FORGOTTEN BESTSELLER: SITUATING JAMES BALL NAYLOR’S

RALPH MARLOWE IN TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY

AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY

By

SARA K. BEARDSLEY

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Studies Division

Ohio Dominican University

Columbus, Ohio

MASTERS OF ARTS IN ENGLISH

AUGUST 2015

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iv

INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………. 1

CHAPTER 1: BIOGRAPHY OF NAYLOR’S LIFE…………………………………………… 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERARY CLIMATE …………………………………………………………15

CHAPTER 3: REGIONALISM IN RALPH MARLOW ……………………………………….25

CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………52

WORKS CITED ………………………………………………………………………………..54

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks are owed to Dr. Kelsey Squire and Mr. Jeremy Glazier for their guidance in revisions and direction for this work.

I would also like to thank my students, who created motivational signs and stood as cheerleaders to my learning. To my colleague, Kelly Miller, who has walked this path alongside me, I say, wow, thanks—this would not have happened without your creative thought and constant encouragement. Also, I would like to also thank Mr. Bob Caldwell and Wolf Creek Local Schools for having the forward thinking to allow my completion of this program for the purpose of improving opportunities to the students of our district.

Finally, I would like to thank my family. Mom and Dad, you have always modeled an environment that values God, family, and heritage. Your steadfast devotion to helping others first and sacrificing for the benefit of education created a formula that allowed my completion of this program. Thanks for fostering respect for local history, granting me complete access to your Naylor collection, mowing my lawn, feeding my children, orchestrating “Camp Grandparents” for the girls and reminding me to pay the electric bill. Ana-Sophia and Lydia, I hope your witness to this process has modeled the difficulty and joy of learning while simultaneously encouraging you to complete graduate studies in your youth.

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INTRODUCTION

Origins of Interest

My interest in James Ball Naylor first grew out of a conversation while traveling to watch tournament play for the girls’ basketball team at the high school where I teach. At the time I was enrolled in a poetry course and as we traveled along the Appalachian Highway, I was conducting a read-aloud of Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to An Artichoke,” awaiting audience response from a carful of less than eager listeners. Following the silence of the poem’s end, the first responder turned out to be my father—who rather than expressing thoughts on the Neruda work, began a recitation of a lengthy poem entitled “Raggedy Man.” Breaking the shocked silence of the vehicle following the recitation was my fourteen-year old daughter, whose resounding “What?!” proved a definitive outcry for all listeners. After recovering from the shock of such an unsolicited recitation, we were to learn that the author was turn-of-the-century poet, James

Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), whose work, unbeknownst to me, was shelved on a bookshelf in our living room. The history lesson then took us to a discussion of James Ball Naylor, a contemporary of Riley, whose works my father collected throughout my youth.

Though the topic shifted, I began to wonder about Naylor and my father’s interest in his work. My father’s interest in local historical artifacts—woodwork, beveled glass, postcards— has always been known to me, but this startling interest in reciting literature was entirely new.

Could this possibly answer a problem I had been debating in my classroom? If James Whitcomb

Riley and James Ball Naylor captivated the interest of my textbook Appalachian father, could it capture, generations later, the interest of my predominantly male, remedial Appalachian language arts students? Gathering Naylor’s works, I decided to start by reading his historical 2 trilogy; I found myself reading into the night, thinking about the fear of early settlers fleeing an

Indian massacre at Big Bottom and retreating to my backyard in Waterford. The fun of reading history that transpired in the neighborhoods of my school district and those within proximity awed and fascinated me. Sharing my reading with students, I found their curiosity duly piqued.

The more I read Naylor’s works, the more I found myself curious about his books and their fade into obscurity. What started as an interest fueled by the connection of local history in literature, rose to an interest in writing whose quaint simplicity and philosophy found easy internalization in my psyche. My interest was further fueled as I came to a greater understanding of Naylor’s work in the context of other writers of the time.

My research has allowed me to spend time traveling the roads of my youth with a fresh light. I have walked the streets of Stockport (fictionalized by Naylor as “Babylon”), spent time in discussion with local historians, and sat under the shade of a tree at Elmhurst, Naylor’s home in Malta, Ohio. I was eagerly assisted by the librarians at Kate Love Simpson Library as well as

Marietta College’s special collections (home to Naylor biographer Gloria Flaherty’s research). I listened to stories at the Morgan County Historical Society, including a sad tale about a postcard, with an original limerick in Naylor’s handwriting, which has recently gone missing. Each unearthed document, letter, and article, revealed something new about Naylor’s rich and saturated life. The most important resource for study has been Theresa Flaherty’s biography of

Naylor, The Final Test (2011), as well as her emails and phone calls assisting the direction of my work. Though no critical work has been done on Naylor’s writing, there is a rich treasure trove of material awaiting study by scholars who understand the significance of untapped regionalist works.

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Background of study

James Ball Naylor (1860-1945) was a prolific writer, gifted physician and local talent in the community of Malta, Ohio. His career crosses more than forty years of writing for a local, national, and international audience. Poetry proved to be his favorite means of expression though he wrote reviews, short stories, advertisements, political songs and speeches as well as adult and children’s novels. The recent publication of Naylor’s biography and subsequent release of annotated versions of some of his key works increases public accessibility and the potential for literary critique. It is the aim of this thesis to introduce the life and work of Naylor and to give speculation onto his popularity and subsequent decline by placing his most famous work, Ralph Marlowe, into the context of a still debated regionalist literary atmosphere. I argue that Naylor understood the atmosphere and used his awareness and experience as a rural dweller to methodically create a work with great public appeal. Naylor writes his fictionalized biographical account of his early years by using qualities established by regionalist writers, but also demonstrates his understanding of the tensions between rural and urban environments.

Following Naylor’s success with Ralph Marlowe, he returns to his favorite means of expression, historical fiction, and poetry. Refusing to kowtow to anything but his desires of literary expression, Naylor’s public literary life in fiction was short-lived. Nonetheless, the works he creates in an inexhaustible decade of writing at the turn of the century, demand literary scrutiny.

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CHAPTER 1

BIOGRAPHY OF NAYLOR’S LIFE

Personal Biographical Information

The late nineteenth-century saw the United States imbued with extraordinary changes and social possibilities. Immigration, industrialization and imperialism permeated not only the happenstance of daily living, but also the struggle to find a personal identity, community, and place within the national conscience. Twenty-first century culture looks to alleviate struggle for identity by honing in on particulars, lessening the celebration of exploration and experimentation in the realm of sciences, arts, humanities and even the art of “living” according to one’s diverse interests. James Ball Naylor, who spent the majority of eighty-five years within ten miles of his birthplace, lived a life embracing a stunning spectrum of interests, finding and maintaining deep connection with his local community as well as connection with national and international audiences. His life and literature provide a model of puritanical work ethic coupled with a deep love for beauty in nature, art, and individual character.

In 1860, the year of the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, in a quiet corner of

Penn Township, Morgan County, Ohio, James Ball Naylor was born. Naylor biographer Theresa

Marie Flaherty includes two photos of Naylor’s Newton Ridge birthplace in her work The Final

Test: A Biography of James Ball Naylor. The tiny cabin, constructed of unhewn logs, was the dwelling of his parents, Robert W. and Nancy (Wells) Naylor, migrant Pennsylvania Quakers who were “among the first [. . .] settlers of Penn Township” (6). Robert, however, was ousted from the Quaker church immediately following his 1861 enlistment in the Volunteer Infantry.

Wounded during battle, Robert died in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1863 (Flaherty 6). The young 5

Jim Naylor, less than a year old at the time of his father’s departure, would fashion his notions of his father from the memories of those left behind.

In Rambling Reminiscences (1927), Naylor recounts early childhood memories; living with his maternal grandmother while his newly widowed mother “worked out” doing domicile chores for neighbors, he recalls many moments of hardship, though he is quick to note that their family was not alone in these difficulties: “Grisly want and gaunt wretchedness stalked about every neighborhood” (3). When Jim was six, his mother married a Civil War veteran though

Naylor “revealed [. . .] little in his writings of the effect the marriage had on him as a child”

(Flaherty 8). He does, however, narrate stories regarding the roaming of his childhood and the places and persons he encounters, sharing, “I’ve ALWAYS been old; for I’ve always enjoyed looking back along the road of life—and noting, and remarking upon, my experiences”

(Rambling 7). A reflective and pensive tone permeates much of his work, particularly his poetry, which often describes natural elements of the woods and river where he spends his life.

Naylor’s first published work, a poem entitled “The Muskingum Valley” (1889) unfolds the “beauty in his own backyard” (Flaherty 29) and captures the outdoors spirit of much of his writing. As the title suggests, the poem follows the history of the place rather than people and quantifies centuries of history of the land Naylor called home. He begins his description of the lush valley “In the days when the Red Men first knew it” (4), and reflects on “Dame Nature”

(33) using personified natural images to draw the reader from days gone by to a current glimpse of the “Moose Eye (Muskingum)” (73):

Today, as the morning sun visits our land,

It smiles on a beautiful scene:

A river that flowing o’er glittering sand, 6

Is fringed by a border of green;

A broad, level bottom-land stretching away

Is burdened with good golden grain---

And acre on acre of sweet-smelling hay

Is kissed by the dew and the rain. (81-88 The Muskingum Valley: A Poem)

The simple, sing-song meter exemplifies his usual style and his fascination with the lands and river around him. Originally published as the winning writing in a local poetry contest, it would later become part of his first published book, Current Coins Picked up at a Country Railway

Station (1893), as well appearing in several printings as a photo-illustrated pamphlet.

Recounting his years of boyhood, he writes fondly of days when he “roamed the woods and scoured the fields—bent upon discovery or seeking adventure” (Rambling 8). While his mother’s new marriage wielded seven half-siblings, he admits he preferred roving by himself, or occasionally with cousins his own age (Flaherty 8). Venturing over acres and acres of woodland, he describes the countryside using surnames and nicknames easily identifiable to locals who still populate the area today (Rambling 8-10). Subject to the whims of his stepfather’s wanderlust,

Naylor notes having lived in five different cabins on Newton Ridge before eventually settling, again temporarily, into the village of Stockport in April 1870. Recalling his first moments residing in the mud encroached hamlet, he “perched atop [a] board fence enclosing the lot” where a group of boys were playing ball. Noticing the lone boy they began to chant: “Jim

Naylor’s a country jake! Jim Naylor’s a country jake!” Naylor recalls how this led to a fight that ended in an impasse. At his new home, his mother scolded him but admitted “You’ve got no bigger brother to help you; you’ll have to fight your own battles” (10-11). After a week of fighting these battles, Naylor obtained “full membership in the gang of happy-go-lucky 7 ragamuffins” and spent the summer and following winter in “full fellowship with one and all”

(12, 14).

