Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised
in Hudson, Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin Soap
Company. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community
in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Among his
many publications were the nine-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great
and the short story A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard,
died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland
on May 7, 1915.
Early life Hubbard was born in Bloomington, Illinois,
to Silas Hubbard and Juliana Frances Read on June 09, 1856. In the fall of 1855, his
parents had relocated to Bloomington from Buffalo, New York, where his father had a
medical practice. Finding it difficult to settle in Bloomington—mainly due to the
presence of several already established doctors—Silas moved his family to Hudson, Illinois the following
year. Nicknamed "Bertie" by his family, Elbert had two older siblings: Charlie, who was largely
bed-ridden after a fall when he was young, and Hannah Frances, nicknamed "Frank" like
her mother. Charlie died at the age of nine, when Elbert was three-and-a-half. Elbert also
had three younger sisters who were named Mary, Anna Miranda, and Honor.
The Hubbard children attended the local public school, a small building with two rooms that
overlooked the graveyard. Thirty years later, Elbert described his schooling days as "splendid"
and "tinged with no trace of blue.... I had no ambitions then—I was sure that some day
I could spell down the school, propound a problem in fractions that would puzzle the
teacher, and play checkers in a way that would cause my name to be known throughout the entire
township." Mary would remember her older brother's role as the school troublemaker, noting that
he "annoyed his teachers... occasionally by roaring inappropriately when his too-responsive
sense of humor was tickled." Elbert's first business venture was selling
Larkin soap products, a career which eventually brought him to Buffalo, New York. His innovations
for Larkin included premiums and "leave on trial".
Religious and political beliefs
Hubbard described himself as an anarchist and a socialist. He believed in social, economic,
domestic, political, mental and spiritual freedom. In A Message to Garcia and Thirteen
Other Things, Hubbard explained his Credo by writing "I believe John Ruskin, William
Morris, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman and Leo Tolstoy to be Prophets of God, and they should
rank in mental reach and spiritual insight with Elijah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Isaiah."
Hubbard wrote a critique of war, law and government in the booklet Jesus Was An Anarchist. Originally
published as The Better Part in A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things, Ernest
Howard Crosby described Hubbard's essay as "The best thing Elbert ever wrote."
Roycroft
His best-known work came after he founded Roycroft, an Arts and Crafts movement community
in East Aurora, New York in 1895. This grew from his private press which he had founded
in collaboration with his first wife Bertha Crawford Hubbard, the Roycroft Press, inspired
by William Morris's Kelmscott Press. Hubbard edited and published two magazines,
The Philistine and The Fra. The Philistine was bound in brown butcher paper and full
of satire and whimsy. The Roycrofters produced handsome, if sometimes eccentric, books printed
on handmade paper, and operated a fine bindery, a furniture shop, and shops producing modeled
leather and hammered copper goods. They were a leading producer of Mission Style products.
Hubbard's second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, was a graduate of the New Thought-oriented
Emerson College of Oratory in Boston and a noted suffragist. The Roycroft Shops became
a site for meetings and conventions of radicals, freethinkers, reformers, and suffragists.
Hubbard became a popular lecturer, and his homespun philosophy evolved from a loose William
Morris-inspired socialism to an ardent defense of free enterprise and American know-how.
Hubbard was much mocked in the press for "selling out".
He received much criticism by saying, "Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality
prevails, everything is supplied and competition is eliminated."
In 1908, Hubbard was the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of The Society in Dedham
for Apprehending Horse Thieves. Before he died, Hubbard planned to write a story about
Felix Flying Hawk, the only son of Chief Flying Hawk. Hubbard had learned about Flying Hawk
in 1915 from Major Israel McCreight. In 1912, the famed passenger liner the Titanic
was sunk after hitting an iceberg. Hubbard subsequently wrote of the disaster, singling
out the story of Ida Straus, who as a woman was supposed to be placed on a lifeboat in
precedence to the men, but she refused to board the boat: "Not I—I will not leave
my husband. All these years we've traveled together, and shall we part now? No, our fate
is one." Hubbard then added his own stirring commentary:
"Mr. and Mrs. Straus, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty left to your children
and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours all your long and useful career was
your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things—you knew how to live,
how to love and how to die. One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die.
One is of old age, and the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide is atrocious.
But to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus is glorious. Few have such a privilege.
Happy lovers, both. In life they were never separated and in death they are not divided."
Conviction and pardon At the beginning of the First World War, Hubbard
published a great deal of related commentary in The Philistine and became anxious to cross
the ocean, report on the War and land an interview with the Kaiser himself. However, Hubbard
had pleaded guilty on January 11, 1913, in the court of U.S. District Court Judge John
R. Hazel for violating Section 211 of the penal code. Hubbard was convicted on one count
of circulating "objectionable" matter in violation of the postal laws. Sentence was suspended
on five additional counts during good behavior, but Hazel fined Hubbard $100, and the federal
conviction resulted in a revocation of the publisher’s civil rights.
