Martin, Edward (1856-1939) S. Martin Martin ernment in Rome, and were published after year a mutual friend induced John Ames his death, along with two others on similar Mitchell [q.v.], then projecting a humor maga- problems in Athens, under the title Modern zine, to invite him to New York to edit it. Problems in the Ancient World (1943). His With the Lampoon as his model, Martin saw historical scholarship, as evidenced in these and Life through its first six months-himself writ- other writings, is characterized by sound knowl- ing, said Mitchell, as much as was contributed edge and a keen understanding of the practical by others. Malaria compelled his withdrawal working of ancient institutions as well as by a in June 1883, when he removed to Rochester, clear and attractive style. N. Y., and studied law during convalescence. Marsh was tall and slender in physical ap- Admitted to the bar in 1884, he practised only pearance, friendly in manner generous in atti- briefly before joining the Rochester Union & tude, fond of children and young people, an Advertiser as associate editor, a post he held, interesting teacher and a good companion by restively, for seven years. In this interval he reason of his wide range of interests and his married Julia Whitney of Rochester (Sept. 2, lively mind. He remained a bachelor. In some 1886), and their three children, George Whit- respects a recluse, he found his chief diversion ney, Mary, and Lois Whitney, were born. in walking and reading detective stories. He In 1887 Martin began doing the editorial died in Dallas, Texas, of cancer of the throat page for Life, at first from Rochester. Weekly and was buried in Big Rapids. for the next forty-one years, his urbane com- [Information from Marsh's friends, Profs. P. M. ment on current political and social topics gave Batchelder and H. J. Leon of the Univ. of Texas: Me- that journal a sustained note of serious purpose. morial Resolution, Minutes of the General Faculty of the Univ. of Texas (unpublished), 1940, p. 1890, in The generally reflective mood of these pieces which there is included an editorial by H. J. Haskell from was interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1914, the Kans. City Star, July 28, 1940, and a bibliog. of when Martin sided strongly with the Entente. Marsh's books, articles, and book reviews; Who Was Who in America, vol. I (1942); Am. Hist. Rev., Oct. 1940.] Col. Edward M. House [q.v.], who counted T. ROBERT S. BROUGHTON him a friend "from whom I keep nothing," re- marked to President Wilson that Martin "had MARTIN, EDWARD SANDFORD (Jan. as much good sense as any one I knew" (In- 2, 1856-June I3, 1939), poet, essayist, was timate Papers of Colonel House, 1926-28, I, born at "Willowbrook," the family home on 120). Martin left the Rochester paper in 1892 Owasco Lake near Auburn, N. Y., the tenth of to devote full time to magazine work, for by eleven children (seven daughters, four sons) of then, in addition to his Life work, he was writ- Enos Thompson Throop Martin, an attorney ing "The Point of View" for Scribner's Maga- with a literary bent, and Cornelia (Williams) zine (essays republished as Windfalls of Ob- Martin. He was a grandnephew of Gov. Enos servation, 1893) and contributing poetry, short Thompson Throop [q.v.] of New York. Both stories, and articles on a broad range of topics parents were York Staters of old Connecticut to other periodicals. He initiated, in 1893, a stock and well-to-do by inheritance. From page of comment in Harper's Weekly, "This childhood Martin was afflicted with otosclero- Busy World," which he wrote until the paper sis, and progressive deafness haunted all his was sold in 1913. In 1896 he moved perma- remaining years. After private tutoring, he at- nently to New York City. tended Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., Light verse was his forte in youth, thanks to and entered Harvard College with the class of a faculty, well illustrated in A Little Brother of 1877. A. Lawrence Lowell, also of this class, the Rich and Other Verses (1890), for turning said later of the modest, gentle boy that he a pleasing rhyme to unexpected advantage. But was its best-loved member. With several others, a philosophical turn of mind and an acute inner Martin founded in 1876 the Harvard Lampoon, ear for colloquial English made him most at an undergraduate humor magazine. home in the informal essay. From 1920 to 1935 Poor health and hearing frustrated his at- he occupied "The Editor's Easy Chair" in tempts to find a career after graduation. He Harper's Monthly, in succession to George Wil- was successively a State Department clerk, a liam Curtis and William Dean Howells [qq.v.]