepped up as editor after her, but was equally unable to stomach the society’s agenda.

That year, Child separated her finances from her husband’s, and the couple would remain estranged for a decade. Child turned to journalism to support herself, writing prolifically for newspapers and other periodicals. With Letters from New York (1843-1845), she managed to reestablish her reputation as an author. Child also took up the cause of gender equality, but she was reluctant to officially align herself with either suffrage or abolitionist movements after her break with the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Child and her husband reconciled in 1852 and moved to Weyland, Massachusetts. Though they were no longer at the center of public affairs, they nevertheless stayed engaged. The couple sheltered runaway slaves in their home and closely followed the affair of their good friend Charles Sumner. Senator Preston Brooks had caned Sumner senseless for his “Crime Against Kansas” speech, and Sumner retaliated with a poem called “The Kansas Emigrants.”

When John Brown staged his rebellion at Harper’s Ferry in 1859, Child was compelled to action. Though she didn’t agree with Brown’s violent approach, she admired his courage. When Child learned that Brown had been injured, she immediately wrote to Virginia Governor Henry Wise to offer her nursing services at Brown’s bedside.

Brown declined the offer, but it nevertheless rankled the pro-slavery camp. Mrs. James Mason, the wife of the author of the Fugitive Slave Act, stepped in. She, too, wrote to Governor Wise, denouncing Child for offering her services to a murderer. Mason made an ill-advised appeal, noting that Southern women aided slave women during child birth. Child immediately responded, pointing out that Northern women, too, assisted in the childbirth of African Americans, but “after we have helped the mothers, we don’t sell the babies.” The Child-Wise-Mason correspondence was packaged as a pamphlet by abolitionist leaders and distributed all over the North. At one point, 30,000 copies were circulating.

Thus ironically it was the same outspoken abolitionism that had cost Child her reputation that would again make her a celebrated figure. Child continued to speak for equal treatment of African Americans. In 1861, she gladly accepted an invitation to edit former slave Harriet Jacob’s novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She followed in 1865 with The Freedman’s Book, a collection of sketches, poetry, and essays designed to be inspirational to newly freed blacks. Child’s last publication would be an anthologies of her works, Aspirations of the World: A Chain of Opals (1878).

Child passed away on October 20, 1880. A central figure in the abolitionist movement, her works are considered highly collectible by both historians and literature lovers alike.

A Quick Look at Revolutionary Quakers

Leave a reply

The early English Quaker movement emerged in the wake of King Charles I’s regicide, between the English Civil Wars and the Restoration. Multiple sects emerged between 1640 and 1660, and the word “Quaker” had yet to have a definitive meaning; in the media, the word was applied to people with quite divergent beliefs. Even among people who called themselves Quakers, views greatly varied. For instance, George Fox believed in the “Dwelling Spirit.” Meanwhile, a militant wing of the group advocated the use of violence to achieve its goals for the Second Coming and even attempted to assassinate Oliver Cromwell.

Following Venner’s Uprising in 1660, King Charles II and his government kept a close eye on the Quakers; the group had demonstrated its volatility, and some members were even suspected of murdering King Charles I. The king urged moderate Quakers to subdue its more radical members. The result: the group turned more of its attention to addressing England’s social problems, returning to its English Seeker roots. Meanwhile, the group increasingly turned to the pen, rather than the sword. Thus the history of the Quakers is one that we can trace through a rich body of literature, written by some of the sect’s most prominent (and sometimes controversial) figures.

George Whitehead

Born in Westmoreland, George Whitehead discovered the Quaker philosophy at age fourteen. He began preaching in a limited capacity only two years later. Shortly thereafter, Whitehead joined the Valiant Sixty, a group of itinerant preachers that started in northern England and gradually traveled south. He was one of the group’s youngest members: only he, James Parnell (age 16) and Edward Burrough (age 18) joined the group before they were “of age.” The seventeenth century was a time of religious intolerance in England, and the Quakers often had brushes with the law. Whitehead was thrown in jail on multiple occasions and was once publicly whipped. He spoke out against the Act of Uniformity in 1660 and was influential in the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Royal Declaration of Indulgence.

