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Alice Hubbard - Sneaky with Sneakers

Here is another interesting story from the book Sinners: This is East Aurora. The Story of Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft Shops by H. Kenneth Dirlam an Ernest E. Simmons (copyright 1964).

 

"Elbert Hubbard seemed to be easy-going, but just the same had a keen eye for what was going on. If you had on your desk something you didn't want him to see - perhaps a letter that should have been answered the day before - he would be sure to spot it as he walked by. Elbert Hubbard wore rather heavy-soled shoes, so one could hear him coming; but Alice Hubbard wore sneakers with rubber soles and heels, which enabled her to surprise you as you were taking a quiet smoke up in the top room of the tower..strictly forbidden in any of the Roycroft buildings."

We don't care if you visit the Roycroft Campus in sneakers or heavy-soled shoes. Just come for a visit (but don't sneak up on us) in the Copper Shop Gallery. It is open 7 days a week: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Alice Moore Hubbard, Activist for Women's Suffrage, Would She Celebrate?

          It is 87 years since, on August 25th, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women in the United States the right to vote in political elections.  Elbert Hubbard's wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, one of the suffragists was known for her lectures and writings in support of women's rights.  On this anniversary one can wonder what she would think of the world today.  A woman running for president, a woman speaker of the House of Representatives, and a woman as president of Harvard University.  And yet many believe there is still a long way to go.

         While explaining the prominently displayed photograph of the Silo at the Roycrofter's Farm in the Larkin dining room at the Roy croft Inn, it is surprising at the number of young women, and men, who need an explanation of its significance.  Elbert Hubbard had painted on that silo, in huge letters, Votes For Women.  Elbert Hubbard supported his wife, Alice, in her effort to gain rights for women, including the right to vote.   Many of the younger generation are unaware of the effort women like Alice Hubbard put forth to gain those rights....too many don't know their great-grandmothers were not allowed to vote!

Remember the day and remember to visit the Roycroft Campus....and support the restoration of the Roycroft Campus, as it was in Hubbard's day.

Dr. Angela Mills, Brock University Department of English and Literature, Lectures to Aurora Historical Society on Alice Moore Hubbard

     Dr. Angela Mills, Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University in St. Catharines, ON, presented a fascinating illustrated lecture to the East Aurora Historical Society's recent monthly meeting.  Dr. Mills has done extensive research into the life, and love, of Alice Moore Hubbard, second wife of Elbert Hubbard.  Among her many sources  were original letters written between  Elbert and Alice over the many years of their affair.    Ms Mills also visited and interviewed surviving members of the families.

          Dr. Mills' presentation titled, "Mistress and Manager: Alice Hubbard of Roycroft", previously given at Grove Park earlier in the year, is the prelude to her upcoming book devoted to Alice Moore Hubbard, her life and the times in which she lived.  Some folks could not help but compare her take on events with those of Charles Hamilton's As Bees in Honey Drown published in 1973.   Hamilton's book was based on many of the same sources available to Mills.  The story of remarkable people,  seen and interpreted through new eyes in a new century.

          For more information on Dr. Mills and her work read the current issue of THE FRA . 

         Charles Hamilton's book As Bees in Honey Drown is available through the Aurora Historical Society.

          Visit the Roycroft Campus, the Elbert Hubbard-Roycroft Museum and stroll the historic village of East Aurora where it all happened.

 

Alice Moore Hubbard Published Woman's Work in 1908

        "The inducements to war are all for men.  Woman has no part or parcel in its glory.  Woman's crown from war has been a crown of thorns;  her honors have been dishonors, agony and pain, her gain has been the broken heart that comes from losing everything, even hope.  The fife, the drum, the flaunting pageantry of war, the tramp, tramp, tramp of hurrying feet....everyone who can march is drawn."

          "And then the last honors are paid.  The rhythmic tread becomes more and more indistinct, is lost in the distance; the shrill notes of the fife come only now and then; the distant roll of the drum becomes more and more faint, and then silence--awful, agonizing silence, broken only by the choking sobs of the desolate ones."

         "Then comes news of battle and hope is smothered in fear.  There is the trembling clutch at the newspaper that has the list of the wounded and the dead.  Dim eyes try in vain to read the names.  They see the one.  They try to look again, the heart almost stops."

          "We erect monuments to those who, we say, died for their country--gave a brief hour to gain a point for somebody in a quarrel. But to those who endured to the end of the journey, picking up and fastening the broken threads of life and making of them a fabric of utility, we have as yet given little recognition."

        Taken from Alice Moore Hubbard's book Woman's Work, published in 1908.  Available Bound in Limp Leather or Boards for $2.00, Alicia for $5.00, Three-Quarters Levant $10, Modeled Leather for $20 or one copy in full Levant for $125.  Note these are 1908 prices, a bit more today.

          We're looking for supporting members of the Roycroft Campus Corporation to continue the mission of restoring the Roycroft Campus to a working community of artisans....as if Elbert Hubbard had never left.  Are you a member yet?

         

Alice Moore, Second Wife of Elbert Hubbard Introduces Her Husband

          Alice Moore Hubbard speaks glowingly of her husband Elbert Hubbard in her introduction to The Notebook of Elbert Hubbard.

          "His Work is to emancipate American men and women from being slaves to useless customs, outgrown mental habits, outgrown religion, outgrown laws, outgrown superstitions.  He would make each human being rely upon himself for health, wealth and happiness.

         Elbert Hubbard is like Emerson in seizing upon truth, embalmed and laid in pyramids of disuse.  Into these truths he has breathed the breath of life and they have become for many of us living souls.  From the thoughts of Moses, Socrates, Solomon, Pythagoras, Loyola, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, he has brought to us wisdom that applies to the art of living today."