He recounts multiple stories of his time in the village of Stockport, Ohio, which later serves as the fictional “Babylon” in his first published novel, Ralph Marlowe. Naylor’s biographer recounts a particular Stockport moment; a story found only in family diaries, surrounding his lack of a bat and baseball. While he traded a basket of walnuts for a bat, his mother fashioned him a baseball out of wool scraps and the rubber from an old shoe. Still lacking the leather covering, Jim approached the village saddler seeking to work perhaps for a piece of scrap leather. The saddler fashioned a cover and tossed him the ball, free of charge.

Naylor recalls how many years later he sought the man out at a county fair to thank him for his kindness (Flaherty 12-14). The story, kept alive by his daughter’s writings, demonstrates the symbiotic relationship Naylor recognizes and values in rural communities. From a young age, he expressed sensitivity to the socioeconomics and relationships of those around him, which manifested itself in his thoughts and recollections about those with whom he crossed paths.

Naylor’s first experience as a young city resident kindled his sensitivity to the social and economic differences between “country” and “city” dwellers.

Naylor speaks of his rural education as comparable to other “truly rural schools” of the period. Aside from a brief stint at Stockport, Naylor “attended the Newton Ridge school, in

Windsor Township, from the time I was five years old until I was seventeen years old”

(Rambling 19). A small, crowded, ungraded one room school house, scholars determined their own course of study. Citing eleven different teachers, he explains it was a “catch-as-catch-can” system of learning, and most of his teachers had only an eighth grade education. His writing takes a serious note, however, as Naylor recalls the teacher whose influence altered the course of 8 his life during a four month term when he was sixteen. Mr. Rusk arrived, “a rigid disciplinarian, a stern taskmaster . . . [but] at bottom . . . was a kindly, just and humanly-helpful nature” (22-23).

Naylor recounts that “one noon-hour—after he had been teaching about a week—he asked me to take a walk with him. I went--with rather mixed feelings [. . .] wonder[ing] what particular piece of mischief of mine he had discovered and what my fate was to be.” Rusk surprised Naylor by bluntly asking “what are you going to be when you get to be a man?” Continuing to quiz Naylor,

Rusk delivered a talk that Naylor cites as “chang[ing] my whole outlook upon life.” He recalls

“I was a sixteen year-old backwoods youth, without aim or ambition—my one redeeming virtue being my love for books, good, bad, and indifferent” (“Straight Sticks”). The two became lifelong friends, and he suggests Rusk was “one of the very best and most progressive educators

Southeastern Ohio ever knew” (Rambling 23). From that moment, Naylor dedicated himself to self-learning and frequently writes about the significance of the self-motivated scholar. Naylor’s public education culminated with one year in an ungraded high-school at Stockport. He then borrowed money from John McDermott, a businessman in Stockport and attended Marietta

Academy for five months in 1879.1 Financially unable to continue at Marietta, Naylor secured a job teaching at the Wetherell School near Malta.

Naylor’s biographer notes that “little is known about the years he taught” (20). During this time, however, hired as a store clerk by Dr. Wesley Emmet Gatewood, Naylor realizes he had an interest in pharmaceuticals and medicine. In exchange for clerking for Gatewood, the doctor paid for his attendance at Starling Medical College. He graduated “second in a class of eight-one, and “hung [...] his shingle in Babylon [Stockport]” for a year. Having married Myrta

Gibson upon his return, he was distraught when she died of tuberculosis just after their one year

1 While at Marietta Academy, Naylor tutored Rufus C. and brother, Charles Dawes. Rufus went on to become an important banker, industrialist and entrepreneur. Charles would serve as vice president under Calvin Coolidge. Naylor frequently references visits between himself and Rufus in his journals dating between 1907 and 1931. 9 anniversary. Following her death, Naylor worked for a year as a traveling drug salesman until

“he regained his perspective” and eventually returns to his native Pennsville in 1888 to once again serve as a physician (22-24).

Returning to the neighborhoods of his youth, Naylor set up practice as a country doctor and eventually married a distant cousin, Lena “Villa” Naylor, who happened to share Naylor’s surname. Villa was from a family of twelve children; she was noted for working hard and for her fun-loving nature. She would work alongside Naylor, engaging in whatever he needed, including re-copying his longhand writings for publishers. The couple started a family and in

1891 they moved the “eight miles north to Malta,” which would become their lifetime home

(Flaherty 26-28). According to a “Biographical Sketch of Dr. James Ball Naylor,” after settling into Malta, Naylor “began to write for the press [ . . .] to satisfy an inward longing [. . .] and not with any hope of wealth or fame.” While Naylor’s writing might have started for personal expression, his eventual prolific canon demonstrates his need to interact and contribute to the world of verse, fiction, politics, and musings.

Literary Career of Naylor

Naylor contributed poems to McConnelsville’s The Democrat and other local newspapers. After a few years, newspapers “solicited contributions . . . [and] over two hundred poems appeared under his pseudonym, “S.Q. Lapius”, a play on the name of the Roman god of healing, Aesculapius” (Flaherty 30). Naylor’s family encouraged him to publish a collection of his works, and Villa’s cousin, A.A. Coulson, furnished the funds for the project entitled Current 10

Coins Picked Up at a Country Railway Station.2 While the book did not sell well, it did receive favorable reviews: “S.Q. Lapius will rank among the literati of Ohio,” “the author will certainly become well and favorably known,” and the declaration of the book as a “hidden jewel” (quoted in Flaherty 32). Bolstered by positive reviews, he continued writing poetry and produced another volume, entitled Golden Rod and Thistle Down, in 1896. Little information has been found regarding the production of this volume, though the same Columbus publishing firm,

Hann and Adair, published the work. The volume, “printed as an author’s edition” of two hundred copies, received positive reviews, but did not culminate in positive sales (36).

Naylor began exploring other writing venues, publishing short stories in “Western dailies and news syndicates.” While the family maintained scrapbooks, many of the releases, reviews and publications do not contain dates or publication information (Flaherty 36-37). The Ohio

Farmer is the first known publisher of Naylor’s serialized work. Written for a young audience,

“Beggars Awheel” appeared between 1896 and 1897. Other short stories dating from before

1900 seem to reflect Naylor’s own childhood and his medical practice, but he does later favor historical fiction as demonstrated in the short story “A Spike from the Underground Railroad”

(1906). The story highlights the efforts of “Kikertown,” in their aiding the escape of fugitives from the southern United States.3 He continued experimenting with story writing and eventually wrote serialized historical stories that would become a book trilogy following the success of

Ralph Marlowe. The historical fiction works “In the Days of St. Clair,” “Under Mad Anthony’s

Banner,” and “The Sign of the Prophet,” were published serially in the Ohio State Journal between 1897 and 1901, followed by book publication by Saalfield between 1901 and 1903

2 According to Flaherty, the hand-written contract called for Naylor and Coulson to divide profits between them after expenses were paid. One-thousand copies were printed, but many were eventually sold at discount” (Flaherty 30). 3 Flaherty suggests the village is “easily recognizable as Pennsville” (51). Historical records regarding the numerous escape routes and stations in the area easily corroborate this suggestion. 11

(Flaherty 50-58). The first decade of the twentieth century emerged as Naylor’s most productive literary period. Following the success of his novels, he continued writing poetry though marketing much of it in the form of pamphlets and broadsides. He also continued producing novels writing The Cabin in the Big Woods (1904), The Kentuckian (1905), Witch Crow and

Barney Bylow (1906), The Scalawags (1907), The Little Green Goblin (1907), The

Misadventures of Marjory (1908), and Dicky Delightful in Rainbow Land (1909). During this time, he also produced two successful collections of verse. Old Home Week (1906, 1907) saw three different printings including one for Governor Rollins4 of New Hampshire and one produced for John Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston. After the success of Old Home Week, Naylor began a project with the Ohio Library Company of Columbus to produce another poetry collection; the project Songs from the Heart of Things (1907), includes multiple pictures Naylor captured as an amateur photographer and the book found extensive advertising in Cincinnati,

Columbus, and Cleveland. Still, Naylor was disappointed in the book’s sales, and he does not produce another book of verse for over two decades.

Following his successes in novels, Naylor moved toward writing for newspapers and wrote a column for the Marion Star between 1913 and 1923 as well as a column for The Chicago

Journal of Commerce (1920-23) (Flaherty 171). While Naylor’s wealth of writing proves staggering in volume, his parallel evolution as an entertainer adds to the profundity of his gifts as an artist. Beginning with the publishing of his poetry, Naylor grew a reputation as a public performer, accepting performances up to three times per week. He continued these presentations and eventually included two of his daughters, Lucile, and Olive, who appeared alongside him in

4 Frank W. Rollins founded the event known as “Old Home Week” in 1898 in order to encourage former residents who now lived away, to return to their native towns. The event was successful and Naylor was able to capitalize on this with his poetry (Flaherty 76-78). 12 these evenings of entertainment.5 According to his journals, Naylor appeared two to four times a month, performing extensively in Ohio as well as Chicago, Boston, and New York. Though each performance was unique, the audience accounts speak to Naylor’s ability to create laughter and tears with his heartfelt stories and wit (Flaherty 96-115).

Beginning in his early years in Malta, Naylor wrote about politics and campaigned for various political affiliates in the Morgan County area. While campaigning for William

McKinley he became friends with Warren G. Harding, eventually assisting Harding in his race for Ohio Senate. Naylor and Harding continued a working relationship throughout Harding’s political career. Naylor worked on various Republican campaigns by writing speeches and campaign songs as well as providing entertainment. Naylor crossed political lines occasionally, even campaigning, unsuccessfully, for the Ohio State Legislature on the “Free Silver” ticket in

1896 (Flaherty 116-118). Following his loss in the legislature, Naylor gave up soliciting a position in anything but local politics; he continued to write political newspaper columns during

Harding’s Presidency. Although Naylor was offered a position in Harding’s Treasury

Department and a position with the Ohio State Medical Board, he declined both offers as they

“meant a move away from Malta” and his home, Elmhurst (138-39). Following Harding’s death in 1923 Naylor remained loyal to Harding despite rising accusations of scandal; Flaherty contends that Naylor’s resolute loyalty to Harding cost him financially and politically (140-141).

Six weeks after Harding’s death Naylor was dropped by both the Marion Star and the Chicago

Journal of Commerce. While Naylor’s journals reflect his despondency regarding government

5 His daughter Olive “took” to the stage and pursued a life as an actress, which was frowned upon by many in the fundamentalist town of her upbringing. After her brief marriage failed, she returned home to Malta with her twin infant sons, Winston and Weston. Naylor and his wife helped rear the boys during their first five years and kept them when their mother moved to Chicago. Olive eventually took the boys to Southern California where they appeared in a wide range of films including the Our Gang series and Peter Pan (1924). Their tragic death in a flash flood on New Year’s Eve, 1934, was a “devastating blow” to Naylor’s psyche (Flaherty 111-115, 145). 13 and Washington, he continued to work with Charles Dawes during his campaign for Vice-

President, and he eventually resumed writing for the Republican National Committee in 1924

(Flaherty139).

