FOOD HISTORY

     Recently I rounded-up some resources related to SOUND for anyone who wants to listen to the Internet. Here I have gathered together major sources for those interested in cooking or eating and for those who wish to know more about the history of food. I will assure you that the links provided below are worthy of a better introduction than the one provided here. In short, if you are looking for an old recipe, or are curious about whoever thought of the Turducken, you can begin your search here. I admit that, apart from offering this as a public service, this is all somewhat self-serving. If my wife, who is a very good cook, discovers this post I will surely benefit.

   We might as well begin with menus. Some specifically Canadian resources are offered near the bottom.

Menus

Culinary Institute of America 

“About this collection:
This selection of menus from The Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection features historical menus that are relevant to the Hudson Valley region, including menus from CIA restaurants, from restaurants and hotels in New York State and New York City, and from the Smiley Family Menu Collection. View all digitized menus from the CIA Menu Collection .”

Menus- The Art of Dining. The University of Nevada -Las Vegas
“Menus provide a wealth of information beyond their purely aesthetic value and are a particularly rich resource for aspects of cultural and social history. They give us information on the most popular cuisine of a time period and region and are evidence of changing culinary tastes.”
This site is very visually appealing. You can also find 17 Canadian menus.

What’s On the Menu? -New York Public Library
“We’re transcribing our historical restaurant menus, dish by dish, so that they can be searched by what people were eating back in the day.”


Database of Menus - Los Angeles Public Library
A database of menus from Los Angeles, other cities, steamships, airlines and banquets. Images of the actual menus are being added. The address and telephone number of the restaurant is given, plus the menu date, cuisine type, meal, and price range.

Omnibus Sites

Food Timeline 
Although no longer updated, this timeline is well-designed and comprehensive. Click on 1830 and find out how to make Worcestershire Sauce, or 1894 to learn about Eggs Benedict.
“The Food Timeline was created and maintained solely by Lynne Olver (1958-2015), a reference librarian with a passion for food history. About it she originally said " Information is checked against standard reference tools for accuracy. All sources are cited for research purposes. As with most historical topics, there are some conflicting stories in the field of food history. “

The Old Foodie

"A Food History Story and Recipe Every Weekday of the Year"

What’s Cooking America?
https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HistoryIndex.htm
A site by Linda Stradley that is wide-ranging and covers the history of beverages as well as food - everything from “Chitlins’ to Crepes Suzette.

HISTORICAL COOKBOOKS

Keep in mind that you are being served only an appetizer. For more resources search library catalogues using such subject headings as Food-History, Cooking-History, Gastronomy and various subheadings. At the university close-by (Western) you can find this bibliography: English Cookery Books to the Year 1850, by A.W. Oxford and even a work done by a former faculty member: The Culinary Recipes of Medieval England : An Epitome of Recipes from Extant Medieval English Culinary Manuscripts, by Constance Hieatt. As well, links to old, out-of-print cookbooks are often provided and one can even print a copy. See, for example, by Hannah Glasse,  The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy:To Which are Added, One Hundred and Fifty New Receipts, a Copious Index, and a Modern Bill of Fare, for each Month, in the Manner the Dishes are Placed Upon the Table. (c.1783).
There are also related periodicals. For example, see Food & History which contains useful articles such as this one: “Printed Cookbooks: Food History, Book History, and Literature,” by Henry Notaker, Vol. 10, No.2, 2012.


If you are interested in the food history of the United Kingdom, you will find plenty of options. See, for example, these two: History of Food and Drink in the Institute of Historical Research Library and the Guildhall Library “Wine and Food” collection. ]

Cookbook History
     For an understanding of how some culinary collections are created see this very interesting article about an octogenarian librarian who has spent most of her life preparing a database of cookbooks: “The Archive of Eating....”, Bee Wilson, New York Times, Oct, 29, 2015.


19th and 20th Century Cookbooks from LeMoyne
     This excellent website if from the Noreen Reale Falcone Library at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. Provided are links to hundreds of historical cookbooks from a variety of places with directions for preparing all kinds of food.

Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project - Michigan State
“The Feeding America project has created an online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The digital archive includes page images of 76 cookbooks from the MSU Library's collection as well as searchable full-text transcriptions. This site also features a glossary of cookery terms and multidimensional images of antique cooking implements from the collections of the MSU Museum.”