Whitehead published his journal, The Christian Progress of George Whitehead. He also wrote An Antidote Against the Venome of the Snake in the Grass, a rebuttal directed at Irish clergyman Charles Leslie the author of The Snake in the Grass, Satan Disrob’d, and A Discourse Proving the Divine Institution of Water Baptism. Most notably, Whitehead defended women’s ability to preach if they were so inspired, saying “we do not institute Women’s Preaching as [Leslie] saith, but leave them free to the Gift and Call of God.” The volume also includes an early mention of Quakers in America, including William Penn’s Pennsylvania colony. Whitehead’s views ultimately proved too liberal; by the 1800’s, his philosophy and works had passed out of favor in the Quaker community.

Elias Hicks

Born in Hempstead, New York in 1748, Elias Hicks was a carpenter who became a Quaker in his early twenties. In 1778, Hicks helped to construct the Friends Meeting House in Jericho, New York, where he’d settled with his wife. By this time, Hicks was already preaching extensively. That same years, Walt Whitman heard Hicks preach at Morrison’s Hotel in Brooklyn. The famed poet, then still quite young, would later recall the preacher’s “resonant, grave, melodious voice.”

In 1799, Hicks and his neighbor Phebe Dodge manumitted their slaves. They were the first Quakers to do so in their community, and soon after all the families of Westbury meeting had followed suit. Hicks also campaigned for a boycott of all goods produced by slaves, which mostly included cotton and products that contained sugar. In 1811, he wrote Observations on the Slavery of Africans and Their Descendants, which outlines the economic reasons for continuing slavery and points to war as a primary cause of slavery. The book gave the free produce movement a firm foundation. Although the movement wasn’t meant to be religious in nature, the majority of its proponents were indeed Quakers. The first person to open a free produce store was Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker who opened up a free produce mercantile in 1826. Lundy advocated helping freed slaves emigrate to Haiti and raising mone to buy slaves and settle them as free citizens in the territories out West. Hicks was a key figure in abolishing slavery in New York.

While Hicks’ abolitionism certainly fit with Quaker tenets, the same was not so with his theological stance. Hicks believed that following the “Inner Light” was the most important aspect of worship. He also denied Jesus’ complete divinity and the virgin birth. Furthermore, Hicks argued that the Devil was not at the root of human failings and sin, but that urges were simply part of human nature–and created by God. Thanks to the Great Awakening and other factors, the Quaker community was ripe for a schism, and Hicks’ controversial philosophy provided the reason. Hicks engaged with fellow Quaker Anne Braithewaite in a debate that produced a flurry of publications. Eventually, in 1828, after Hicks actually stood a sort of trial, the Quakers decided a separation was necessary. Those who followed Hicks were mostly rural poor and came to be called Hicksites. His critics called themselves the Orthodox Friends. Each group considered itself to be the rightful bearers of the legacy begun by Friends founder George Fox. The two groups would not be the only factions to develop among the American Quaker community.

Joseph John Gurney

Born in 1788, Joseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England. Raised in the Quaker faith, he joined the sect and became an evangelical minister in the Religious Society of Friends. Because he was a member of a non-conformist religious group, Gurney was ineligible to study at English universities, so he was educated by a private tutor at Oxford. Gurney’s sister Elizabeth Fry was a social reformer, and in 1817 the siblings partnered to protest the death penalty and to improve conditions in prisons. They had little success, but Gurney would remain committed to the cause.

Finally Home Secretary Robert Peel introduced the Gaols Act of 1823, which required that wardens be paid salaries–rather than being supported by the prisoners themselves. The Act also placed female wardens in charge of female prisoners and outlawed the use of manacles and irons. Meanwhile, Gurney and Fry visited prisons all over Great Britain. They published their findings in Prisons in Scotland and the North of England.

In 1837, Gurney began a journey to America and the West Indies, where he promoted abolitionism. He also preached at local Meeting houses in America and grew concerned about the prevalence of the “Inner Light” philosophy. Gurney felt that the American Quakers did not give sufficient weight to the Bible and the New Testament in their theology. This created a yet another splinter, between those who followed Gurney and those who followed his opponent, John Wilbur. Their respective disciples, predictably enough, were called Gurneyites and Wilburites, respectively.