Naylor’s astounding literary output, his innumerable speaking engagements, and his efforts to write for political candidates are all indicative of his attunement to living a full and active life. His final book of poetry, A Book of Buckeye Verse (1927), came from a request of

Rufus Dawes to “get out a collected edition of all [your] poems, so we can have them all together” (quoted in Flaherty 144). Accolades subtly surrounded Naylor, who was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature by Marietta College in 1937. He was also the recipient of many local awards and the subject of various attributing news articles, including one about a young man who worked in Russia and discovered Naylor’s works at the library in Moscow. Upon returning to the United States, the reader from Moscow sought Naylor out in Malta to express gratitude for his literary contributions (Flaherty 148-49). The conjoined nature of Naylor’s life and his writings is unmistakable though one might argue that had he honed in more on his writing career he would not have faded into literary obscurity. Flaherty summarized his life and work at the conclusion of her biography:

In his lifetime, Naylor achieved a measure of greatness that was recognized well

beyond the state of Ohio. His legacy is more than the myriad of published

material that he left behind; it is a testament to his indomitable spirit and to the

moral principles and integrity that defined him. Although he welcomed the

acclaim he received, what ultimately mattered most to him were the people he

loved and the joy and comfort he brought to others in his role as a physician.

(152) 14

While Naylor’s writings stretched across the nation and the Atlantic, he was writing during a shift in the tastes of the literary world.

The late Victorian period, during which Naylor wrote found writers pushing the boundaries of Victorian propriety and expanding the question of traditional religious beliefs.

Henry James’ Turn of the Screw (1898) challenged elements of realism while Upton Sinclair combined elements of naturalism with questions of urban politics in The Jungle (1906). Poetry too was changing; the sentimental verse in postbellum America would acquiesce to the posthumous publication of Emily Dickinson (1886), whose works include topics of suffering, death, and immortality. Naylor’s poetry continued to maintain a more structured form, especially when contrasted to emerging modernists, such as T.S. Eliot, whose “The Love Song of

J. Alfred Prufrock” appeared in 1915. The death of regionalist writer, Sarah Orne Jewett in 1909 and novelist Mark Twain in 1910, coincide with the end of Naylor’s literary career in fiction. As the literary world turned toward modernism, writers attuned only to traditional realism found a decreasing audience. While Naylor continued to write political commentary and poetry, his once national audience became progressively more local even as shifts in communication and transportation allowed for an increasingly international community.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERARY CLIMATE

Newspaper and Magazine Culture in “Regionalist” Period

Following the American Civil War the emergent United States literary atmosphere began to reflect and parallel America’s desire to reinvent itself—to contemplate and give homage to the dramatic changes resulting from a nation ravaged, and now rebuilding, after a controversy inundated with economic and political conflict. The postbellum writings reflect this effort to establish a universal “nationhood” situated on the bridging of the unique and limitless characteristics defining geographic areas found throughout the United States. The quest to validate uniqueness, while bridging national thinking, manifests itself in a host of writers ranging from the Kate Chopin in the Deep South to Hamlin Garland in the Midwest to Sarah Orne Jewett in the uppermost regions of New England. Despite geographic span and topical variance, there are several factors that unify the writings and allow for a discussion of what captivates the reader of the time.

In the years 1870-1900, nationhood became paramount to moving forward; a nation whose heritage was firmly divided by barriers of “north” and “south” sought a means to commune and move forward. In the work “Nation, Region and Empire” critic Amy Kaplan argues that “this profusion of literature known as regionalism or local color contributed to the process of centralization” (250). Celebrating and recognizing cultural differences, perhaps inadvertently, regionalist writers understood the “common inheritance” shared by persons across rural regions. Kaplan further contends that the rural content, read by an urban middle class, helped them feel more comfortable midst the throes of unrest due to immigration and the onset of 16 foreigners inundating cities. Reading about rural communities and the world reflecting a kind of nostalgia offers a place “always available for return” (251). Roberto Maria Dainotto expands on this nostalgic past in “‘All the Regions Do Smilingly Revolt’: The Literature of Place and

Region” contending “The past becomes a place—a region about which we can make studies and write novels and that we can bring back, ideally, in our undesirable present as a moral prescription” (493). The idea of the nostalgic rural allows a mental repose from the invasive changes flooding urban America during Reconstruction: economic restructuring of the plantation, urban changes of industrialization and social changes brought on by immigration.

Stephanie Foote corroborates this idea in Regional Fictions: Culture and Identity in Nineteenth-

Century American Literature stating “the representation of provinces served the needs of a group of readers whose freedom from the constraints of provincial communities made them vulnerable to the isolation and alienation of urban life at the turn of the century” (5). While urban changes opened opportunities to many, these changes brought enormous challenges in community and class relationships. Realized or imagined, the comfort of simpler times, small villages and a strong connection to the natural, allowed a type of internal rejuvenation for readers in the throes of living in an urban environment; it also offers writers an opportunity to express a world distant from concerns of cities and congested urban environments.

Capitalizing on this need more pointedly than any other corporation of the time was

Atlantic-group magazines. In his work Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in

Nineteenth-Century America Richard H. Brodhead convincingly argues that two separate writing classes began to emerge between 1850 and 1870. The “story-paper” audience favored a fiction with “high-colored romance and sensational adventure” (78). This audience found little need for literature meant to edify but sought entertainment and escapist stories. The second type of 17 literature served a “genteel” audience affiliated with a middle class life of comfort (79). The

Atlantic-group magazines - Atlantic Monthly - The Century Magazine - and Harper’s Magazine - associated with the middle to upper middle class, intentionally sought to exude a “high culture” whose writing was more ‘literary’ than the content of story-papers (124). The stories of the

Atlantic magazines highlight leisure activities, including travel—domestic and international—to little known or undiscovered places. This travel often places urban, middle class readers in a provincial village or unknown hamlet. This placement begins the merger of those whose provincial lives engage closely with nature and simple living, including readership of shorter, uncomplicated stories and magazines, with those who find accessibility to rural only by reading about the provincial.

William Dean Howells, the editor of Atlantic Monthly, proves an especial proponent of

“the idea” of regionalism. In May 1887, he writes in an often quoted passage:

Let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they are,

actuated by the motives and the passions in the measure we all know; [. . .] let it

show the different interests in their true proportions; let it forbear to preach pride

and revenge, folly and insanity, egotism and prejudice, but frankly own these for

what they are, in whatever figures and occasions they appear; let it not put on fine

literary airs; let it speak the dialect, the language, that most Americans know---the

language of unaffected people everywhere---and we believe that even its

masterpieces will find a response in all readers. (Quoted in Foote 7)

Howells expected regional fiction to exude accuracy and realism. He also held tight to the notion that literature stood as the “language of life” something that was inclusive of all persons rather than exclusive of any given type or class (11). In spite of Howells’s efforts, the broad portrait of 18 his regionalism and what he chooses to include in Atlantic places him in a position as chief determiner of what is “real” and relevant and what “represents” regionalist writing in the world of the Atlantic family of publications. Michael Davitt Bell, however, suggests in The Problem of

American Realism: Studies in the Cultural History of a Literary Idea that some of the traits purportedly associated with writers and regionalists of this time were widely variant on the literary spectrum and that there was not a “coherent tradition of realistic practice in America in the 1880’s and 1890’s” (7). Though editors like Howells considered themselves to understand regionalist qualities, agreement of the definition of regionalism, and even the subdivisions are frequently debated by scholars and critics.

Arguably, there were other magazines, writers and publishers enjoying popularity besides the Atlantic group. In Reading for Realism: The History of a U.S. Literary Institution, 1850-

1910, critic Nancy Glazener argues that there were numerous examples, but grants specific discussion to the Arena magazine, also published in Boston. The Arena affiliated itself with the

Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party, and the resultant of that was the publication’s focus on

“life in villages and small towns” (191). Glazener contends that in July 1897 the magazine further demonstrated allegiance to the farmer by decreasing the price of subscriptions because the group understood the “trials and “wrongs” suffered by “honest producers” (210). Benjamin

Orange Flower, the Arena’s founder, published an article in April 1890 entitled “The Highest

Function of the Novel” in which he outlines the magazine’s counter stance to the Atlantic’s use of a particular literary style. The article suggests the novel’s function is not simply “to entertain” but to allow people to “think and think earnestly [. . . ] which touches the conscience and feeds the well-springs of the soul” (quoted in Glazener 211). This viewpoint leads Flower, not to the particular, but the diverse. Arena published realists such as “Garland, Norris, London, 19

Crane and Sinclair” as well as a variety of “utopian and speculative fictions” such as “Bellamy,

Howell and Donnelly” (Glazener 211-212). The devotion by Arena magazine to reconstruct the

“adequacy of the literary” as demonstrated by the elite Atlantic- group, began to open the door for a wider breadth and style of writing, inclusive of those situated outside the echelons of New

England society.

It is within this tangled literary atmosphere that James Ball Naylor, under the encouragement of friends and family, first sought to enter the world of published fiction. While

Naylor had published verse, it is in the mid 1890’s when he first achieves publication of short stories and serialized stories. Known records indicate that his serialized fictions appeared in the

Columbus based Ohio Farmer and Ohio State Journal in 1896 and continued through 1908. The

Ohio State Journal published local and national news but also contained poems and short stories.

Naylor also had some stories published in National Magazine.6 Though the Ohio newspapers limited Naylor’s exposure, they did make him a known name in the world of Ohio editors, writers and readers. The appeal of the National Magazine was more akin to the target audience of the Arena rather than the Atlantic. None of these publications, however, brought more than cursory attention to Naylor’s writings. It was not until his breakout book, Ralph Marlowe (1901), received positive reviews that Naylor’s other previously serialized works found publication as novels.

Novel Climate at the Turn of the Century

While editors, newspapers, and magazines prove a powerful and dominant force in

Gilded Age American print, the novel enjoyed growing popularity and inclusivity as the variety

6 National magazine is described by the editor Joe Mitchell Chapple in a September 1904 advertisement as a magazine for “The plain people of America”; he goes on to state the magazine, which he started under the encouragement of President McKinley, “has been a success beyond all expectations.” 20 of content and topic expanded to include an increasing range of readers. Christopher P. Wilson, the associate editor of The Columbia History of the American Novel, discusses some of the changes in the novel following the American Civil War:

Of course, the quarrel and the reciprocity between boundary and center,

affirmation and dissent, never quite disappeared even as realism fragmented, and

the marketplace expanded. Even among the writers above [Abraham Cahan,

Sarah Orne Jewett, Pauline Hopkins, Laura Jean Libbey], dependent as they were

upon an audience created by their own professionalization, the challenge was

often to work through popular forms that had received Victorian sanction. (159,

emphasis in original)

Despite the efforts of magazine editors to control the “boundaries” of writers, a movement emerged as writers sought to give voice and discussion to the problems of culture and social conscience. Questions concerning Jim Crow Laws, industrialization, and immigration emerged alongside growing concerns regarding the United States’ imperial power and whether there was, in fact, a misnomer in the country’s united conscience. Wilson considers the turn-of-the-century novel an unclear victory of divisions: “a populace unified and allured by mass consumption . . .