Home Economics - Cornell University Library
“HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available.
   This part relates to Food & Nutrition.
   This section covers Food, Wine & Culinary History.

Manuscripts & Menus - University of Iowa
Guide to the Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts


“Summary: Among the more than 20,000 items in Chef Szathmary's culinary arts collection are just over 100 German, Czech, Irish, English and American manuscript recipe books. There is also a group of manuscripts related to food from the Chicago writer Nelson Algren.”
See also the Szathmary Recipe Pamphlet Digital Collection.
“The University’s collection includes more than 4,000 promotional recipe pamphlets, published mainly by food and appliance manufacturers and trade associations (the majority are listed in this index).  Dating from the late 19th century to the present, this advertising ephemera reflects the evolution of the modern American diet.”

Virginia Tech
Food & Drink History Resources @Virginia Tech (and Beyond): Digital Collections & Exhibits
As the title suggests, this guide links you to some of the websites presented here as well as many others.

Major Library Collections

Books About Food History - Library of Congress
“This guide, a revision of Library of Congress Science Tracer Bullet 04-1, focuses on works on food history. The intent is to assist researchers in identifying resources and trends in food history studies, through a broad sampling of writings and bibliographies. Rather than being a comprehensive listing, the titles listed here are intended to give an idea of the breadth of information available, with the focus being on works published in English, during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and mainly in the United States, though other time periods and areas have occasionally been included. Not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography, this guide is designed--as the name of the series implies--to put the reader “on target.”

New York Public Library
Culinary History - New York Public Library
“The field of food and cookery has always held a strong interest for The New York Public Library. The retrospective collection on gastronomy and the history of foods is unusually extensive, and the cookbook collection alone numbers well over 16,000 volumes. From the beginning, the Library has sought out culinary materials from all regions of the country, and from all parts of the world, in all the languages in which it collects. Some highlights of the collections are described in an article in Biblion, The New York Public Library's journal, in the issue of Fall 1993 (vol. 2, no. 1).”

Canadian Culinary Sites

Culinary Historians of Canada
 Apart from the section “Canadian Cookbooks Online” be sure to look at “Further Resources” where the major Canadian sources relating to food are listed. For example, one finds a list of historic kitchens found in Canadian museums.

British Columbia Food History Network
“Our intent is to share research into the history of food in British Columbia. Our inquiries are wide-ranging and include such topics as early food production, food products, and food practices as well as the social, economic, political and cultural significance of foods produced and consumed in British Columbia.”
Apart from cookbooks it contains essays relating to food history and book reviews.

Canadian Library-Related Collections: Guelph University
Guelph hosts a major culinary collection.Unfortunately you will have visit Guelph to access the material. “Throughout its history, the University of Guelph has been at the forefront of foodways education and research. Guelph's Culinary Collections feature an impressive variety of books as well as manuscript and archival resources. With more than 17,000 published volumes, some of which date back to the 17th century, it ranks as one of the largest collections of cookbooks in North America. Two collections are especially large and contain a variety of important historical works: the Una Abrahamson Collection and the Canadian Cookbook Collection. They contain publications from many countries and highlight the development of cookery not only in Canada, but also in other parts of the world|

Canadian Cookbooks

     

Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949, Elizabeth Driver

Culinary Landmarks is a definitive history and bibliography of Canadian cookbooks from the beginning, when La cuisinière bourgeoise was published in Quebec City in 1825, to the mid-twentieth century. Over the course of more than ten years Elizabeth Driver researched every cookbook published within the borders of present-day Canada, whether a locally authored text or a Canadian edition of a foreign work. Every type of recipe collection is included, from trade publishers' bestsellers and advertising cookbooks, to home economics textbooks and fund-raisers from church women's groups.The entries for over 2,200 individual titles are arranged chronologically by their province or territory of publication, revealing cooking and dining customs in each part of the country over 125 years.