Hubbard requested a presidential pardon from William Howard Taft, but the administration
discarded the request as "premature". When his application for a passport was denied
in 1915, Hubbard went directly to the White House and pled with Woodrow Wilson's personal
secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty. At the time, the President was in the middle of a cabinet
meeting, but Tumulty interrupted and, as a result, the Secretary of State and Attorney
General Thomas Gregory were also able to hear of Hubbard’s situation and need.
The pardon was found to be appropriate, and Elbert Hubbard's clemency application process
lasted exactly one day. Seventy-five percent of those petitioning for clemency in the fiscal
year were not so fortunate; their requests were denied, adversely reported, or no action
was taken. Hubbard accepted Wilson's pardon, obtained a passport and, on May 1, 1915, left
with his wife on a trip to Europe. Death
Coincidentally, a little more than three years after the sinking of the Titanic, the Hubbards
had boarded the RMS Lusitania in New York City. On May 7, 1915, while at sea 11 miles
off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, it was torpedoed and sunk by the German u-boat U-20.
In a letter to Elbert Hubbard II dated 12 March 1916, Ernest C. Cowper, a survivor of
this event, wrote:
I cannot say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit,
but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which
was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.
Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms—the
fashion in which they always walked the deck—and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed
him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, 'Well, Jack, they have got us.
They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were.'
They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other
side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him,
'What are you going to do?' and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said,
'There does not seem to be anything to do.' The expression seemed to produce action on
the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done.
He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which
was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they
should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.
The Roycroft Shops, run by Hubbard's son, Elbert Hubbard II, operated until 1938.
Posthumous renown Owing to his prolific publications, Hubbard
was a renowned figure in his day. Contributors to a 360-page book published by Roycrofters
and titled In Memoriam: Elbert and Alice Hubbard included such luminaries as meat-packing magnate
J. Ogden Armour, business theorist and Babson College founder Roger Babson, botanist and
horticulturalist Luther Burbank, seed-company founder W. Atlee Burpee, ketchup magnate
Henry J. Heinz, National Park Service founder Franklin Knight Lane, success writer Orison
Swett Marden, inventor of the modern comic strip Richard F. Outcault, poet James Whitcomb
Riley, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elihu Root, evangelist Billy Sunday, political leader
Booker T. Washington, and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Another book which was written by
Hubbard is titled Health and Wealth. It was published in 1908 and includes many short
truisms that are in line with the Truth movement and Transcendentalists concerning using intelligence
to rid one of fear and, thus, to bring the body back to health and happiness which leads
to true wealth through service to others. After his death, Hubbard's Message to Garcia
essay was adapted into two films: the 1916 silent film A Message to Garcia and the 1936
sound film A Message to Garcia. Today, remnants of Hubbard's contributions
to the Arts and Crafts movement still remain, and are embraced by the community of East
Aurora, New York. In popular culture
Mack Bolan, the main character in Don Pendleton's Executioner series, frequently cites as inspiration
a Hubbard quote, "God will not look you over for medals, diplomas, or degrees - but for
scars." At the end of Rabbit's Feat, a 1960 Bugs Bunny
and Wile E. Coyote cartoon, Bugs quotes Hubbard by saying, "Don't take life too seriously.
You'll never get out of it alive." The phrase "The graveyards are full of indispensable
men" may have originated with Hubbard. Selected list of works
Forbes of Harvard No Enemy But Himself
Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great
The Legacy A Message to Garcia
A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things Love, Life and Work
White Hyacinths Health and Wealth
The Mintage Jesus Was An Anarchist, also published as
The Better Part Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book
See also When life gives you lemons, make lemonade
- a proverbial phrase based on a quote by E. Hubbard
Notes
References "Annual Report" of the Attorney General of
the United States. Page 347. Lane, Albert. Elbert Hubbard And His Work:
A Biography, A Sketch, And A Bibliography ISBN 0-554-84254-8.
Champney, Freeman. Art & Glory: The Story of Elbert Hubbard ISBN 0-87338-295-1.
Hamilton, Charles Franklin. As Bees in Honey Drown; Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters
ISBN 0-498-01052-X. Elbert Hubbard, William Morris's Greatest
Imitator Leuchtenburg, William E. American Places:
Encounters with History ISBN 0-19-515245-X. External links
Works by Elbert Hubbard at Project Gutenberg Works by Elbert Hubbard at Internet Archive
Elbert Hubbard at Find a Grave "Elbert Hubbard: An American Original", November
2009—PBS / WNED The Roycrofter Website
The Elbert Hubbard papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University
of Texas at Austin The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival
collection on Elbert Hubbard. Hubbard Collection is located at the Special
Collections/Digital Library in Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University.
PardonPower Discussion of Hubbard's conviction and pardon.