[but] still internally divided over the spoils” (159).

Though much debate ensues regarding the comprehensive use of the term “regionalist writing,” the term, nonetheless, provides an anchoring point for discussion surrounding novels published during the years of 1885-1915. Brodhead explains that this was a time of “literary opportunity” and the genre “presents an easily identified set of formal properties.” The list includes the following parameters:

1. A setting outside the world of modern development. 21

2. A zone of backwardness where locally variant folkways still prevail.

3. Characters [who are] ethnologically colorful, personifications of the humanity

produced in such non-modern cultural settings.

4. Extensive written simulation of regional vernacular. (Broadhead 115-116)

Citing Henry James and William Dean Howells as the only exception to professional authors who experimented with characteristic regional form, Broadhead asserts that “it [regional writing] served as the principal place of literary access in America in the postbellum decades.

Furthermore, the informal nature of the experience needed to construct such a work allowed for many inexperienced writers to find success during their first attempts at publication (116).

Those who had life experiences in rural venues, or those who had once been marginalized by society, found themselves in possession of a literary asset. For this reason, there are many women writers from “small towns and peripheral locations” who begin literary careers (117-

118). Brodhead also cites those who found themselves marginalized for other reasons—Hamlin

Garland, for example, who felt “handicapped for authorship by his provincial origins” in farming, able to use his modest background as an asset (117).

Interestingly, the same qualities outlined by Broadhead, naturally segue to the school of

American realism. Robert Shulman writes regarding realism in The Columbia History of the

American Novel that “the first generation realists and their successors did justice to the surfaces of American life through […] plausibly rendered speech, recognizable settings and recognizable characters facing everyday problems” (162). Shulman further argues that Henry James’s The

Portrait of a Lady (1881) proves an exemplary piece of realism in the early American canon.

Isabel, one of the principle characters in the novel, fears marriage might interfere with her independence and rejects the proposal of Lord Warburton so she might consider complete 22 ownership of her quest for “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Within the confines of

“realism,” the questions of American nationhood begin to emerge. James’ experimentation with intermingling accepted means of narrative with nationhood illustrates how realism and regionalism cross boundaries. Straddling texts of acuity and texts of exact regional culture, stands Mark Twain, whose novels of Mississippi life culminate in The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn (1885), a novel whose distinct setting, folk traits, characters and brilliant vernacular, embody each of the elements Broadhead deems necessary, while asking questions of joined nationhood. Shulman argues that James, Twain, Davis, Chesnutt, and Howells, prove to be “representative post-Civil War realists” who help articulate the changing and shaping of a unified American literature. Naylor’s work in Ralph Marlowe proves similar to Twain’s as he uses distinct setting to ask questions pertinent to a much larger audience.

Michael Davitt Bell continues Shulman’s expatiations in The Problem of American

Realism: Studies in the Cultural History of a Literary Idea suggesting the successors of the aforementioned “realist” authors, “Sarah Orne Jewett, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and

Theodore Dreiser” as possible realists, but acknowledging a fundamental problem of definition:

“It is virtually impossible to extract from their novels and manifestos any consistent definition of

‘realism’ (or of naturalism)” (1). As Bell develops an argument for “realism” giving way to

“naturalism,” he begins to highlight the complex nature of categorization. He discusses the environment of the publication of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1901), a work he calls “a final attempt to come to terms with the decade’s problematic idea of naturalism” (150). He explains that Frank Norris, a reader at Doubleday at the time, recommended Dreiser’s work for publication. Bell further explains that Dreiser’s “naturalism” shares little in common with that of

Norris, and neither writer parallels the “naturalism” of Crane (149). The turn of the nineteenth 23 century appears to find literature in transition. Foote demarks the boundaries between the writers discussed by Bell and those whose works have remained lesser known. The specific determinant of the aforementioned authors predicates itself on the idea that they all sought “literary aspirations.” They were known to have a mastery of writing and intentionally sought to demonstrate unique form using standard “writing conventions” (14-15). Writers of this category create works whose content illustrates an understanding of existing boundaries of regionalism and realism while seeking to ask deeper questions of meaning. This literary group, however, represented only a small percentage of novelists writing around the turn of the century.

While some critics argue the terms “regionalist” and “local color” are interchangeable, or too inclined toward minutiae in distinguishing labels, others suggest there is a distinction between the two categories. Erik Sundquist argues the distinction is more about economics than style: “Economic or political power can itself be seen to be definitive of a realist aesthetic, in that those in power (say, white urban males) have been more often judged 'realists,' while those removed from the seats of power (say, Midwesterners, blacks, immigrants, or women) have been categorized as regionalists" (quoted in Morgan). Corroborating this idea is Tom Lutz, who in his work Cosmopolitan Views: American Regionalism and Literary Value, suggests

What made for local color fiction was the newly expanded magazine market [...]

What made for the expanded magazine world was—in a word—industrialism,

which created the rise of a middle class with some discretionary spending power

on the one hand, and the professionalization of all kinds of cultural and scientific

work on the other. (31) 24

Industrialism certainly opens the way for a managerial class, while subsequent changes in industrialism, the eight hour work-day, for example, allow for expansion of reading class and an opportunity to blend styles and genres in an atmosphere saturated with readers.

The growth of a more accessible literary atmosphere allowed writers with minimal experience in formalized writing to gain exposure and publishing opportunity. Mass audiences, a direct outgrowth of industrialization, provided an opportunity for Naylor to find an outlet for his work that might have, in an earlier period, gone unnoticed and unpublished.

25

CHAPTER 3

REGIONALISM IN RALPH MARLOWE

This chapter investigates why Naylor’s novel Ralph Marlowe found such a rapid and widespread popularity. Although other works by Naylor demonstrate even stronger literary merit and found a receptive audience, it was Ralph Marlowe, a work containing near text book regionalist tactics, which gained Naylor attention. Perhaps this sudden fame can be attributed to the comfort of a work using familiar elements and style, but still given to raising questions of national unity, a problem still plaguing the United States at the turn of the nineteenth-century.

Though much work remained to be done with regards to assimilating economically and socially diverse populations during the turn-of-the century, I propose that Ralph Marlowe attempts to do this using subtlety and humor as a means to demonstrate plausible solutions of urban and rural fidelities, as well as greater questions of a national conscience. Using the comfortable and understood qualities of postbellum regionalist writing, Naylor crafts a story that demonstrates how Marlowe’s flexibility of thought proves stronger than his immobile resolution. Through its telling of life in rural Babylon, Naylor’s Ralph Marlowe highlights the symbiotic relationships of urban and rural in the United States, thereby revealing potential models of resolving tensions of class and place at the turn of the nineteenth-century.

This chapter will first explore the publishing origins of Ralph Marlowe, followed by an overview of the critical reception in newspapers and magazines of the day. Following this I will illustrate Naylor’s attentiveness to incorporating textbook regionalist writing qualities of

“specified setting” and “colloquial characters” into his work and place it alongside Irving

Bacheller’s Eben Holden, another bestselling work of the day to which Naylor’s work was often 26 compared. The latter portion of this chapter will highlight how Naylor uses the end of the narrative to resolve tensions between class and place, to establish how even a community grounded in tradition and provincial behaviors can move toward tolerance, reception and integration of outsiders.

Publishing Background and Critical Reception

While James Ball Naylor had been writing for years, Ralph Marlowe was his first novel garnering national attention. The work found publication in 1901 by Saalfield, a publishing company located in Akron, Ohio, that would become well-known for its publication of children’s books (Flaherty 62). A fire at Saalfield destroyed any possibility of discovering documents revealing why it chose to publish the work, though the original manuscript, penned by Naylor’s wife, remains, housed in the special collections at Kent State University. Prior to the book’s release the company advertised their ‘new’ author calling him “a new literary light—a scintillant

[sic], dazzling literary star.” The book found, as hoped, strong reception and “for six months it was among the top six books on the Bookman’s list of best sellers” (63). The book received multiple positive reviews from across the nation and the British Isles. Though Naylor had already serially published three “book-length” manuscripts, Ralph Marlowe enjoyed success beyond what even Saalfield predicted. Following the initial printing in March 1901, Saalfield was unable to keep up with demand for the book and even contracted out the latter printings with

Robert Smith Printing in Lansing, Michigan (65). Having already written three ‘book-length’ manuscripts of historical fiction, the question must be posited, ‘Why was this the one that became a bestseller? What propelled this work to reading popularity? The answers surround not 27 only the literary atmosphere preceding publication but also the shifting literary atmosphere at the turn of the nineteenth-century.

A survey of the reviews included in Flaherty’s annotated Ralph Marlowe reveals the desirable traits possessed in the work and favored by audiences of the time. The Ohio State

Journal notes how states in the “Central West” (today called the Midwest) had been competing with one another for pieces of great fiction. The review suggests that Naylor’s use of “hill country,” “characters [ . . .] drawn from life,” and his “vigorous, crisp and clear” style creates a book “of a kind,” thereby categorizing it as befitting of measure alongside distinct regional pieces (quoted in Flaherty 296-97). While positive reviews might be expected from a journal that has previously published Naylor’s work, the reviews match those of many northeastern newspapers. The Baltimore based American writes: “ S.Q. Lapius, over which signature a number of decidedly clever sketches and poems have appeared in print, has written a story which will command widespread interest and achieve much deserved popularity, unless the public taste for good literature has deteriorated to an alarming extent” (298). Likewise, the Boston Home

Journal declares, “I like every bit of it.” Many of the reviews focus on Naylor’s extraordinary use of “eccentric” characters and the “quaintness” of the town and dialect (301-303).

Newspaper reviews from the south reiterate much of the words of their northern counterparts, though the Bookworm of Birmingham, Alabama, praises the “simple pathos of country life” as well as the “true devotion to duty in the face of hard circumstances manifested by the hero” (300-301). The authentic praise from an area rich in regionalist writers, the southern reviews produce an air of promoting one with whom rural residents could easily relate.

A review from Tarboro’s Book Review, in Tarboro, North Carolina, also emphasizes the elements that might connect to an area whose rural villages are often the result of the hilly 28 terrain. The review recognizes the authentic realism of the subject and contains an interview highlighting Naylor’s childhood, focusing on the elements of poverty and his efforts to overcome the obstacles of rural life. This emphasis on Naylor’s genuineness illustrates a seemingly important object of the book reviews of the day—to demonstrate an authenticity by proxy.