Recently McGill-Queen's University Press re-issued a new edition of a Canadian classic for the modern cook:


“What did you eat for dinner today? Did you make your own cheese? Butcher your own pig? Collect your own eggs? Drink your own home-brewed beer? Shanty bread leavened with hops-yeast, venison and wild rice stew, gingerbread cake with maple sauce, and dandelion coffee - this was an ordinary backwoods meal in Victorian-era Canada. Originally published in 1855, Catharine Parr Traill’s classic The Female Emigrant’s Guide, with its admirable recipes, candid advice, and astute observations about local food sourcing, offers an intimate glimpse into the daily domestic and seasonal routines of settler life.
This toolkit for historical cookery, redesigned and annotated in an edition for use in contemporary kitchens, provides readers with the resources to actively use and experiment with recipes from the original Guide. Containing modernized recipes, a measurement conversion chart, and an extensive glossary, this volume also includes discussions of cooking conventions, terms, techniques, and ingredients that contextualize the social attitudes, expectations, and challenges of Traill’s world and the emigrant experience.”

   See also this new book from the University of Manitoba Press:
Snacks: A Canadian Food History, by Janis Thiessen.

A Few Special Topics

BBQ
An Updated and Tasty Reference Guide from the Library of Congress: “American Barbecue: History and Geography”

Local Cook Books - Lackawanna Valley
Funded by a grant from the Willary Foundation, this is a collection of historic cookbooks produced by churches and communities organization often containing rare and ethnic recipes.

Local Cook Books - Indiana
Service Through Sponge Cake
“The digital collection of cookbooks is a collaborative effort between the University Library and the Indianapolis Public Library and will focus on Indiana cookbooks dating from the turn-of-the-century, with a special emphasis on fundraising cookbooks published by churches, synagogues and other community organizations. The University Library has created the community cookbook collection using unique materials from the Indianapolis Public Library's collection of historic Indiana cookbooks. The online collection includes digital images of each cookbook in its entirety, plus in-depth descriptions of each item. The collection is fully text searchable and broadly available on the Web.”

Presidential Food
This guide includes: Books on Presidential Food, Individual Presidents, Related Titles, For Younger Readers, Representative Articles and additional Selected Online Resources.

The History of Food and Dining at Harvard
Apart from menus, there is even a section on Food Fights.

Literary Feasts

From The American Scholar - "The 11 Best Literary Feasts: Our Favorite Fictional Culinary Scenes," June 17, 2017.

JASPER CROPSEY

Pictures From an Institution
     Winter remains and I am still inside doing some reading and very little posting. I will attempt here to parlay a current event into a post.
   
     Of late, Chagall has been much in the Canadian news and that got me thinking about Cropsey. Unfortunately that is the way I think. The connection, except for the fact that the two gentlemen are artists, is not apparent, but in this quick (I hope) exercise, I will try to make one.

     I am not sure how scholars of art would characterize Chagall, but I will just call him ‘Modern”, whereas Cropsey is known as a member of the Hudson River School. Rivers and woods and romanticized landscapes are often the subjects of those in this School and, being unsophisticated about such matters, I like them much more than the abstract offerings  and the modern art found in most galleries. The works of the Chagall and Cropsey are quite different, but the admirers of each are willing to pay large sums to obtain one of their paintings. The connection I made between the two relates to the problems that can arise when one attempts to sell one of their paintings.

The Chagall Conundrum

     Since you probably know about this current episode and since this post is mainly about an older one involving Cropsey, I will provide the basics here and some sources below.
     The National Gallery came up with the idea of selling a Chagall in order to raise enough funds to purchase a David. The Chagall painting,  La Tour Eiffel, is pictured below here:


     The painting by Jacques-Louis David is owned by the Notre‑Dame‑de‑Québec Parish Corporation, a Catholic group, and they needed to sell the painting to upgrade the plumbing in some of their churches. Both paintings are worth millions. The David is here and, ironically enough, it appears to depict the dismay and alarm experienced by those involved:

Saint Jerome, also known as Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment, by French artist Jacques‑Louis David, can currently be seen in Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts. (Elysha Enos/CBC)

      Apart from aesthetics - politics, religion, identity politics, and federal/provincial affairs are involved, hence the conundrum. (Since the Supreme Court has just ruled that beer could not be carried between provinces, one expected that the transfer of valuable art work might be problematic). The Quebec Culture Minister has declared Saint Jerome a ‘heritage’ work and it will not be leaving the province, so the problem has been solved.