. New York Sun staff member (Charles A. Dana Tolerant, optimistic, an internationalist both in [q.v.] having a liking for his verse), and a politics and in culture, and deeply convinced paper-mill employee in New Hampshire and of the existence of God and the need of Him, Maine, studying law and writing poetry be- he was wont to think of himself as a lay tweentimes. His Slye Ballades in Harvard preacher, though his mind was too subtle and China appeared in 1882, and later in the same his spirit too blithe to make this characteriza- 434 Mason Mason tion altogether meet. Of money matters Martin Evening News. But he did not stay long any- was almost disastrously neglectful; his wife's where, since he was addicted, as he phrased it, admonitions and a residuary bequest in Mitch- to "holding wassail in the wayside inns" with ell's will saved him. He was much interested, the "prodigal sons." from about the time of his wife's death in May In 1907-virtually penniless and near the 1918 until his own, in the claims of spiritualism end of his rope-Mason appealed to William -a penchant doubtless attributable in part to Allen White, editor of the Emporia (Kans.) the loneliness of deafness. He died in New Gazette, for a job in that prohibition state, York City at the age of eighty-three and was which he hoped would cure his alcoholism. buried near his summer home of thirty years White befriended the good-natured, overweight at Wilton, Conn. wanderer and took him on as a combination telegraph editor and editorial writer. He also [Secretary's Report, Class of 1877, Harvard Coll. for the years 1880, 1885, 1890, 1897, 1902, 1917, and 1927; began to publish the verses that "Uncle Walt" Life files, esp. Jan. 1893 (Jubilee No.) and June 14, wrote after he had done his day's work. These 1928; Book Buyer, May 1884; N. Y. Herald Tribune, June 14, 1939; N. Y. Times, June 14, 1939 (obituary and verses, printed in a single paragraph, appeared editorial); Who's Who in America, 1938-39; letters in to be prose, but readers soon discovered a drum- the Brander Matthews Papers, Columbia Univ. Lib.; in- beat rhythm and a regular pattern of rhyme. terviews with Martin's children. A full collection of Martin's papers is in the possession of his son in Willion, Dealing with topical news, public personages, Conn. Among Martin's other works should be mentioned historical events, literary characters, life's foi- The Luxury of Children, and Some Other Luxuries (1904), In a New Century (1908), The Diary of a Nation (1917), bles, the seasons and holidays, Mason's "prose Abroad with Jane (1918), and The Life of Joseph Hodges poems" quickly won popular acceptance far Choate (1920), authorized by Choate's widow. What's Ahead, and Meanwhile (1927) contains some of his best beyond Emporia, for they were widely copied "Easy Chair" essays.] in other newspapers. George Matthew Adams, LOUIS M. STARR one of the earliest syndicators, saw the poten- tial national appeal of Mason's little verses MASON, WALT (May 4, 1862-June 22, about "the common, everyday things" and made 1939), newspaper humorist, was born in Colum- arrangements for their distribution to the press bus, Ontario, Canada, the fifth among six sons of the United States and Canada. By 1910 of John and Lydia Sarah (Campbell) Mason. "Uncle Walt" was appearing in more than two His Welsh father, a dyer in a woolen/mill, was hundred newspapers with a combined daily cir- killed in an accident when Walt was four, and culation of five million copies. his Scottish mother died when he was fifteen. Estimating that Mason had more than ten At thirteen an older brother barely saved him million daily readers, William Allen White from drowning, an experience which left Ma- wrote in his foreword to the first collection of son partially deaf. With only a scanty edu- Mason's verse, Uncle Walt: The Poet Philoso- cation, he went to work at fifteen as a laborer, pher (1910), that "no other American verse- entirely on his own resources. When he was maker has such a daily audience." This large eighteen he emigrated to the United States readership, White said, grew out of Mason's and worked his way on farms from New ability to express "what the average man is York to the Mississippi Valley. He