With Head, Heart, and Hands: Elbert Hubbard's Impact on B.J. Palmer

Chiropractic History Reprinted by permission of the Association for the History of Chiropractic Volume 23, No. 2 - 2003 27 With Head, Heart, and Hands: Elbert Hubbard's Impact on B.J. Palmer GLENDA WIESE, Ph.D.* Elbert Hubbard, the creator and developer of the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community in East Aurora, New York, was a mentor to B.J. Palmer, the self-styled "developer" of chiropractic. This paper explores the relationship between Palmer, Hubbard, and chiropractic. The most visible sign of Hubbard's influence on B.J. Palmer was the creation of the Palmer Print Shop. Hubbard had instigated the Roycroft Press in 1895, and Palmer modeled his own print center, in a more modest way, after his mentor's. He also employed many of the marketing techniques to pro mote chiropractic that Hubbard used to promote the Roycroft books, furniture, and metal work. Palmer even styled his personal appearance after Hubbard's, complete with long hair pulled back with a band around the forehead, and a black flowing tie. When Hubbard went down with the Lusitania, B.J. purchased one of Hubbard's "tall-case" clocks, and proceeded to furnish much of the early Palmer School of Chiropractic (PSC) with the Roycroft pieces. Those pieces can still be viewed on the Palmer campus today. This paper will explore these themes in more depth. "Life Without Industry is Guilt: community eventually produced handmade furniture Industry Without Art Is Brutality." Elbert Hubbard (1898), leather goods (1905), pottery (1901), and metal work. Between 1895 and 1938 the Roycroft community The above quote synthesizes the Roycroft communi played a large role in the popularization of the arts and ty's dual themes of the inherent dignity of work and the crafts movement to middle-class America. necessity for art. Elbert Hubbard established the Roycroft community in the village of East Aurora, New B.J. and Elbert's Friendship York, in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Hubbard, born in 1856, joined with John Larkin to found How B.J. Palmer and Elbert Hubbard met is not doc the Larkin Soap Company in 1875 . The company was a umented. The author speculates that they may have met huge success, partly as a result of their marketing strate on the lecture circuit. Hubbard was one of the most gy of giving away premiums in return for their soap sought after lecturers of the first decade of the twentieth labels. Hubbard decided in 1892, at the age of thirty-six, liil' A& .. IE &IISS!J! to leave the business to become a writer. After a brief sojourn at Harvard University as an undergraduate, Hubbard visited England and met William Morris. He determined to go back to America and try to produce books in Morris's Kelmscott Press tradition, but with an American character. What began as a modest printing establishment in 1895 with the publication ofthejournals Th e Philistine and Th e Fra, soon evolved into a commu nity of almost five hundred artists, craftsmen, and other workers who were drawn together by Hubbard's charis ma and by a loose allegiance to the social and artistic ideals of the English reformers John Ruskin and William Morris. In addition to the printing shop, the Roycroft <; 1003 Association for the History of Chiropractic. • Address correspondence to Dr. Glenda Wiese. 1000 Brady Street, Davenpon , Iowa. 52803; email : [email protected] Elbert Hu bbard, lecture1; promote1; and f ounder of the Roycroft com munity of arrisans, circa 1900. With Head, Heart , and Hands - Glenda Wiese Chiropractic History 28 Volume 23, No. 2 - 2003 Reprinted by permission of the Association for the History of Chiropractic 29 "That is another ad vertiserilcnt. We arc on to This lett er from B.J . Palm er to Hubbard is interesting vent support ers. each other" (2). for several reasons. First, B.J . tended not to talk about Another area in whi ch the two men agreed was their As mentioned earli er, the two men did correspond. hi s problems. Those who lwd di sappo inted him were political stance on women's ri ght to vote. Both 1-lubbmd The Palmer College Special Collecti ons contains a circa usually dealt with by not bein g menti oned again - this let and Pa lm er support ed the women's cause, whi ch was 19 14 copy o f a marketing fl yer for Hubbard 's publicati on ter is a departure from hi s usual mode. Second ly, be in g hotl y contested in th e decade o f 19 10- 1920. 