The Cropsey Controversy

     I have vague (very vague) memories of this incident which occurred almost forty years ago at the University of Western Ontario. It is, by the way, a fine university, but like the other Canadian ones back in those days, it relied upon government funding of which there was never enough. Simply put, when the University had the opportunity to sell Cropsey’s Backwoods of America, it took it. Those who valued the painting as a work of art, lost to those who thought it was more valuable as a commodity. More details are provided in this account by Poole:

“While there was always a certain tension between the McIntosh Gallery administration and the department of visual arts, this developed, in the winter of 1980, into open warfare over the proposed sale of a painting, Backwoods of America by Jasper Cropsey, a nineteenth century American artist. W. H. Abbott, the art collector who had been a representative of the Western Art League to the Western Fair Association for many years early in the century, had given the Cropsey painting to the university in 1931. The fuss began when it was suggested that since the university was not building a collection of nineteenth century American paintings, perhaps the work should be sold. About this time, however, a professor in the visual arts department was writing an important paper on the Cropsey painting in question. He and his colleagues were adamant in their opposition to any thought of selling the work. Their position was that until the paper was published, it was vital that the work remain on campus. The university administration was faced with a rapidly escalating art market and was advised by the auction house of Sotheby Parke Bernet in New York that the painting was a valuable work, and that now was the time to sell it. Opposition to the sale was so strong throughout the university community, however, that the administration delayed any action. The following year, when the art market moved even higher, the Board of Governors decided that Backwoods of America must be sold. In the spring of 1981, the painting went up for auction in New York*, and, as a result, the university received $665,000 - probably the largest amount of money ever paid for a work of art from a London collection. While the faculty of visual arts still believed the sale to be ill-advised, the McIntosh Gallery now received the annual interest from the capital realized by the sale, and because those funds came ultimately from a gift to the university, the government agencies for the arts were willing to give the McIntosh matching grants each year. The sale thus guaranteed comfortable budgets for all future acquisition committees.”
The Art of London, 1830-1980, Nancy Geddes Poole, 1984. Pp.178-179.

     The professor to whom she refers is the author of a thorough analysis of the painting which is found in this article where more details about Cropsey in relation to the campus are also provided.
“Here Today and Gone Tomorrow: Jasper F. Cropsey's 'The Backwoods of America',”Bernard  Bonario, RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, Vol. 9, No. 1/2 (1982), pp. 9-20
“The University of Western Ontario acquired The Backwoods of America in January, 1933. It was the gift of a local philanthropist, W.H. Abbott, among whose interests was the organization of art exhibits at the city’s annual Western Fair.” [p.9]
“Almost ironically, The Backwoods of America is the most significant painting to have passed through Abbott's modest art collection, remaining on public display for several decades and hanging in the University's Lawson Library until about 1970, when it was transferred to its location in the collections of the University's newly reorganized Mcintosh Art Gallery. [p.10]
4. University of Western Ontario, McIntosh Art Gallery, inv. 221
“I studied the painting in storage under unfavourable conditions. Since the completion of my manuscript in March 1979, the University has deaccessioned The Backwoods of America. Sold Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, sale 4583M (23 April 1981), lot 18. [footnote 4, p.10]
   
     This episode proves, if nothing else, that Sayre’s Law does not alway apply since the stakes were pretty high. ("Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.")

Backwoods of America

Provenance:
(W. B. Huggins & Co., Glasgow, Scotland), by 1859; purchased by Private Collection, Glasgow, Scotland, March 10, 1859; (Williams & Sutch, London, England), 1932; to (Leslie W. Lewis, London, England), 1932; purchased by William H. Abbot, London, Ontario, Canada, 1932; given to University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, January 1933; to (Sotheby's, New York, NY), April 23, 1981, lot 18; purchased by Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation, Taylor, MI, 1981; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2006

 Label Text:When Cropsey painted The Backwoods of America, land across the country was being developed at an unprecedented pace. This idealized pioneer landscape depicts a remote homestead nestled along the shore of a wilderness lake. As the sun breaks over the mountains, a pioneer family begins its day. A woman stands in the doorway of a log cabin, her young children playing nearby, while her husband heads into the woods, shouldering a long-handled broadax and accompanied by a dog. A garden that includes the distinctly American pumpkin grows in roughly cleared patches along the forest's edge. As if forecasting the imminent end of frontier life, the artist signed his name on a rock resembling a tipped-over gravestone that soon will be covered by the cultivated pumpkin vines.