The literature of the Quakers offers considerable insight into colonial history, and it is full of fascinating personalities who shaped approaches to social issues in the Western World.

Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.

Californiana: A List for April

Leave a reply

The 1848 California Gold Rush represented one of the largest migrations in the history of the Americas. Over 300,000 people flocked to the state, both from elsewhere in North America and from overseas. The population swelled; San Francisco, for example, went from a sleepy town of 200 in 1846, to a bustling port city of over 30,000 in 1852. Meanwhile California would not officially become a state until September 9, 1850, following much heated debate from Congress.

Given the state’s rich history, it’s no wonder that California invites so much fascination from book collectors. The Book Club of California, founded in 1912, published over 100 works, most with some collection to the state. Its first publication was indeed California-centric: Robert Cowan’s A Bibliography of the History of California and the Pacific West (1914, with a second edition in 1933). Robert Greenwood was integral to the publication of two other bibliographies, California Imprints, 1833-1862 and An Annotated Bibliography of California Fictions, 1664-1970, published in 1961 and 1971 respectively. Numerous others come to mind, but we’d be remiss not to mention Gary Kurutz’ The California Gold Rush: A Descriptive Bibliography, 1848-1953. Published in 1997, this is a work of truly enviable scholarship. No other state seems to have garnered so much bibliographic attention.

With this in mind, Tavistock Books presents a list of Californiana, with 100 items related to this state anchoring the “left coast.” While the list has many titles that will cite the bibliographies noted above, this isn’t the list focus. Rather, the list offers printed and visual evidence that California is indeed a state that has long fascinated not only book collectors, but the American populace in general.

Items on the list range from the eighteenth to the 21st century. While many are historical in nature, you’ll also find original art, promotional travel pieces, the first California-published miniature, California fiction, and even on of the first California cookbooks. Prices range from $15 to $3,250.

We invite you to browse the entire list! Should you have queries regarding any of the listings, or other offerings you may find on our site, please contact us.

Selected Californiana

Discovery of California and Northwest America
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo reached what is now San Diego in September, 1540. Cabrillo explored the entire outer coast of the peninsula before heading north to the Channel Islands, Monterey Bay, and Point Reyes. Published in San Francisco in 1853, Discovery of California and Northwest America was the first true work of California history to be published in California. This volume has early marbled paper wrappers (recently added) with a printed title label affixed to the front wrapper. It’s chemised and housed in a custom quarter-leather slipcase. Details>>

A Trans-Continental Newspaper
Transcontinental was “Published Daily in the Pullman Hotel Express between Boston and San Francisco.” The twelve issues of Volume I were printed over six weeks, from May 24 to July 4, 1870, while the Boston Board of Trade made the 3,000-mile trek to meet with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. They were printed on a Gordon Press in the baggage car, while the newspaper office was in the second car. The paper reported the normal business of the train, along with tidbits such as the Philadelphia Athletics’ victory over the Harvard Baseball Club. The Trans-Continental is generally regarded as the first newspaper printed on a moving train. Details>>

Business Directory of Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley
Published in Oakland in 1877, Business Directory of Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley is not listed in either Norris or Welsh. Extremely rare, this California miniature has the distinction of being the “only known California directory in this format, the first East Bay directory, and the first Berkeley directory of any kind,” according to Quebedeaux, who calls this volume the “first California volume of any kind.” Bradbury refutes this claim, pointing out that Diamond History was also published in 1877 and comprises the latter portion of this volume. OCLC records only three institutional holdings, and there is only one sale record for this item, from PBA earlier this year, of an imperfect copy missing its title page. Details>>

California Recipe Book by Ladies of California
The first edition thus and the fourth edition overall, this copy of California Recipe Book was published in San Francisco in 1879. It was first issued in 1872. The fourth edition bears a note that the “compiler has added largely to the original edition, and our patrons will find many new and choice recipes.” Indeed, the fourth edition includes sixty recipes not found in the first. OCLC records only three institutional holdings, making this a very scarce edition of a seminal California cookery book. California Recipe Book is regarded as the second cookbook written by Californians and published in the state, vying for the title with How to Keep a Husband; Or, Culinary Tactics, also published in San Francisco in 1872. Details>>