1f1 e Fra. On the side o f the fl yer Hubbard wrote a hur because B.J . tended not to talk about disappo intments, Hu bbard embl azoned hi s position on women's suffrage ri ed note: " Dear Dr. Palmer. Here is where I need help. thi s letter gives an in sight into hi s perceptio ns o f th e on the sil o of a Roycroft bam. B.J. proclaimed hi s stance Elbert Hubbard'' (3). In a dra ft o f a letter to Hubbard events that led to th e formati on of Uni versal Coll ege o f to th e citi zens of Da venport by painting the same phrase from B.J . on 6-09- 19 10 B.J . writes Chiropracti c. Third. it docs indicate some d egree o f a on the PSC smokestack. Both read: "Votes for women" (6). Your letter came at a time when good rec iprocal relationship between Palmer and Hubbard . cheer was what I most needed. I have pl odded In 19 14 Elbert Hubbard visit ed B.J. Pa lmer and Elbert Hubbard, Mnstcr Advertiser along here fo r years and I had reached a point signed the Palmer resid ence guestbook: " I believe in B ..l . were (sic) I felt I must say, "What's the use?" .. P., I beli eve in Mrs. B.J . P., I believe in work, laughter, Hubbard used the marketing skill s that he had honed pl ay, study, and love" (5). in th e Larkin Soap Company to expand th e Rtycro ft A photograph of Elbert llubbard and IJ .J. Palmer 011 the Palmer The personal situati on is briefl y this (not that I The nature of th eir relationship appears to have been p ~ ri o di e al s, e Tile School campus. circa 1912. Note the long hair tmd.f7ow i11g bow ties want to bore you with personal troubles but enterprises. His 1'l1 Philistine, Fra, and each man wore. more to g ive you an insight into what I have somewhat lopsided. B.J . Palm er was more influenced by Lillie Journeys carried. ....tili i1ierous advertisements for hi s fri endship with Hu bbard than Hubbard was by hi s Roycroft products, as well as paid advertisement s. Said ccn!ury, and B..J . Palmer was developing hi s own follow tried to accomplish). I 0 years ago my father fri endship with Palmer. Although Palmer alludes to his Charles Frederi ck Hi gham in "The Adverti ser's Weekl y'': ing late in that decade. Documents in the Palm er Co ll ege skipped and Jell me, a boy of 18, with over fri endship with Hubbard, Elbert Hubbard m akes little No man of any age understood so well the specia l collecti ons indi cate that by 19 10 they had met and $5,000 in debts, a bad name and a broken, reference to Palmer. oth er th an in hi s adverti s ing pieces. were corresponding. According to B.J., in The Bignes.f ruined business. I assumed the proposition power o f publicit y and none could compare The difference in their ages and the different stages each with him in th e writing o f adverti senlcnt s. ofth e Fellow Within , they not onl y corresponded, but vis and have work ed it to where it is. My business was in th eir careers at th e times th ey met may explain the The first signed adverti seme nt was Elbert ited each other, breaking their journeys to spend time policy at that time was "That what was ri ght in equality of the relati onship. Hubbard 's, and no advertisements have pa id w ith one another. Hubbard would vi sit Palmer at WAS right and I would fi ght it al ong those Whatever the depth of th eir fri endship, B.J . was Palmer 's residence at 808 Brady Street, Davenport , Iowa, lines unt il I won."' With this idea in mind I advertisers better than the hundreds which undoubtedly influenced by Hubbard 's appearance. Both ha ve appeared under his name. Most and Palmer would stay at the Roycroft Inn in East ripped into anything where I saw any mi srep wore their hair long, sometimes pulled back and sporting Ame can firm s o f reputation have utili zed hi s Aurora, New York, and occasionally spend time at resenta ti ons going on. I sailed into them. ri a sweatband. Both men wore long, nowing, black bow fa cile pen on their behalf; he was not only the Hubbard 's pri vate cabin on the outskirts o f East Aurora No man can be truthful until he gets the ti es, as di d many of Hubbard 's and Palmer 's most fer- greatest advertis in g writer o f his time but also (I ). B.J. tells thi s story of one o f Hubbard 's un expec ted dishonesty out of him.

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