Sources:

      For the current Chagall issue see:
“Quebec Will Grant French Painting Heritage Status, Bringing Saga to an End:
Sale of 'Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment,' Painting From 1779, led to Tensions,” CBC News · Posted: Apr 24, 2018.
“National Gallery’s Sale of Marc Chagall Work Linked to Tug of War Over Jacques-Louis David Painting,” Robert Everett- Green, Globe and Mail, April 12, 2018.

     For the Cropsey issue at Western, there is little additional information that is easily available. I am sure the student newspaper and some UWO publications would have covered the controversy. Unfortunately the back issues are only available via film or fiche if you wish to fiddle with them.

Post Script:

The usual bonus information for premium subscribers.

Pictures From an Institution
    The irrelevant title of this post refers to a campus novel by Randall Jarrell, should you want to read more about academic life.

The Case at Fisk University
    A couple of years ago this institution had a similar issue:
“When Fisk University, the historically black school in Nashville, tried to sell two paintings several years ago from its storied Alfred Stieglitz art collection, a firestorm erupted. The proposed sale violated conditions of the gift of the collection from Stieglitz’s widow, Georgia O’Keeffe, according to her foundation….
But what was not revealed at the time, and has only recently come to light, is that before the agreement was completed — and with the debate over the future of Fisk itself swirling around her — Hazel O’Leary, then the university’s president, on behalf of the school quietly sold off two other paintings owned by Fisk….
Fisk’s under-the-radar sale of the Stettheimer highlights the minefield institutions must navigate when they use proceeds from art, whether to pay expenses or, in recent years, to try to finance costly expansions. At the same time, the sale reveals what can happen when an artist — even one as critically revered as Stettheimer — fails to secure her legacy.”
“A Prized Stettheimer Painting, Sold Under the Radar by a University,” Susan Mulcahy [no relation], New York Times, July 26, 2016.

Those of you who shop at Wal-Mart will be glad to know your money is well-spent since the painting from Fisk, and the Cropsey from Western both were bought by Alice Walton and can be found at Crystal Bridges. You may recall that I visited this wonderful museum in Arkansas and wrote about it in the post Amazing Accomplishments. 

Association of Academic Museums and Galleries
     This association set-up a task force to deal with the issue and you can learn more about it here where I provide the opening paragraphs:
Task Force for the Protection of University Collections
“National economic crises create tensions at all levels of society. In the United States, cultural institutions of all sizes have been particularly vulnerable in times of economic recession, particularly those institutions that are part of larger umbrella organizations such as cities, colleges, or universities.

“University collections, particularly art collections, are increasingly being viewed as disposable and coveted assets by parent organizations desperate to shore up faltering endowment funds or to fill budget gaps caused by reduced funding from states. Even those university museums that have worked hard to ensure that their parent college or university views them as an essential part of the academic enterprise may face threats when severe economic crises hit.”

No Deaccession at Dubuque
     When recently offered $6 million for a Grant Wood, the Dubuque Public Library rejected the offer. See: “Dubuque Library Refuses $6M Offer to Buy Grant Wood Painting”

Colby College Doesn’t Have to Worry About This Issue
    “ Benefactors Give Colby College Art Museum a Gift Worth $100 Million – Again
The Donation by Peter and Paula Lunder Will Launch the Lunder Institute for American Art and Elevate the College as a Global Research Center on American Art,” Amy Calder, Morning Sentinel, Feb. 2, 2017 (Portland Press Herald).
WATERVILLE — The Colby College Museum of Art has received a gift of more than $100 million from longtime supporters Peter and Paula Lunder that college officials say will help cement the region’s reputation as a world-class arts destination.
The donation, the Lunders’ second gift of more than $100 million, includes about 1,500 works of art and will launch the Lunder Institute for American Art, whose focus will be the practice, study and exhibition of American art. As part of the institute, scholars, artists and curators will work with students from all disciplines.
Colby officials say the gift, which was announced Thursday night at a meeting of Colby trustees in Boston, helps establish Colby as the only liberal arts college with a top museum and a global research center dedicated to American art.