Naylor, as a son of rural America, gains the credibility of truth, an element characteristic in many bestselling works of the day.

The international reviews posit many of the truisms espoused by the domestic reviewers, but a review from England notes that though Naylor “writes knowingly of place and people,” the plot plays small role in demonstrating “daily life in the little town of Babylon” (310). Though the work is described as “plot light”, the Glasgow Herald of Scotland takes special note of the typical American qualities the work exudes. The review suggests the character Ralph Marlowe

“is a favourite American type-a young man of great moral and intellectual grit, hardworking, independent, resourceful, with no weakness or vices, and with a certain inflexible quality not inconsistent with essential kindness of heart” (311). The review also notes a truth found in several of the domestic reviews—the character refrains from didactic preaching. While working toward “the moral regeneration” of the community, the character refrains from “offensive

Puritanism” (311), instead offering a more conciliatory style of influence. The British reviews unknowingly offer a starting point for understanding the likes and dislikes of the reader around the turn of the century as well as offering an outsider’s assessment of “American” literature of the day. While some of the international reviews offer a hint of resistance at the number of books crossing Atlantic waters, each review presents agreement to the idea the Chronicle of

Newcastle, England, suggests: “it will be the fate of Dr. Naylor to arrest the ear of the British 29 public with this story” (314). The work found an audience across the United States and the

Atlantic waterways.

Regionalist Quality of Setting and Place

The timeless popularity of any classic novel speaks to the depth of the author’s ability to subvert specificity while highlighting universality. The position of writers whose works occur during a specific time period will differ greatly bassed on their own conceptions of “time and place” as well as the individual’s own manifestations of “literary-cultural situations”

(Broadhead11). Likewise, each reader brings a sense of being to a text. Asserting regionalist literature as “opportunistic,” Broadhead writes that the style was “so structured as to extend opportunity above all to groups traditionally distanced from literary lives” (116). By embracing each of the “structured” qualities Broadhead outlines, inexperienced writers found success in literary expression. James Ball Naylor’s work Ralph Marlowe, utilizes quantifiable elements of regional writing, illustrating the methodologies used by many popular writers at the turn of the nineteenth century. Comparing the work to Irving Bacheller’s Eben Holden, A Tale of the North

Country, establishes how bestsellers of the time helped perpetuate this type.7

In Country and the City Raymond Williams thoroughly investigates the powerful connotations found in the words “country” and “city”; he acknowledges the traditional associations of the country with “a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue” while recognizing the city’s associations of “achieved centre: of learning, communication, light”

(1-2). Though critics often argue the cliché associations of these terms, and the particular methods in which regionalist writers gave them employ, there can be little argument that these

7 Irving’s work was the fourth best-selling book during 1900 according to “Bookman’s List” and was the fifth best- selling work of 1901. 30 images have followed human history. Naylor uses these associations to establish a place deeply attune to the natural. As the work opens he transports the reader to a place where “thin cold mist

[. . .] envelope[s] wood and field.” The natural country calm noted by Williams allows the

“autumn robes of green and gold and crimson” to move down the Muskingum River Valley,

“toward the distant farmyard” (Naylor 1). Echoing images of the uncrowded countryside,

“solitary light” softly breaks the darkening autumnal eve. In contrast to the provincial tranquility of the surroundings, Ralph Marlowe rides the aggressive transport of the train: “a gigantic fiery monster belching smoke and flame from its two black horns” (2). The strong impression of invasion travels with the train on its trek toward the hamlet of Babylon. During a conversation with Lou Crider, a traveling drummer (drug salesman), Marlowe learns of the size of the village, a place that “covers half a township and has about six hundred inhabitants” (8); he remarks “So small?” in near astonishment (9). His words echo Williams’ clichés regarding the lack of “city”

Marlowe hopes to find in his new position as pharmaceutical assistant to Doc Barwood.

In the opening chapters of Ralph Marlowe, Naylor develops tension by juxtaposing images of the city and country. Marlowe arrives at the railroad station, a “rambling affair [that] faces the tumbledown warehouses and stares across the track at them, frowning at their brazen emptiness” (11). Poised alone on the platform Marlowe suggests “I feel as though I had just bid good-bye to civilization and dropped upon an uninhabited shore.” The isolation foregrounded the tension between perceived comfort in population and precluded despair in isolation. Even the natural elements, once a calming force, begin to invade him as “the rain was fast soaking his outer garments” (12). After meeting the local telegraph operator, himself a native of the much larger city of Parkersburgh, Marlowe finds himself debating the merits of “place” with a former urban dweller. The operator suggests that his time in the village must come to a close since “A 31 fellow of my make-up gets the blues here. A few more years of it’ld kill me” (14 emphasis his).

While the operator eventually determines to stay in the village, his forceful dialogue helps iterate the common perceptions of village life.

The unpaved, unlit streets of Babylon serve as manifestations of an embedded cosmopolitan perspective of authentic, backward rural life. The operator leads Marlowe through the muddy streets to the only hotel in town: a “large and rambling frame” whose “bare-floored” entry room “did duty as office […] and served as loafing rendezvous for the village idlers” (14).

The internal fixtures of the room function as representative of the earthy idleness in the town: “a brown earthenware cuspidor upon the hearth full of tobacco quids, cigar stubs, and half-burnt matches.” The room, smelling of “moist soot” and “rank tobacco smoke,” possesses a single light, a small desk, newspapers and a “hotel register” (15). The primitive simplicity of the objects Naylor uses highlight the elements of village living which reflect an old-fashioned atmosphere. Lutz asserts that this mode of depicting regions gave a false representation; that in fact the archaic atmosphere was a construct created to fulfill the “fantasy” of “urban, elite desire”

(20). Whether the text leads to a type of “escapism” or offers belonging to those who related to the portrait painted by regionalist writers, the setting in regionalist portraits often focuses on elements of simplicity.

Irving Bacheller’s Eben Holden uses similar techniques to establish a setting removed from the world of the modern. As Uncle Eben and young Will journey from one home to find a new dwelling, they embrace the wilderness and “green fields” and the “crackling of fire” (2-3).

Traversing in the forest under the moonlight, Bacheller highlights the natural beauty and portrays sleeping on a “mossy knoll” as comfortable rather than obtrusive. When the pair takes refuge in a dilapidated cabin, Bacheller notes the poor condition but highlights the co-dwelling white owls 32 as acceptable midst the “deep forest” (24-25). While Marlowe initially appears uncomfortable with the rural setting, both Naylor and Bacheller portray the natural setting as a comfort rather than an obstacle; whether intentional or coincidental, the audience embracing the turn of the century regionalist style expects to find comfort in rural rather than hardship.

The events of Naylor’s Ralph Marlowe rest entirely within the confines of the hamlet of

Babylon. While characters cross the physical lines between outlying township farms and the village, the actions and events all transpire inside Babylon, whether it is Doc Barwood’s drugstore, the hotel or in the latter portion Marlowe’s rental home, the setting of the work stays beyond the reach of the modern world and takes refuge in the rural village. The autonomous nature of the narrative cannot be ignored, especially when considering the implications of a name with such strong symbolic resonation. In western Christianity, Babylon stood as a place of foreign captivity, though the captive Israelite hero Daniel pleased the ruling force, commandeering a positon of authority for himself. This is not dissimilar to the manner in which

Marlowe handles the domineering force of Doc Barwood. Jep commends Marlowe’s efforts stating “Yes, you’re doin’ purty well, fer a young buck—I thank you. An’ it’s all on account o’ y’r understandin’ human natur’” (202). Marlowe negotiates the temporal and spatial parameters of a ‘foreign land’—far from his native Cleveland—by his strong sense of attunement to the nature of the persons around him.

Assisting in establishing the strong sense of place in regionalist writing, the idea of folk or old-fashioned behaviors and actions often frequent the text. Broadhead establishes “a zone of backwardness where locally variant folkways still prevail” as one of the paramount properties of regional fiction (115). The word “folk” contains historical spelling variants originating in multiple languages though the modern use of the word centers on nineteenth century usage and 33 the development of the word as used by writers. Raymond Williams’ Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society explores this idea, determining that the word “folk” is used as a “contrast with modern popular forms,” a categorizing “elements surviving ‘by force of habit into a new state of society’” (92-93). An important emphasis ought to be noted on the words “force of habit.” There is a pattern of deliberateness, an intentional action whose habit derives from innumerable potentialities: fear of change, fear of the unknown, or fear of the credibility of science. Considering these factors, “folkways” must be juxtaposed against another methodology, and generally, though not exclusively, this is what Glazener terms “distinguishing the rural from the urban” (192). Folk methodology maintains a more traditional practice of action. Kaplan even suggests that “the folk,” as “native inhabitants,” represent the “common heritage from which urban dwellers [have] moved, always available for return” (251). Accepting this definition helps explain why regionalism from any provincial part of the United States often creates longing in the reader. A return to the old ways conjures up feelings of belonging and community as well as a return to a less regimented, slower style of living. Although the character Ralph Marlowe initially rejects many of the ‘folk’ elements of Babylon, Naylor’s narrative itself affirms—and even celebrates—these folkways, particularly through the slow pace, Jep Tucker’s storytelling, and Doc Barwood’s use of traditional medicine.

Naylor reiterates the idea of folk by suggesting the “slow” methods of Babylon. As a tired Marlowe awaits attention from the hotelier, Clark, the telegraph operator reminds him that

“I told you this was the slowest burg you ever struck” (16). As an outsider, Clark remains aware of the expectations of a former city dweller and iterates how a town such as Babylon requires patience and a flexible schedule. The next day, Marlowe ventures to his new place of employment only to find the door wide open, utter disarray around the premises and the Doc’s 34 hostler, Jep Tucker reclined, keeping watch over the pharmacy. Ralph finds it astonishing that the Doc has gone “to the country” and might not return for days (33). While unusual to

Marlowe, other regional stories corroborate a country doctor’s practice. In A Country Doctor

Sarah Orne Jewett writes of Dr. Leslie, whose work always requires him to travel to the patient.

Similarly, in Eben Holden, the rural Doctor Bigsby travels to the homes of the ill, traversing even in inclement weather. Journeying in sub-zero temperatures, the doctor stumbles onto the

Brower farm en-route to save a dying man “over on the Plains” (86). Guided by traditional rural practices, these doctors behavior categorizes itself as “folkish” to Marlowe, who is accustomed to the most modern practices of doctors in a city.

Jep Tucker’s local history further emphasizes the prominent position folklore practices carry in the township of Babylon. Rather than relying on studies of science and transfer of knowledge via books or formal learning, the town relies on the authoritative wisdom of neighbors; those who have found success become the source of truth and knowledge. While recounting the story of “Ol’ Bob Huff an’ the buckwheat straw” Jep reveals how the behavior of animals can transfer to principles of human behavior (201). Two neighboring farmers each had a

“fam’ly o’ purty, peachy-cheeked gals”, and each sought to “marry the galls off young” (203).