          Alice has described Elbert in 12 such paragraphs in this introduction to his Scrapbook....all equally eloquent.  There are still 7 left to include in this blog which will appear from time to time in our category "Alice Moore Hubbard".  These descriptions need to be digested, taken a piece at a time.   

Come visit the world of Elbert Hubbard, gone but not forgotten in East Aurora, New York on the Roycroft Campus.

Elbert Hubbard's Sister Frances Larkin and Wife Alice Both Strong Women

         While rereading Daniel I. Larkin's book John D. Larkin: A Business Pioneer, about his grandfather and the Larkin Company, an anecdote caught my eye as a sign of their times.  Many women of today, at least in the United States, cannot appreciate how far women have come in gaining their rights.  Alice Hubbard and other women of her day were deeply involved in the suffrage movement and by their example paved the way.

         In 1876 Elbert Hubbard's older sister, Mrs. John D. Larkin, Frances (known as Frank) Hubbard Larkin,  was actively involved in locating a larger house in Buffalo for their growing family.

          "On April 18, (1876), the deed and bond in the name of Frances H. Larkin were signed.  An interesting sidelight on the relation between the sexes at the time appears on the Bond in the form of a deposition by a Notary Public to the effect that the said Francis (sic) H. Larkin on a private examination by me apart from her husband acknowledged that she had executed the same freely and without fear of her husband."

          For more about the famous Larkin Company and the Hubbard family's relationship suggested reading is the book from which that quote is taken.  John D. Larkin: A Business Pioneer by Daniel Irving Larkin. 

          The book is available at the Roycroft Copper Shop, now open daily from 10 am to 5 pm on the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, NY 

          A footnote to that Frances Larkin purchase, the Oakwood Avenue house in East Aurora in which Frances and Elbert's parents moved on their retirement, was also in her name.

         

Elbert Hubbard's Fra Magazine Advertised Alice Moore Hubbard's 1909 Book Life Lessons

          "The Dominant Sixth in this Book is the Freedom of Women--and Men.  Mrs. Hubbard has chosen the seven great persons who, perhaps have done most to free the race from the fallacy that a man's mother is an incident in his life and his father a fact.  Even yet the Daughters of the Revolution, following Bible precedent, trace pedigrees through the male.  Yet from a chattel to a perpetual minor is a big step to the front.  But women will never be free until they are economically free. The only economic slaves today are females of the genus homo who look to the bounty of the male for food and clothes, especially clothes.  Mrs. Hubbard believes that inasmuch as women are the mothers of men-a proposition which few people will dispute--we must, in order to evolve a noble race of men, first have a noble race of women. All and each of the Immortal Seven told of by Mrs. Hubbard in LIFE LESSONS believed that a man's education should begin with his grandmother.  So this then is the argument, presented by many quotations cited, and incidents related from the lives of Susan B. Anthony, David Swing, Mary Wollstonecraft, Friedrich Froebel, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Thoreau, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  A Book for Lovers, married or to be, and all of those who realize that ideas are born of parents, and who believe in the Blessed Trinity of Man, Woman and Child.  Printed in three colors, in double columns on imported English Boxmoor, with eight protraits in photogravure.  In many ways it is the best piece of bibliopoesy, for the price, ever turned out by the The Roycrofters, their Shop.  Bound simply, in plain boards, sides of hand-made charcoal paper.  PRICE PER VOLUME, THREE DOLLARS.

          Quote from an advertisement promoting Alice Moore Hubbard's 1909 book, Life Lessons which appeared in The Fra magazine.

          Incidentally, if you find a copy of her book, Life Lessons, for $3.00, you might want to pick it up.

Drew Gilpin Faust First Woman President of Harvard Would Have Delighted Alice Moore Hubbard

          An historic first, Harvard University selects a woman president!  Drew Gilpin Faust will become their president later this year. Alice Moore Hubbard, suffragist and second wife of Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycrofters, would most certainly have been delighted with this announcement.  The new president, a scholar of Southern History and expert on the Civil War, reminds me of the effect that war had on Elbert Hubbard's youth.

          In 1892 Elbert wrote to his mother that he had made an important move in his life, having "sloughed my commercial skin.  That is to say, I have sold out my entire financial interest in the Soap Business."'

          "The next question is :What do I propose to do? I am going to Harvard College, and it is my intention to take a full four years' course.  I also hope to spend a year in some university in Germany as well".

          As we know he did not take the full four years' course, nor did he ever have much good to say about higher education after his brief Harvard experience.  One can only speculate if the news of Harvard's new president would have made any difference in Elbert's opinion of Harvard. He certainly would have been impressed that she would, among other challenges, oversee Harvard's overall budget of $3 billion and a $29 billion endowment.

Playing Imaginiff, Buffalo Games Imaginative Game Might Include Alice Moore Hubbard

          *Imaginiff * Alice Moore Hubbard, who worked so hard to get women the right to vote, had been alive this past week.  First, New York State's Senator, Hillary Clinton, formerly first lady, announced on the Internet, her intention to run for president......  Not only that, her website was getting 100 hits per minute, with an invitation to join her blog.  A few days later, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, sat above the President of the United States as he gave his annual State of the Union Message before the U.S. Congress....you might even say she looked down on him.

          What do you suppose Alice would have thought?

*Imaginiff*, produced by Buffalo Games, is a great game, it is available online from Buffalo Games or through Amazon.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Fulfills the Dreams of Alice Moore Hubbard

          Recently sworn in Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi raised the gavel to declare the marble ceiling had been broken and, for women, the sky is now the limit.  Alice Hubbard could only dream of such a day.  A time that might not have come this soon except for women like Alice Moore Hubbard and many more who spoke out for the rights of women.