Picture Problems at York University
     Sometimes (especially these days) a university can get in trouble for displaying rather than deaccessing a piece of art. This happened at York when Mr. Bronfman, a major benefactor, objected to the painting below.
“York University's ‘Inclusion’ Committee Stacked With Anti-Israel Faculty, Jewish group Charges: The University Promised a ‘Committee on Inclusion’ in the Wake of Prominent Donor Paul Bronfman’s Objections to a pro-Palestinian Painting on Campus,” National Post, Tristin Hopper, April 6, 2016.

Cybercrime & Cyberwarfare

Ransomware Again

   
 
      By now you are very much aware of this subject and I was reminded of it because of another recent attack. It appears that even small islands are not safe from the extortionists. (See: “P.E.I. Government Website Down for Several Hours After Ransomware Attack,” Toronto Star (CP), April 23, 2018). The growing problems associated with Internet use sent me looking for the following article which I remembered and noted. It points out that although the Internet is not as important as many earlier discoveries, we are now all more vulnerable because of it. While we may overstate the importance of the Internet, we surely underestimate the damage that will be done when it goes down.

      “If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities: the instant access to vast amounts of information, the pleasures of YouTube and iTunes, the convenience of GPS and much more.   
     But the Internet’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar. Amid the controversy over leaks from the National Security Agency, this looms as an even bigger downside.
     By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups — whether nations or not — to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life. These would be power grids, pipelines, communication and financial systems, business record-keeping and supply-chain operations, railroads and airlines, databases of all types (from hospitals to government agencies). The list runs on. So much depends on the Internet that its vulnerability to sabotage invites doomsday visions of the breakdown of order and trust...."
     All this qualifies our view of the Internet. Granted, it’s relentless. New uses spread rapidly. Already, 56 percent of U.S. adults own smartphones and 34 percent have tablets, says the Pew Internet & American Life Project. But the Internet’s social impact is shallow. Imagine life without it. Would the loss of e-mail, Facebook or Wikipedia inflict fundamental change? Now imagine life without some earlier breakthroughs: electricity, cars, antibiotics. Life would be radically different. 
     The Internet’s virtues are overstated, its vices understated. It’s a mixed blessing — and the mix may be moving against us.”

Source: Robert Samuelson, "Of Internet Threats and Cyberattacks,"Washington Post,  June 30, 2013.
P.S. (P.E.I. was able to resolve the problem -this time.)

Arthur Stringer

Arthur Stringer (1874 - 1950)  

     The house pictured above is located about a block away from ours, just beyond the bowling green. No one is bowling right now and the lawn of that house, as I write, looks much more white than green, since the spring has yet to show up. It is on Elmwood Avenue in an area of London, known as “Old South”. It used to be the residence of Arthur Stringer.

      I knew nothing about Mr. Stringer and he is not well-known. It did not take me too long to learn, however, that he was a prolific and successful author, poet, and biographer, whose work was frequently found in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies Home Journal, the Atlantic and Harper’s during the first fifty years of the last century. As well, he wrote about 50 novels, several volumes of poetry and many scripts and screenplays.

     It did take me too long to get around to writing about Stringer and now there is no need to go on about him, since others have done so. For example, see “Arthur Stringer Marries a Gibson Girl,” in the recently published, London: 150 Cultural Moments by Brown and Dickson. Some other sources are provided below.

     It is, however, still not spring outside and I have been lazy about posting, so I will provide some information about Stringer that I unearthed and which is not easily uncovered.

Obituaries

     Here are two that will be useful. The first is from The New York Times and from it you will learn that he was an interesting fellow. By the way, The Times also published many of his poems.

     “Arthur Stringer, Poet, Novelist, 76: Shakespearean Scholar Who Wrote for Stage and Films Dies at Home in Jersey,” The New York Times, unsigned. Sept 15, 1950.

“Mr. Stringer was author of more than fifty novels, most of them dealing with adventures in the Canadian wilds; twelve volumes of poetry, a large number of dramatic works and a biography of Rupert Brooke, the British poet, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1948. He also wrote the script for scores of motion-picture serials during the period of silent films.”   

Stringer went to the University of Toronto and then on to Oxford. “During this period the future poet became interested in Shakespearean scholarship and produced several volumes of criticism rejecting the thesis that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare’s works.”
“Several of Mr. Stringer’s books, especially his definitive study of King Lear, are used today as reference works by Shakespearean scholars and college students.”