fed a job thinking so that the average man can under- printing press in St. Louis, Mo., briefly and stand it." Five other collections followed: Busi- there took his first /newspaper position (1880) ness Prose-Poems (1911), Rippling Rhymes on a humorous weekly, the Hornet, but soon (1913), Horse Sense (1915), Terse Verse went on to Kansas, where, so he said, he (1917), and Walt Mason, His Book (1918). achieved a reputation as "the worst farmhand Mason summed up his outlook on life in words in the state." At the age of twenty-three he that also typify his style "I think I've all a obtained employment on the Atchison (Kans.) man should need, in this my simple little creed, Globe, edited by Edgar Watson Howe [q.v.], that is pasted in my lid: 'With all your fellow for whom he worked for two years, 1885-87. men be square, be kind and just to all, nor care During the next twenty years he held a suc- a cent what others did.'" Popular favorites cession of editing jobs on several newspapers, among his thousands of verses were "The including the Beatrice (Nebr.) Express and Little Green Tents" (graves of Civil War sol- the Lincoln (Nebr.) State Journal, and became diers), "The Eyes of Lincoln," and "My Little a United States citizen. He married Ella Foss Dog Dot." George Ade called Mason "the of Wooster, Ohio, on Feb. I5, 1893, and in that /high priest of horse sense." Champ Clark and same year he became a writer of humorous edi- Elbert Hubbard [qq.v.] were among his warm torial paragraphs on the Washington (D. C.) admirers. 435 2 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 3 Help IVE Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TAST Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view Short view MARC Record 37 out of 39 Previous Record Next Record Author : Martin, Edward Sandford, 1856-1939. Title : Papers, 1865-1939 (inclusive), 1914-1939 (bulk). Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Houghton i b MS Am 1863 Holdings Availability Description : 13 boxes. Description : Arranged in six series: I. Letters to Martin. II. Letters by Martin. III. Other correspondence. IV. Compositions by Martin. V. Other compositions. VI. Miscellaneous. History notes : Martin, an essayist and poet, was a founder of Life, writing its editorial page, 1887-1933. He also wrote a column for Scribner's Magazine, Harper's Weekly, 1893-1913, and for Harper's Monthly where he occupied "The Editor's Easy Chair," 1920-1935. In later life Martin was very much interested in spiritualism. Summary : Chiefly correspondence; also essays, editorials, poems, notes, and drafts by Martin, printed copies of his articles, scrapbooks, photographs, clippings, and ephemera. The collection pertains to both his writing career and his interest in spiritualism. As well as discussions of his editorials and the social and political issues of the day with Charles William Eliot, Edward Mandell House, Theodore Roosevelt, and others, there is much correspondence with women mediums, many of whom he apparently supported financially. Most of Martin's outgoing letters are dated 1937-1939. Restrictions : Access may be restricted. Details at the repository. Provenance : Gift of his daughter, Mrs. Edward S. Blagden, 1971. Cite as : Edward Sandford Martin Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University. ...QS1CSLCXTUMRYX135G4UA5ECJTURMNAV1EM8XQT9IEA59Y953K-01454?func=8/31/2004 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 2 of 3 Finding aids : Unpublished finding aids available in repository. Accessions no.: *70M-64. For access to related E.S. Martin material, consult manuscript card catalogue in the Houghton Library or Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, published by Chadwyck-Healey, 1986. Subject : Burke, Jane Revere. Eliot, Charles William, 1834-1926. House, Edward Mandell, 1858-1938. Lowell, A. Lawrence (Abbott Lawrence), 1856-1943. Martin, Edward Sandford, 1856-1939. Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Wister, Owen, 1860-1938. Subject League of Nations. Subject : Harper's monthly magazine. Life (New York, N.Y.) Subject : Editorials. Mediums. Prohibition. Spiritualism. World War, 1914-1918. Subject : United States -- History -- 1919-1933. Form/Genre : Essays. Poems. Occupation : Journalists. Spiritualists. HOLLIS Number : 000601850 Previous Record Next Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear .QS1CSLCXTUMRYX135G4UA5ECJTURMNAV1EM8XQT9IEA59Y953K-01454?func 8/31/2004