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Oral Righteousness

As a result of Linda Ulrich-Hagner’s lecture at the RCC Conference this past weekend, we now know what the Fra meant by "Oral Righteousness" - one of the seven great reforms (along with international disarmament) Elbert outlined in his book, Hollyhocks & Goldenglow, and I featured in a recent blog. 

It is not refraining from swearing, or having a large vocabulary, or even speaking well of others. It is having good oral hygiene. What a comic surprise! But, given Hubbard's way with words and his habit of picking odd things to focus his attention on, I shouldn't have been surprised. So I would like to revise what I wrote In my earlier blog. I said “oral righteousness” is far from ever being achieved. I would alter that now and say we are doing a pretty good job with that particular “reform.”  

Now remember to floss tonight and tell your dentist about “oral righteousness” the next time you are in his chair.

Thanks for that information, Linda! 

- Sue

Art is Largely a Matter of Haircut

On the left is Hubbard as a soap salesman for Larkin Soap Co. and on the right is Hubbard in his second career as a writer/publisher/entrepreneur (artist).

- Sue

A Second Industrial Revolution?

The Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, dedicated to WNY art since 1966, is the home of a substantial collection of Roycroft objects, books and magazines which are often shown in specially curated exhibits in the gallery. 

 

An object in the current exhibit had this quote from Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard: “you cannot get joy from feeding things into a machine all day. You must let the man work with hand and brain, & out of the marriage of hand and brain beauty will be born.”

 

Recently, on Tom Ashbrook's NPR program, On Point, I heard discussion of a book, “The Second Machine Age” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, which examines how digital technology will bring great change just as steam technology did for the Industrial Revolution. The authors warn that “there is never a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.” 

 

During the program’s discussion, several individuals called in who work with their hands making artisan goods and I was reminded of the Arts & Crafts Movement’s reaction against the Industrial Revolution which we are so familiar with at the Roycroft.

 

I think that we all must be as versatile and flexible as Elbert was in his day - learning, evolving with and using technology to our best advantage while continuing to pursue the satisfaction of creativity. 

 

- Sue

Being "Bookish" on the Roycroft Campus

The Roycroft Book Club returns this spring with a discussion at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 23 at the Power House for the book “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseni. 

The club will read a variety of books from contemporary bestsellers to historical non-fiction, and even some Elbert Hubbard titles.  

Join us as we continue the Fra’s love of literature and especially his love for lively discussion on Campus. For more information and future books, go to the Roycroft Book Club.

 

- Sue 

Meeting One of the Fra's Ex-cons

      Elbert Hubbard believed in giving people a chance to find what they were good at, including ex-convicts. Hubbard employed several ex-convicts at the Roycroft and an encounter with one such a Roycrofter was recently shared with me.

      The innocent boy in this story is young Frank Hulette of Arcade, New York. His grandmother had entertained Elbert Hubbard in her home several times when he was in town to give speeches at Keystone Hall. 

      Frank was recruited to pass out papers at one of these lectures, assisting Elbert’s man at the time, Charlie Watson. Following is Frank’s recounting of the experience many years later, written for the town newspaper, the Arcade Herald, and published in the May 5, 1966 issue.

      “It was actually a job assisting Mr. Hubbard’s man, Charlie Watson, a most agreeable person and a pleasure to work with. Later, when the meeting was over, he invited me down to Cottrill’s Drug Store for ice cream sodas. Sitting on the stools in front of the soda fountain, he told me about his job with Mr. Hubbard which seemed to consist of about everything in the line of secretary, hired man and valet. He tended Mr. Hubbard’s livestock, harnessed his horses, traveled with him on lecture tours, looked after his laundry and clothes, handled his baggage, and was general all-around handyman. He admired Mr. Hubbard greatly. 

      “When we had finished with the sodas and he came to pay, he found he had forgotten his pocketbook. I was embarrassed because I didn’t have any money either, and had to ask Mr. Cottrill to trust me for the ten cents due for the two sodas. 

      “Mr. Hubbard stayed in town several days, and I saw Charlie Watson every day. The more I saw of him, the better I liked him. I didn’t mind that he had forgotten about owing me for the sodas. On the last day of Mr. Hubbard’s and Charlie’s stay in Arcade, Charlie brought over from the Arcade House where he and Mr. Hubbard were staying the last of Mr. Hubbard’s copy. He waited while the compositor of the Leader set it up, and helped me get out the proofs later. When it came to parting, he wrung my hand like a long lost brother, and expressed the hope that our friendship would always continue. Then he embraced me warmly and hurried off as though he was unable to restrain his grief. 

      “All this John Welsh had observed from his high stool in front of the type case. ‘Quite a charlatan!’ he remarked sarcastically as he heard the door close behind Charlie, ‘All shallow pretension and affectation. A jailbird that should have been left in jail.’

      “ ‘Charlie Watson a jailbird?’ I said, somewhat startled.

      “ ‘Oh yes,’ said John, ‘He’s one of those convicts Mr. Hubbard is rehabilitating.’

      “ ‘But what for? What did he do?’ I was having difficulty accepting this other view of Charlie Watson.

“ ‘He married more women than the law permits, and it caught up with him. He’s a bigamist.’

      “You could have knocked me down with a feather. Charlie Watson, that pleasant little man who wore his feelings on his sleeve a bigamist! I couldn’t believe it. My latest idol had feet of clay, I went outside dejectedly and sat down on the steps in front of the Leader office. 

      “Floating across the square, borne on the breeze, came the sweet voice of Mamie McGovern singing at her work. She would be on the second floor of the Arcade House at this time making beds. 

      “I decided to go over to the Arcade House and tell her of my disappointments. She always lent a sympathetic ear to young people and their troubles. 

      “We talked about Charlie Watson. She said he was a bad, bad man. And then, with the charity she extended to all frail humanity, she smiled whimsically and altered her verdict:  ‘But he is a nice, bad man.’ And Elbert Hubbard must have thought so too - and that Charlie was worth the effort.”

      Coming across this sort of first-hand account is fantastic and I just had to share it with all our Roycroft followers out there. If you find other such stories, please share them with me and I will pass them along. 

 

- Sue

Mocking Hubbard

Hubbard was known for courting controversy in his writing and lectures, which served as a means to publicize both himself and the Roycroft. He called his Philistine “a periodical of protest” and that accurately sums up his intent.  

But we all know that courting controversy attracts critics in swarms. Some of these critics chose to mimic the Philistine. Two of these pamphlets described in the book Head, Heart and Hand written by Marie Via and Marjorie Searl are A Little Spasm at the Home of Wolfgang Mozart, 1901, by Clifford Richmond of Easthampton, Massachusetts, and The Bilioustine: A Periodical of Knock, 1901, by William S. Lord of Evanston, Illinois.  

The Bilioustine, was self described this way: was printed on brown butcher paper "whenever we need the money, by the Boy Grafters," under the direction of the Fra McGinnis, "very long in hair, and . . . the original goo-goo eye man." The stated objective of the work being produced at the "Philandery" was to "do things into gold bricks and other articles calculated  to con the community, especially that part of it which is female and literary and adores speaking eyes and conversational long hair.“ 

I have no doubt that Hubbard chuckled over these publications, since, as the quote goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Via & Searl's book, Head, Heart and Hand is available for purchase at the Roycroft Copper Shop. 

 

- Sue