Bob’s daughters married, while Bill’s having “growed up,” stayed at home. The primitive triumph of Bob’s ‘success’ at commodifying his daughters only seeks to emphasize further the folkish, backwoods behavior of the area. Bob continues relaying how when each daughter’s suitor arrived for courting, he “used to git the shotgun out an’ jest rip an’ tear”, behavior that made the suitor “think I didn’t want him to have the gal; an’he was jest crazy to git her from that on” (204). The inaccessibility of the young women brought quick elopements for each of his 35 daughters. Bill relates how he welcomes his daughters’ suitors, even inviting them to spend the night—but to date, none of his daughters has married as most suitors eventually lose interest.

Acting as an authority on local history and behaviors, Jep continues to illustrate the locally practiced wisdom. Bill explains learning his theory when attempting to feed his stock straw in a year when there was an abundance of buckwheat. Having given up on the animals eating the straw, he fences it in to allow it to rot for fertilizer. The next day, the animals had broken down the fence in an effort to eat the straw. Bill laughs as he recounts “From that . . . I learnt a lesson; an’ w’en my gals got big enough to think o’havin’ beaux, I follered the same plan with them!” (205). For the residents of Babylon and the surrounding farms, wisdom and behaviors witnessed in nature stand as indelible truth, worthy of implementing and sharing with one another.

From early in the novel Ralph Marlowe pays little heed to the modus operandi of Jep

Tucker and the telling of his tales. Naylor, however, demonstrates how important the myths are to Jep and how they embody the traditions and behaviors of residents. When Marlowe listens inattentively, Jep rebukes him, forcefully stating “Shut up that almanac. I never could talk to a feller with his nose stuck fast ‘tween the pages of a book” (280). Though Ralph closes his medical journal, he keeps his place with his forefinger. Ralph’s frequent feigned-tolerance and near disregard for Jep’s backwoods wisdom iterates itself in the half-hearted attention he lends

Jep, but also in his direct physical gesture of maintaining his place in the text, metaphorically suggesting that he will not ‘close the book’ on the true knowledge in his authoritative medical journal.

Marlowe’s medical journal and even Doc Barwood’s experience do not provide successful treatment for Barwood’s rheumatism. Bedfast, Doc Barwood calls on Marlowe to 36 assist in treating him. Naylor provides a scene in which traditional medicine, learned by

Barwood in his training in the north, combats Marlowe’s more recent medicinal studies, finally culminating in the agreement of both men to bolster these treatments with a local folk remedy.

After the two argue the merits of “colchicum and guaiac” versus “salicylates and lithia salts”,

Doc Barwood smiles and says, “I know what would make an excellent soothing application—if only I had it” (178-179). When Marlowe questions him, he explains there is “A plant that grows out on the headwaters of Monday Creek, thirty miles from here. I’ve forgotten its name even.

However, when I was a boy the natives used to make poultices of it; and it relieved pain like magic” (179). Interestingly, while Naylor includes details regarding modern medicinal techniques, he easily blends in folk ideas and traditional treatments, offering an idea of the complimentary nature of the two, and subsequently, an illustration of the possibility of marrying multiple rural and urban traditions.

Colorful characters---Colloquial Conversant

Like many regionalist works, Ralph Marlowe contains characters whose local origins and regional vernacular are well recounted. The sheer number and vivid clarity of portrayal of these characters, however, receives comments from nearly every published review of Naylor’s work.

The nuances of behavior and speech create lively portraitures, and as one reviewer notes, “the author has quite a Dickens-like eye for quaint character, and it is his two or three delightfully original types which make the book so interesting and amusing. The author need hardly have told us that these are people in real life, for we know them at once as real men” (quoted in

Flaherty 64). The reviewer references Naylor’s preface to the book in which he writes “the places, characters, and incidents—I have known; a part of it I have lived. The characters are 37 living, breathing entities” (x). Naylor’s preface is not unique; Bacheller’s preface to Eben

Holden states “The characters were mostly men and women I have known and who left with me a love of my kind that even a wide experience with knavery and misfortune has never dissipated”(2). Though Jewett offers no such preface to A Country Doctor, Frederick Wegener notes in his introduction to the work that “Jewett’s father, [was]one of mid-nineteenth-century

Maine’s most respected physicians, on whom she openly based her characterization of . . . (the fictitious) Dr. John Leslie”(x). The claim to narrative authority proves central to the debate regarding literary merit and authenticity. Though fictitious, the standard for authentic realism and truth of character peculiarities stood as important to readers and publishers at this time.

Glazener elucidates on the “anthropological” control wielded by publishers who shaped the author’s authority. Editors rebuked Hamlin Garland when he dared write material outside his native Midwest, drifting from material where he was an obvious authority. Those who were not native to the region they wrote about “risked seeming like formula writers” (Glazener 199).

Claims of authority were part of the balancing act of regionalist writers at the turn of the century.8

Real or fictionalized, the specificities of the character Jep Tucker and his “local” wisdom gives way to a feeling of the infinite—a character who stretches, paradoxically, beyond the specificity of place, allowing the reader to relate and lessen the miles between themselves and

Babylon. Physically, Naylor describes Tucker as an unattractive, middle aged man whose

“frayed and stained” attire and cowhide shoes seem misplaced in a pharmacy. He possesses, however, an “open countenance [. . .] and twinkling gray eyes [that] gave a hint of the quaint philosophy and whimsical drollery that was in him” (32). When Marlowe asks him ‘Is the

8 Glazener’s careful explication of this debate (Chapter 5, Reading for Realism) establishes the complex relationship authors experienced when publishing work at this time. 38 doctor in?’ he replies “Yes, he’s in, in more ways ‘n one, he’s in business; an’ he’s in good health. Do you want to know anything more ‘bout him?” Realizing the “eccentric” nature of

Jep, Marlowe forces his inquiry of the doctor’s whereabouts, but continues to allow Jep to dominate the conversation with his simple banter:

“I’s a goin’ to say it wasn’t no use o’y’r gittin’ in a hurry in this town. I’ve lived

here all my life; an’ I’ve never saw but one feller in a hurry, in a all that time. He

was hangin’ onto a pair o’ runaway hosses, an’ couldn’t help hisself. He wasn’t

to blame--he didn’t mean no harm. No, sir, the people o’ this place is slower ‘n

thick molasses on a cold mornin’. I’m ‘bout the only hus’ler round here; an’ I

ain’t what I once was. I’ll tell you what’s a fact. I hain’t never seen but one feller

run, in the forty-five years I’ve lived here; an’ that was a boy that ketched a cold

an’ run at the nose. I b’lieve one feller did start to run fer justice o’ the peace

once. But s’ciety got so down on him he had to settle down to a walk. You ain’t

much a’quainted ‘round here, are you? (33)

As Jep engages himself in a near one sided conversation with Marlowe, he reaffirms the nature of the village while revealing his propensity for word play and the spirit of the community.

Marlowe slips in a question, but Jep dominates the conversation, explaining his position as the

Doc’s hostler and part time shopkeeper, passing opinions of Marlowes’ style—too “dudish” for the Doc—and then illustrating the Doc’s distaste for a “feller nosing’ round” using a story of the local lad, Sweety Jimson. Though Jep’s vernacular makes him sound uneducated, he uses his stories and language to demonstrate his intelligence and authority in the village.

Similarly, Eben Holden uses stories to transfer knowledge to young Will, whose eventual acculturation to the outside world, and retelling of the story as a retrospective narrator, likens 39 him to Ralph Marlowe. Uncle Eb allows the young Will to believe they are traveling “to heaven” and affirms the young boy’s story to a hospitable host and hostess declaring “That’s right . . . we’re on the road t’ heaven, I hope an’ ye’ll see it someday, sartin sure, if ye keep in the straight road” (14). Though the pair is fleeing the authorities, destination unknown, the flexible manner in which Eben recounts perceived truth reminds the reader of the intermingling of truth and fantastical often exhibited in characters in rural culture.

These characters, whose odd behaviors often render them as unusual even amongst their rural compatriots, frequently stand as bearers of truth. Similar to Charles Chesnutt’s Uncle

Julius McAdoo, Jep stands out as a near historian as he recounts local lore and wisdom to Ralph

Marlowe, whose origin we later learn is from urban Cleveland. Unintimidated by either

Marlowe or the notoriously ill-tempered Doc Barwood, Jep “sprawled upon a bench” while the two have a heated argument. As they conclude, he suggests to Marlowe “Thought maybe you two hot heads might git into a Kilkenny cat fight an’ eat one another up. But you both come out lookin’ ‘s pleasant as a purty woman in a pink sunbonnet” and then wisely states: “It’s purty toler’ble hard fer two men to be on opposite sides in an argyment, an’ both be right; but it’s most danged easy fer em both to be wrong” (47). As Marlowe resigns himself to a chair, Jep voluntarily tells the tale of “o’ Jack Rosser’s ol’ sow” as proof and an illustrative of his maxim.

Though Jep’s lackluster efforts at work and his propensity to malinger prove, at times, bothersome to both Doc Barwood and Marlowe, his simplicity and insightfulness into human nature, project a unification of both the local mindset and the thinking of a more cosmopolitan outsider.

Jep easily stands as the “most colorful” character in Ralph Marlowe, yet he is only part of the network of locals who comprise the essence of Babylon. Naylor introduces the fiery 40 tempered Jim Crawford9, local cobbler, and heavy drinker, to the circle of loafers whose presence often finds itself in Marlowe’s locale. From the first meeting at the hotel, the ill- mouthed Crawford makes known his hostility toward Doc Barwood. In a novel where the local often triumphs over more cosmopolitan characters, Crawford’s hostility maintains a balance, an emblem of the animus that colors any community. When speaking to Marlowe of the Doc,

Crawford’s “face was scarlet; his red hair was on end,” while he shouts, “Young man, you’re in fere a good time—an’ I wish you much joy. W’y the ol’ scamp’s had three clerks in the last year

‘r so; an’ couldn’t keep one of ‘em.” Continuing his rant regarding Barwood’s nature he shouts

“The ol’infiddle! Calls hisself an agnorstic—an’ brags that he ain’t ‘fraid o’ God, man, n’r the devil. That’s what he does. It makes me sick to talk ‘bout him” (22). Since none of the other men affirm or deny the spirited outburst, Marlowe experiences an initial unease prior to his meeting with the Doc. Crawford’s hostility, however, does not prevent him from seeking the

Doc’s help as he attempts to emerge from severe intoxication (76-77), and later, when Doc saves

Crawford’s arm, buys food and coal for his family and continues to nurse him to health,

Crawford still retains this hostile attitude. It is through Doc and Crawford’s relationship that we can see Naylor’s subtle unveiling of local culture and economy. The proximity in which Doc

Barwood and Crawford dwell forces the two to coexist in a way that contrasts an urban environment. The unique relationship helps illustrate behavior Marlowe, arriving from a cosmopolitan setting, finds unique to this provincial setting. When Doc Barwood sends Jep to

Pearson’s grocery for food stuff for Mrs. Crawford and follows up by ordering the Crawfords a load of coal, Ralph watches in astonishment remarking “An enigma—a bundle of contradictions.