Annual Report of the Inspectors of the State Prison
Made to the legislature of California on February 15, 1855, this report offers an interesting look at the early days of San Quentin, when the prison was not quite impregnable. It includes sections entitled “Register and Descriptive List of Convicts Under Sentence” and “Transcript of Received, Escaped, and Returned Prisoners Since the Inspection of State Prison Books.” The previous year, 75 of the 250 prisoners in San Quentin had escaped without recapture. The statistic alarmed Governor John Bigler, to write in a letter to the prison staff, “These escapes, permit me to remark, give great force to allegations, daily and publicly made, that the prison building is insecure, and that its management is not such as to fully accomplish the object of its erection, in prevention and punishment of crime.” This work is rare, not being listed in Cowan, Greenwood, or the Library of Congress online catalogue. OCLC and Melvyl record only one copy, and no copies have come to auction in at least 25 years. Details>>

Twelve Years in the Mines of California
Lawson B Patterson arrived in California in 1849 during the Gold Rush and was one of the few who stuck around after the rush ended. Patterson stayed to work the mines for a total of twelve years. Kurutz tells us that in addition to recounting Patterson’s own experiences, “much of this book is devoted to the discovery of gold, the gold region, its geology, advice to new miners, and the weather in 1853. Wheat goes a step further, saying that Patterson’s book contains “observations of permanent import.” This volume’s previous owners include JR Knowland of Oakland Tribune fame, and the ffep bears his PO signature. The book itself is square and tight, with bright gilt. Details>>

Banquet in Honor of the Hotel Men’s Mutual Benefit Association
This 1910 West Coast journey of HMMBA members was well documented by George Wharton James in his commissioned work, “The 1910 TRIP Of The H.M.M.B.A. To CALIFORNIA And The PACIFIC COAST.” Herein, he remarks this dinner at the Palace was “the most unique and costly dinner ever devised for the HMMBA.” The hotel’s banquet room was presented as a “Mandarin garden decorated with a wealth of Chinese articles of art [loaned by the Sing Chow Co. the menu informs us], and enlivened with … the only Chinese actress in America .. a Chinese theatre and thirty pretty Chinese children with their mothers, a full Chinese orchestra, and a bill of fare as distinctively Chinese as the rest of the function, all aided and abetted by the wealthy Chinese merchants of San Francisco.” As to this souvenir menu, James praises it as “the most elaborate affair ever devised fro the association.” No copy of this item is listed in OCLC; it’s certainly rare. Details>>

Album of Hotel Del Monte
Hotel Del Monte was part of a luxury 20,000-acre resort established by railroad magnate Charles Crocker. The first hotel was completed in 1880, with the entire resort including the hotel, polo grounds, race track, tennis courts, parkland and golf course. Immediately popular, the hotel had to deny 3,000 potential guests its first six weeks of operation. Falling on hard times after WWI, the grounds were eventually sold to Samuel Morse, who eventually led to the development of the present day Pebble Beach facility, among others. The hotel itself now serves as an administration building for the Naval Postgraduate School. This album offers a rare photo-view book depicting the original hotel structure (destroyed by fire in 1887) and diverse associated resort grounds and buildings. Details>>

Browny the Golden Beaver
A rare WPA production, Browny the Golden Beaver was published in San Diego in 1938. Belle Baranceanu, who created the cover art, was to achieve some fame as an artist; she painted murals in the La Jolla Post Office and Roosevelt Jr. High School as part of the Public Works of Art Project during the Depression. Baranceanu’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Institute, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Denver Art Musuem, among other locations. The book was illustrated with drawings by Beatrice Buckley. Details>>

Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.

The California Gold Rush, Slavery, and the Civil War

Leave a reply

California_Gold_Rush

On January 24, 1848, Swiss immigrant John Sutter’s employee James Wilson Marshall found gold at the Sutter Mill. The result was the largest migration in American history, along with bitter debate over the issue of slavery. California would eventually enter the Union as a free state, but not because its delegates thought slavery an abomination. Figures like Hinton R Helper, himself a failed prospector, only exacerbated strained relations between the North and South.