“Returning to Canada, he pursued his study of Gaelic poetry, begun during his years in the British Isles. He traveled frequently in the most remote sections of the Canadian Northwest, the Hudson Bay country and throughout Ireland, England and the Continent of Europe to gather material for his poems of rustic life and adventure. Lonely O’Malley, published in 1901, was Mr. Stringer’s first volume of popular poetry. Moving here [NJ] in 1923, he took up writing serial movie scripts. The poet’s first complete volume of Gaelic verse, entitled Out of Erin, was published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1930….”

“Among the profusion of romantic novels which came from his pen during this period were; The Wolf Woman (1928), Marriage by Capture (1933), Man Lost (1934), The Wife Traders (1936), Heather of the High Hand (1937), The Lamp in the Valley (1938), The Dark Wing (1939), Intruders in Eden (1942), and The Devastator (1944).”

"Mr. Stringer’s dramatic efforts included “The Cleverest Woman in the World,” a collection of nine one-act plays published in 1939, and several comedies and melodramas produced here and in New York."

Stringer had a fruit farm near Lake Erie around Cedar Springs, but later lived in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. “Mr. Stringer founded the Mountain Lakes Theatre Guild in 1927 and was founder and first president of the town’s public library. He was a member of the Cambridge Club and the University Club in New York.”

This obituary is from The Globe and Mail:

“Arthur Stringer Dies, Wrote 60 Books, 12 Plays,” William Arthur Deacon (Literary Editor), The Globe and Mail, Sept. 15, 1950.

It begins this way: “The death of Arthur Stringer yesterday at the age of 76 at his home in Mountain Lakes, N.J. removes a genial and eminently successful writer from the Canadian literary scene.”
Stringer had been in Canada in 1946 when he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of Western Ontario.

“Stringer visited Toronto for the last time in October, 1949, when he came up to open Canadian Book Week with an address to the Rotary Club. “Don’t sell Canada short by selling your authors short,” he told his large audience; and went on to say the literature we need most cannot be imported. “It’s an inside job, a thing we must do for ourselves. The sustained ovation Stringer received was the high moment of his career.”

The Perils of Pauline

    It is mentioned in the obituary above that Stringer was responsible for this popular movie serial. That is not the case as one can see from this letter Stringer wrote to The Times:

Re: "The Perils of Pauline"

“To the Editor of the New York Times:
May I ask for the correction of a misstatement that appeared in your columns? Orville Prescott, in reviewing my life of Rupert Brooke, announced that I was the author of that movie masterpiece known as the Perils of Pauline, the obvious implication being that an author so immersed in sensationalism would be ill-equipped to understand a poetic genius or interpret him to the world. While I have neither the wish nor the right to dispute Mr. Prescott’s literary evaluations, it is still, I hope, my prerogative to protest against his publication of an untruth. I am not the author of the Perils of Pauline, Arthur Stringer, Mountain Lakes, NJ, Nov. 14, 1948 (published Dec, 2, 1948).

Stringer and the “Gibson Girl”

   Stringer’s first wife, Jobyna Howland, was an actress who was supposedly one of the models for Charles Dana Gibson, the well-known illustrator. For more on that subject see the Library of Congress - The Gibson Girl’s America: Drawings by Charles Dana Gibson and the short piece by Brown and Dickson in, London: 150 Cultural Moments, p.48.

Sources:

 For more details on the Springer house see this London Public Library document.
A short note and a picture are found in The Wortley Villager, July/August, 2017,p.3.
Stringer was born in Chatham and there is a good piece by Karen Robinet in Chatham This Week, April 11, 2012, “Stringer Left His Literary and Cinematic Mark”, from which this picture is taken:
See this good profile by Brian Busby who publishes a very nice blog - The Dusty Bookcase. See: Arthur Stringer from Chatham to London

Additional information is not difficult to find.
The London Public Libraries have many of his books and more are found up at Western, where additional material about Stringer is located in the Archives and Research Collections Centre (ARCC).

Post Script

There is indeed a bowling green quietly tucked away between Elmwood and Bruce streets and it was here long before the gentrifiers. Below is a picture of some action from warmer and sunnier times. Here is the site of the Elmwood Lawn Bowling Club. Call them soon for lessons.




There is a school in London named after Mr. Stringer. The students who attend are 'Stingers'.