Yet I feel that I shall like him [Barwood]” (78). Watching the exteriorized relationships of

9 Flaherty reports that “According to local sources, Jim Crawford was Popsie Justice, a shoemaker in Stockport, who sued Dr. Naylor for defamation of character for portraying him in Ralph Marlowe as a drunken Irish cobbler. The man lost the suit” (317). 41

Babylon’s citizenry unfold, Marlowe realizes more of the unique specificities in this hamlet and its rural outlands.

Naylor’s purposeful juxtaposition of local characters is also a technique embraced by

Bacheller in Eben Holden. Elizabeth Brower, “foster mother” to young Will and co-proprietor of the Brower farm, rarely breaks a smile and refrains from praise and flattery (60-61). When the elder suggests he has found a “wandering fiddler” who might provide something new to their service, the unimpressed Mrs. Brower responds “A fiddler! Why, Elder! You astonish me!” (61).

While the hostility between her and Elder Whitmarsh emerges as milder than that of Barwood and Crawford, the purpose of the relationship remains similar. They must accept and interact together, a direct resultant of their tight physical proximity. Despite grave differences in scripture and the intricacies of Church ecclesiastics, the two must interrelate, and these relationships remind the reader of the great play of the geography on characters within the novel.

Like other categorically regionalist works, both Ralph Marlowe and Eben Holden meet

Broadhead’s criteria for component parts. Combining a rural setting where the traditional methodology and colorful characters abound satisfies the audiences need to recount provincial existence midst the urban modernism transforming America at the turn of the century. Each of the works, however, fashions a character who stands apart, either as an outsider who learns to navigate the inside of the local community, or, as Foote terms it, “the impossible combination

[…] of insider and outsider” (43). The character Naylor creates, Ralph Marlowe, represents the outsider who blends into the culture while maintaining his sense of self identity. Marlowe expresses his views, often digressive from local behaviors in a manner that maintains his urbanity without the didactic lecture. When Hugh McDevitt and a crowd of young men seek the 42 assistance of their fellow Democrat, Marlowe, to steal the historical cannon for a political rally,

Marlowe refuses, though offering them little explanation until pressed. He then suggests,

My reason for opposing it is simply this: It would get us into trouble, bring us

and our party into disrepute, and accomplish no good. The day for such

escapades is gone by. We should come out of the fray with broken heads,

perhaps; and with battered reputations. People do not look upon such things as

once they did. The Democrats of Babylon would be accused of political

intolerance; and the accusation would live to torment us in future campaigns.

(132)

Marlowe’s pragmatic response illustrates his evolution past the archaic methodologies of rural expression without pummeling his audience with a didactic, potentially isolating lecture. After contemplating, the gang still moves forward, and later in the evening Marlowe even sells involved key components, “arnica and a roll of court plaster,” though “smiling grimly” over the sale (139). Not surprisingly, the gang’s antics create a medical emergency leading to Marlowe’s unveiling of his hidden credentials of physician and surgeon.

Together Marlowe and Doc Barwood perform surgery on Jim Crawford, who has been wounded in the fracas of the canon firing and the political rally. Forward of this event, the text turns from a broad story line regarding the community atmosphere of the unique characters within Babylon to a near contrivance surrounding Marlowe’s potential integration into the rural community. Marlowe purposefully debates whether to transition from using Babylon as a hideaway from his past (only alluded to until this point in the story), to determining if he should settle, there, potentially marrying Doc Barwood’s youngest daughter. He debates within himself:

“And my present prospects are bright—the brightest I have ever known. If only I were rid of the 43 incubus that hangs like a millstone about my neck!” (196). The “incubus” turns out to be

Marlowe’s alcoholic sister and her propensity toward self-destruction though this knowledge will remain unknown until the conclusion.10 Marlowe’s debate about the possibility of assuming permanent residence in Babylon illustrates the underlying tensions between those of a urban elite class who recognized the forgotten fulfillment found in rural environments and sought to integrate the two within their own community.

Urban and Rural Forces

Regionalist formulas and the prescriptive creation of colorful, native, autonomous characters reflect Naylor’s perspective: Babylon’s majority citizenry celebrates provincial life despite awareness of the outside, urban world. Maintaining a rural setting with intentional

“folkish” habits, Babylon remains rural by choice and navigates urban inundations while still maintaining colorful characters and a uniquely provincial world-view. The clearest example of this intentionality surrounds the oil industry’s impact on the area. Early in the novel, when

Marlowe rides the train to Babylon, he observes a “flabby-faced oil man” whom he later observes to be “a rotund heap of lemon-colored oilskins” (3, 10). Though Naylor acknowledges and labels others as outsiders, the oil men are omnipresent and always described as particularly invasive with a cast toward laziness and underlying deception.

10 Reviewers note Ralph Marlowe as plot light—though even renowned regional writer Sarah Orne Jewett receives similar criticism. The sudden turn, however, toward mawkish romanticisms detracts from the work’s otherwise strong regional qualities. It is impossible to know if Naylor’s original plot choices followed his own parameters or if his decision was made to create a more salable work. Regrettably, according to available records and interviews, Naylor only composed one draft, usually working late into the night, and the next day his wife wrote the final copy for submission. Any changes he might have considered usually happened before he recorded the story, while riding his horse home from medical rounds in the country. According to Flaherty, who traveled to Kent State archives to view the original Ralph Marlowe manuscript, there were less than a dozen editor’s changes from submission to final print (Flaherty interview).

44

The text demonstrates Naylor’s awareness of the oil industry invasion and the tension it creates, but Naylor also shows an awareness of the inevitable futility of staving off industry’s impact on the community. The hotel loafers discuss the performance of the “Cow Run Sand” drill and further project as speculations about the “Gaddus track” (20-21). Maintaining a strong connection to the local, the oil-well locations are referenced using names of residents and common nicknames rather than the drilling corporation titles. Residents fight to preserve their individuality and control of their land despite oil’s invasive, unstoppable force. Though landowners are subject to the oppressive force of a large industry, the owners and the community push back to maintain representation for themselves. Doc Barwood, though not a landowner, intermingles in this industrial force by purchasing shares and financing “risky” drills. One of these surprising successes leads to an oil man’s declaring “I ain’t much of a believer in this section as a deep oil field—though it’s a good shaller one—but if I had ol’ Doc Barwood in with me [. . . ] a man might hit a gusher [. . .] the ol’doc’s a lucky dog” (21-22). In contrast to the mediocre success of the science backed oil wells of the outsiders, Doc Barwood’s local connection to the place and people allow him information and subsequent drilling success not accessible to the encroaching outsiders.

The tension between rural residents and the oil men subtly reoccurs throughout the novel, but it is a seemingly innocuous game of cards, which leads to the surfacing of this underlying tension between rural and urban forces. In a pivotal scene of the novel, Naylor illustrates a crossing of territories by demonstrating a culmination of not only violence, but a brilliant melding of the oft termed “insider” and “outsider” found in regionalist writing. Marlowe stands preparing an “anodyne” for Tomp Nutt’s wife while Tomp reports noticing a “rumpus” in

Torbert’s saloon. Moments later, Sam Clark and Airy Chandler arrive, pale and breathless, 45 reporting that “They’re having a reglar Indian war dance down to Torbert’s” (260). The two men report that Morris McDevitt, their friend as well as the son of a local merchant, has become involved in a difficult match of cards and gambling. Nearly pleading with the young druggist to intervene, the two friends of McDevitt persuade Marlowe to accompany them back to the saloon to retrieve their friend from certain sleight-of-hand by the oil men.

Entering through the rear door Marlowe and the two men “found themselves in a large bare-floored room containing a bar, a lopsided pool table, a number of card tables, and sundry chairs and stools” (261). At one table an innocuous game of seven-up is transpiring while another table contains a module mix of urban and rural men, engaged in a high stakes poker game. The table includes Morris McDevitt, two oil men and Edgerton, a young man from

Foxtown,11 rich in cash from a cattle trade. Though McDevitt initially steps out of the game, the young Edgerton raises the chips and then loses to the pompous oil driller. Marlowe makes his presence known to McDevitt, who greets him merrily, asking him to join the game. McDevitt then notices his friends, realizes they have employed Marlowe to attempt to loose him from the game, and angrily refuses to exit with the group. The scene illustrates the conflict underlying the community—who will win the ‘game’ of controlling Babylon?

The dynamic of the quad illustrates a cross section of vocations in the hamlet: a teacher, a telegraph operator, a druggist, a merchant’s son. The oil men stand as the imposing outside force of industrialism on the local farmers, while Edgerton embodies the relentless farmer, whose rare sojourn to town lends him vulnerability midst the forces of the urban oil men. Marlowe immediately hones in on the “driller’s sly movements” and when he imposes physical force onto

McDevitt, urging him to stay, Marlowe asserts a command to unhand McDevitt. Until this

11 Foxtown is the community of Pennsville where Naylor spent his childhood and later started a practice after he married Lena Ervilla Naylor, his second wife (Flaherty 318). 46 moment in the bar, the text places Marlowe as an inoculate observer—a listener who refuses to place loyalty toward one party over the other. Marlowe’s action is precluded by the deliberate assertion of the two friends for assistance in blockading the juggernaut force of the urban, industrial oil-men.

The pending ‘fleecing’ of the local populous by the oil-men pushes Marlowe from atop of his previously navigated fence-sitting regarding loyalty, to the deliberate action of siding with the local personage. Within moments, sides have formed, and a gang of oil-men threatens the town’s natives. After exchanging blows, the men separate and freeze when Marlowe yells

“Back!” Here Naylor fully formulates Marlowe’s assimilation into the local culture, embodying tactics bearing a resemblance to the “manly” themes written by turn of the century Frank Norris and often assigned to rural natives.12 “Eyes flashing,” Marlowe boldly pronounces “I did not come in here to participate in a saloon brawl, but to rescue my friend from your clutches. I was attacked; I retaliated. I am unarmed. Throw aside your weapons, and I will fight any or all of you, single-handed” (265). Though it might read as a straight mapping of good versus evil, the conflict casts a shadow on the shaky relationship between the community and the industrial outside. When McDevitt turns to the side with his friends, acting against the gambling oil-men, he temporarily diffuses the situation. McDevitt’s jesture demarcates the latent boundaries simmering beneath the locals and the infiltrating oil-men.