Territory of Untold Value

When the US and Mexico went to war over California in 1846, the region’s population included about 6,500 Californios of Mexican or Spanish descent; 700 mostly American foreigners; and about 150,000 native Americans (whose population had been cut in half since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors). The war

Published pseudonymously, “The Miner’s Ten Commandments” reminds miners to respect the Sabbath–a rule that had fallen out of practice in many a mining town.

was ended in favor of America on February 2, 1848, with the ratification of the Treaty of Guadelupe Hildago. Neither side was aware of Sutter’s discovery, so the incredible value of the territory was not yet completely clear.

Indeed, people as close as San Francisco were quite skeptical until entrepreneur Sam Brannen marched through the city waving around a vial of gold. By the middle of June, San Francisco was a ghost town; most men had gone south to the mines. Military governor Colonel Richard B Mason took a tour of the gold fields shortly thereafter. IN his report, he noted that two miners had found $17,000 in gold in three days at Weber Creek. A team of six miners and fifty Native Americans had mined 273 pounds of gold. Sales at Sam Brannen’s mercantile exceeded $36,000 in May, June, and early July combined. Mason sent the report to Washington, DC with a tin of gold as additional proof. It wouldn’t arrive for months.

Word arrived sooner in places that were accessible by ship from San Francisco. Immigrants immediately began arriving in droves from the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Peru, Chile, China, and Mexico. Europeans followed. When the first accounts of newfound wealth appeared in East Coast newspapers in the summer of 1848, they invited much incredulity. It wasn’t until December 5, 1848, when President James K Polk announced Mason’s report in his State of the Union address, that Easterners began to take the Gold Rush seriously. The exodus began almost immediately. Men headed West in record numbers, hoping to escape the wage labor economy and strike it rich. Women were mostly left at home to raise families, tend farms, and run businesses on their own. Countless families took out loans or spent their life savings in pursuit of their dream.

The Gold Rush Undoes Many a Prospector

By 1849, the non-native population of California had reached almost 100,000. Prospectors soon learned that mining was grueling, dangerous work. It wasn’t uncommon for them to die of disease, accident, or even malnutrition. Hiram Pierce held a funeral for one young man who died of gangrene after accidentally shooting himself in the leg. Despite these conditions, miners continued pouring into California. And how could they resist? In 1849, mined gold was valued at $10 million. The following year, that figure was $41 million. In 1852, $81 million worth of gold was mined in California. (Not everyone was convinced that this westward migration was worth the risk; in 1849 Edgar Allan Poe even undertook a bizarre hoax to dissuade people from going.)

‘Das Goldland Californien’ (1850) includes the sad tale of one German emigrant who lost his fortune in his quest to strike it rich.

Competition grew increasingly fierce, and soon Anglo-American miners were growing territorial. They often resorted to violence, forcing others of different nationalities from their land. As the surface gold disappeared, miners found themselves with no option but to work for larger mining corporations with the technology to mine gold deeper underground. A wage labor economy had again emerged, and after 1852, revenue from gold fell steadily until 1857, when it held at about $45 million per year.

The vast majority of men who went in search of gold failed to strike it rich. One such failed prospector was Hinton Rowan Helper. Born on December 27, 1829 outside Mockville, North Carolina, Helper was apprenticed to a printer. He went to the gold fields in 1850 and returned after only a matter of months. Helper said that after working the same claim for three months, he’d made less than 94 cents Though Helper didn’t find gold, the experience did give him material for Land of Gold: Reality vs Fiction (1855).

Helper’s account was hardly reality; he garbled and fabricated statistics to support his argument. Gary F Kurutz, Director of the Special Collections Branch at the California State Library and author of a descriptive bibliography on the Gold Rush, calls Land of Gold “one of the most famous, oft-quoted, and entertaining books of the Gold Rush.”

California Slavery Divides Congress

Helper also took up another hot-button national issue: slavery. He advocated the expansion of slavery to California, scolding the “meddling abolitionists” who interfered with whites’ ability to exploit blacks to work the mines. Racism ran deep in California, and one would think that Helper was not alone in his pro-slavery sentiment. Such was not the case; the issue was much more complicated. White southerners had first brought slaves to California mines in 1849, but that practice wasn’t popular. However, no laws banned slavery in the early days of the Gold Rush.