The tension shifts when McDevitt’s father enters the room and cries “Morris, my boy, come home, for God’s sake! Your mother and sister are up there, crying their eyes out over your doings” (265). The appearance of the senior McDevitt alters the countenance of Morris, whose

12 Frank Norris was the son a wealthy merchant and a “smothering” domestic mother. Most historians agree that his propensity for brutish writing can be explained by his early environment and was compounded by his years at University of California, Berkeley, where he was notoriously engaged in “wild” living. In 1898 he joined the staff at McClure’s and “saturated his own fiction with “manly” themes. Shi addresses his fiction in a chapter aptly titled “A World Full of Fists”(223-249). 47 belligerence emerges with strong resolve as he now refuses to leave the “den of iniquity” (265-

66). Leaving Morris behind, the senior McDevitt, Marlowe, Clark and Chandler exit the bar,

Marlowe internally dialoguing “there are but three things that shape our destinies—heredity, environment, and ourselves” (267). McDevitt’s decision to stay inside the bar demonstrates

Naylor’s refusal to wholistically endorse nativism and begs the questions of citizenry inherent in regionalist works. Though small in scale, the incident illustrates and brings together a question of the national confusion in the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. The desire to understand and place oneself in relationship to an inherited past, distinct geographic location, and personal desire manifests itself in a barroom, in a village aptly named “Babylon.”

Naylor posits an interesting inter-cultural stratification when the sun rises the morning after the barroom confrontation and the rural cattleman Edgerton and Babylon’s own Morris

McDevitt are both missing. The crisis breaks the “local township” community by asserting that the village-resident, McDevitt, has invoked harm upon the country farmer, Edgerton. While

Naylor places much emphasis on the outside forces acting on the rural region of Babylon, this conflict commemorates the struggles present even inside the locale. A series of clues lead to the dragging of the river with grappling irons, and Edgerton’s body is discovered. McDevitt, however, remains missing, and an uproarious lynch mob from Foxtown believes him to be a close associate to the young cattleman’s death. Naylor creates an interesting convergence of images in the entanglement of the country cattleman, the undisciplined villager McDevitt and the corruptive impact of the non-native oil-men. Discontinuities and conflicts of nationl scale press themselves within the margins of the rural. When once again “night fell, bleak and black” the charged atmosphere maintains itself: “squads of vociferous men [were] . . . upon the streets until almost midnight” (272). 48

Marlowe sits quietly in his room, thinking about the heavy situation. In the person of

Marlowe and his subsequent actions, Naylor offers articulation of the webbed tension between rural and urban forces in Babylon; Marlowe’s position as an outsider, who has gained acceptance by the residents, positions him to plausibly write a history that allows a tenuous respect rather than rift between the breach in the local and the broader portrait of the national. In the middle of the night, McDevitt comes to Marlowe, having emerged from hiding in the attic of his father’s building. Whereas Marlowe, indigenous of the urban, sought the village of Babylon as a refuge,

McDevitt, indigenous to the rural now must flee Babylon, seeking refuge within the folds of a distant urban city. Pleading innocence, McDevitt seeks Marlowe’s help in his departure, all the while unknowingly acting as a catalyst for Marlowe’s resolve toward facing his own past. Both men stand at a convergence of permanently altering their known place because of the clashing of urban and rural elements.

Here the work Ralph Marlowe stands as distinctively illustrative of what Broadhead argues as writers composing through “a social organization of the literary field specific to that time and place” (11). Naylor brings together his specific knowledge of the social and literary atmosphere, of deep understanding of rural traditions and the battle to position them against the urban. Using a distinct place, the village of Babylon, the reader becomes privy to a converge of conflicts on a large and small scale. Embracing conceptions of Howells’ traditional, moralist storytelling with an emerging taste for controversial social issues untouched by previous mainstream writers, Naylor’s work positions him as part of a group that “paved” the road toward the edgier topics broached by writers after the turn of the century.

The mainstream readers at the turn of the nineteenth-century might have still found a strong need for the characteristically “romantic” resolution to the novel’s loose ends. Naylor 49 indulges this need, alongside his continued illustration of demonstrating crisis and even the possible symbiosis of both rural and urban habiliments. June arrives “with its sunshine and roses, its moonlight and dew” and Marlowe basks in “tranquil happiness” found in his peaceful surroundings and his love for Dolly Barwood, Doc’s youngest daughter (279). Settling back into relaxed life at the drugstore, Marlowe reclines on the steps of the drugstore reading his medical journal, half–listening as Jep recounts local lore. The sound of the evening train’s arrival is noted by both men, who cannot believe how quickly the day has transpired. When Lou Crider, the traveling drug salesman approaches the sun-basking pair, they maintain an easy and relaxed countenance. It is Crider, who acts uncharacteristically disturbed, who requests a private conference with Marlowe and subsequently reports the arrival of a woman asking for Marlowe’s whereabouts.

To create a summer’s day, Marlowe relaxing and saturated with the simplicity of

Babylon, listening to Jep’s tales, browsing in his own indulgence in a medical journal paints a portrait that demonstrates Naylor’s awareness of the demands of regionalist writing; the brushstrokes present a relaxed folkish setting coupled with the colorful diatribe of Jep, lure the reader into assuming boundaries will be maintained. Crider’s pronouncement of the arrival of

Marlowe’s intoxicated sister startles the reader by forcing Marlowe to negotiate once again tensions of urban and rural. Stella, Marlowe’s actress-sister announces “I’ve come to take you back to Cleveland with me.” She continues with a forceful “You’re going back to live with me; you are—you shall” (285). Stella’s demanding vocality acts as a manifestation of any remaining pull Marlowe harbors of returning to urban society; she also forces him to disclose fully the relics of his past life to Doc Barwood, who subsequently helps Marlowe determine a causeway to meet the needs of his sister while still maintaining himself in Babylon. 50

Marlowe steadfastly determines not to return to Cleveland but proposes Stella and her young son move to “quiet and peaceful” Babylon. The residential compromise stands as logical, but her refusal iterates her inability to see beyond her cosmopolitan environment: “To live in this miserable little town? I could not stand it, Ralph—I don’t understand how you do!” (289).

Unable to envision or navigate an environment apart from her native Cleveland, the sister seemingly strikes against the grain of the novel’s objective of resolving tensions of class and region. Here Naylor demonstrates triumph for Marlowe’s self, but failure in the ability of the provincial to ‘save’ his sister from herself. That same evening, Stella, in an act of despair, commits suicide, abandoning her young son to the care of Marlowe (289-90). Though the melodramatic ending seems out of place with the overall style of the novel, the ending poses questions about the pending future of amalgamating a nation with continuing separation between rural and cosmopolitan communities.

Marlowe navigates and creates a narrative that allows him to maintain elements of his old life coupled with a new life in Babylon. The work concludes with a forward looking spirit of a

Babylon that balances the attributes of the provincial alongside the implements of the cosmopolitan:

Four years have passed, bringing marked changes to the sleepy little town. It has

taken on steady growth. [ . . .] The streets are paved. The town is sewered, well

lighted, and has a telephone system. The saloons are still there—more of them

than ever; but law and order prevails. King Oil has worked wonders during his

brief reign. Swiftly and surely a new Babylon is rising upon the ruins of the old.

(291) 51

In Ralph Marlowe Naylor creates a work that astutely demonstrates the qualities Broadhead advocates as shared by multiple renowned regional pieces: a folkish rural setting and characters of local color. Capitalizing on the profound interest in provincial life Naylor’s narrative also highlights the tensions between the urban and rural, another quality found in exemplar pieces, leaving a realistic and compelling portrait of a rural Ohio village at the turn of the century.

52

CONCLUSIONS

January 29

Rainy and windy all day. Went to Columbus to Republican Glee Club banquet, at Col. Athletic Club; Dougherty, toastmaster; Harrick, principal speaker; Naylor, funmaker. Had great time; got to bed at 1. A.M. 13

June 13

Clear nearly all day and pleasantly warm. Lena’s boy born this eve about 7:30. Bob went to dance over the river. Lena’s babe weights 9#. I finished mowing the lawn, wrote a few editorial paragraphs and a letter to Gov. Willis.14

July 24 Partly cloudy, and very hot; rainted this eve. Got letter from Robert at Camp Willis and one from Lucile. I mowed lawn and cleaned street. James Whitcomb Riley dead. Olive got notice from her reverent husband that he means to do nothing for her.15 (Naylor Journals)

Dating from 1916, these samples from Naylor’s journal highlight a window into his range of interests—the personal, the mundane, the political, the literary—the sprawling net of his life proving eclectic, diverse, and always interactive. In Ralph Marlowe James Ball Naylor reflects these elements and also the depth of his understanding of the needs of readers from multiple regions and social strata. Attune to audience demands, he crafts the story in the popular regionalist style while maintaining his wit and strong affinity for those whom he characterizes.

Naylor’s acute awareness of the tensions between rural and urban living allow him to generate commentary on each while refraining from a strident judgment against either. In his poem “Who

Wins His Way at Home” Naylor explores the glories of the juxtaposed extremes:

Due honor to the man who goes

13 Harrry M. Daughterty (1860-1941) was a prominent Ohio politician who served as Attorney General under Harding. Myron T. Herrick (1854-1929) was a businessman, politician, Governor of Ohio (1904-06) and United States Ambassador to France (1912-14, 1921-29). 14 Lena was Naylor’s daughter. Governor of Ohio 1915-1917, Frank B. Willis (1871-1928) also served in the U.S. Senate (1921-28). 15 Naylor’s children, Robert and Lucille, were at Camp Willis, an Ohio National Guard camp at present day Upper Arlington, the troops were to assist along the Mexican Border in defending against Pancho Villa. 53

In quest of unknown lands

Who braves the waste of arctic snows—

The reach of tropic sands;

Who leaves a wake across the lakes

Or o’er the salt-sea foam,

But honor more to him who makes

Discoveries at home. (Goldenrod and Thistledown 1-8)

He stresses symbiosis—a communion of the beautiful elements of adventurous living coupled with the freshness and leisure offered in a more provincial environment. James Ball Naylor unassumingly offers a piece of the peace found in rural America at the turn of the nineteenth- century.

This work attempts to answer the question of Naylor’s success and subsequent fading away from literary history by illustrating the work Ralph Marlowe as an exemplar text marrying traditional regionalist qualities and questions of urban and rural in a manner that appeals to the mass market reader at the turn of the nineteenth century. Little scholarship and criticism exist on these turn-of the century, mass market novels, though digital publishing allows greater accessibility to what would otherwise become lost works. Though one of a multitude of unstudied authors from 1880-1915, Naylor also deserves critical attention for his historical trilogy, his splendid stand-alone novel, The Kentuckian (1905), and his volumes of poetry, much of which was collected by family and remains unpublished. Naylor’s homespun philosophy, brilliant descriptors of the natural wonders of the Muskingum River Valley and ability to provoke pensive thought using simple language provides a unique window into days gone by in an area still celebrating rural wonder. 54

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