After the US won California, a bitter dispute ensued over whether the state should be a free or slave state. There were fifteen states in each category, and California would tip the scales. By September 1849,

1849_Monterey_Convention_Spanish_Edition

Details of the 1849 Monterey convention are among of the most important documents in California history. This is a Spanish translation.

California delegates were tired of waiting. They gathered in Monterey and voted to enter the Union as a free state. This wasn’t because they supported the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, many delegates were miners who hailed from the South. The majority felt that slaves actually had an unfair advantage in mining work because they were more accustomed to heavy labor. Thus, they voted against slavery for their own financial gain.

However, in Washington, DC, the North and South were deadlocked. Debate raged on for six months, and in one instance one senator even pulled a pistol on another. Finally Congress reached the Compromise of 1850: California would enter the Union under the state delegates’ terms, as a free state; New Mexico and Utah would become territories, and the legality of slavery there was undecided; the slave trade was banned in Washington, DC; and the Fugitive Slave Law was strengthened. California would ratify its own version of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1852.

A Racist Abolitionist

By this time, Hinton Helper had moved to New York. The issue of slavery remained at the forefront of US politics, and Helper didn’t help matters when he published The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It in 1857. Helper’s thesis was that slavery impeded the economic development of the South because it helped to concentrate wealth in the landed class. He wrote in defense of non-slave owning Whites, whom he saw as economically disadvantaged, and who comprised about 75% of the white population of the South. But Helper’s publication had unintended consequences; it was adopted as an abolitionist work and helped to get Abraham Lincoln elected in 1860. Some experts even place The Impending Crisis of the South alongside Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in terms of its influence as abolitionist literature.

The Impending Crisis of the South includes about 150 pages of statistics from the 1850 census, which Helper had hoped would illustrate the economic disadvantage of the slave states. These had little influence. But what did stick with readers was Helper’s branding Southern slaveholders as “robbers, thieves, ruffians, and murderers” and his exhortations that slaves should escape from their owners by violence if necessary. The summer after the book was published, New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett gave President Buchanan a copy and warned him that “There is gunpowder enough in that book to blow the Union to the devil.”

A Help for the Republican and Abolitionist Cause

Conflict over slavery again reached a fever pitch, as it had when California entered the Union. Then Republican party leaders moved to print a compendium of The Impending Conflict of the South to distribute in the 1860 presidential campaign. The “Speakership Fight” in the House of Representatives resulted, lasting from December 5, 1859 to February 1, 1860. The battle gave Helper’s book far more national attention than it really deserved, as did the resulting endorsement from the Republican party.

Lincoln won the election, even though he wasn’t necessarily the most popular candidate. For example, California citizens increasingly sympathized with the South as farming overtook gold mining. Yet Lincoln won in California because Democratic votes were divided between Northern candidate Steven Douglas and Southern candidate John Breckenridge, while Republicans were unified in their vote for Lincoln.

In January 1861, the Herald declared that Lincoln’s victory had been due to “this very work of Mr. Helper, and kindred speeches and documents.” Much later, historian James Ford Rhodes would note that the book “proved a potent Republican document, especially in the doubtful states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, where it was easier to arouse sympathy for the degraded white than for the oppressed Negro.” Helper’s screed had had unintended consequences. The author found himself suspect in the South and scorned in the North. He couldn’t find employment, faced public ridicule, and feared physical violence. Helper turned to Abraham Lincoln for a consular appointment, which Lincoln granted. In November 1861, Helper went to Buenos Aires as the consul to Argentina. While there, he married Maria Louisa Rodriguez.

When Helper returned from Argentina, he settled in Asheville, North Carolina. He would later live in New York and St. Louis. He wrote five other books, three of which were extremely racist. By 1890, Helper’s grip on reality had all but evaporated. His wife had gone blind and returned to South America with the couple’s only son. Alone, Helper grew more and more unstable. He committed suicide and was buried in a donated, unmarked grave. The Authors Society of New York paid his funeral expenses.

Hinton Rowan Helper made a mark on history that he never could have predicted. His own history shows how inextricably the events of regional and national history are so often intertwined. Helper’s work proved a malignantly divisive one, exacerbating the conflicts that pushed the nation to the brink of Civil War.

Thanks for reading! Love our blog? Subscribe via email (right sidebar) or sign up for our newsletter--you’ll never miss a post.