University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan the POLITICAL APPOINTMENT of AMERICAN WRITERS
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This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received ® 7-2422 BRUBAKER, Bill Ray, 1933- THE POLITICAL APPOINTMENT OF AMERICAN WRITERS. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1966 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE POLITICAL APPOINTMENT OF AMERICAN WRITERS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By B ill R.a^Brubaker, B.S, in Ed., M.A. The Ohio S tate U niversity 1966 Approved by Adviqer Department ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In this study of patronage it is fitting that I acknowledge my pa trons. During my preparation for the general examination, I received the aid of Professor Claude M. Simpson, Jr., who tutored and buoyed me. In preparation of this study I received the assistance of the late Professor William Charvat. To him I am indebted for documents from the Massachu setts Historical Society and for assistance in securing materials other wise unknown to me. To Professor Matthew J . Bruccoli I am indebted for assuming the directorship of my dissertation and for advice in its pre paration. I am indebted to the Graduate Committee of the Department of English for purchasing microfilms and photostats of official documents and letters. I am grateful to the Department of English under the chairman ships of Professors Robert Estrich and Albert J. KUhn for continued en couragement and support. I owe thanks to many libraries and library services. Among them are the Interlibrary Loan Desk, the Ohio State University Center for Textual Studies, and the Rare Books Room, all of the Ohio State University Li braries. I am heavily indebted to the National Archives and Records Ser vice and the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress for facilities in the examination of federal records and other documents. I am indebted to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Newberry Library, the New York Public Library, the Ohio State Historical Museum, the Peabody Insti- tute, and the Princeton University Library for information, copies of let ters, or loan of rare books. I especially wish to thank the several who either in person or through correspondence offered materials, answered queries, or directed my searches. These include in the National Archives, Mr. W. Neil Frank lin, who answered my letters with promptness and professional fullness, and Mr. Bonald Heise, who guided me through official files expertly. I also acknowledge the aid of Mr. John C. Broderick, of the Manuscript Divi sion, Library of Congress, whose help made the library manuscripts more easily available. I acknowledge the advice of Messrs. Ralph C. Aderman, Thomas B. Brasher, and Randolph C. Randall. I owe thanks to those who con ducted searches for me: Messrs. Alexander P. Clark of the Princeton Uni versity Library, Frank N. Jones of the Peabody Institute, Stephen T. Riley of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Colton Storm of the Newberry Library. And to my patroness, Joyce Brubaker, who made it possible. iii VITA May 7, 1933 .....................Born-Blackburn, Oklahoma 1955 ................................. B.S. in Ed., Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 1955-1956 ......................... Graduate Assistant, Department of English, Southern Illinois University 1956 ......... M.A., Southern Illin o is U niversity 1956-1958 .........................U.S. Army 1958-1961 ......................... Teacher, Wood River High School, Wood River, I llin o is 1961-1964 ......................... Graduate Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State U niversity, Columbus, Ohio 1964-1966 ......................... In stru cto r, The Ohio S tate U niversity 1966- ............................. Assistant Professor, Department of English, The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida FIELDS OF STUDY Major F ield : Nineteenth Century American L iteratu re Studies in Nineteenth Century American Literature. Professor William Charvat Studies in the Age of Shakespeare. Professor Harold Walley Twentieth Century F iction. Professor Claude Simpson Literature and Culture. Professor Roy Harvey Pearce Swift. Professor Robert Elliott Dryden. Professor Wallace A. E. Maurer iv CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................................................................................... i i VITA iv CHAPTER I . Patronage: Lim its and D is tin c tio n s ................................................. 1 II. The Common Histoxy of the Political Patronage and the Appointment of W rite rs .......................................... 16 III. The Political Utility of W riters ................................................. IV. The Writer's Assessment of Political Appointment . 121 V. The Effect of Political Appointment on the Production of L ite ra tu re ........................................................ 173 APPENDIX......................................................................................................................... 261 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 268 v CHAPTER I PATRONAGE: LIMITS AND DISTINCTIONS Sometime before November 8, 1782, P h ilip Freneau received his f i r s t government appointment as clerk in the Postmaster-General*s office. On July 31, 1909, Edwin Arlington Robinson ended his tenure as special em ployee of the New York Customhouse. Between these appointments stretch nearly 130 years of development of the political party system and Ameri can literature; the appointments of Freneau and Robinson constitute the historical limits of this study. It is a study of how during that time politics have appropriated writers and writers have appropriated politics in such fashion as to make suitable the term "political patronage" with respect to the appointment of a surprising number of American writers as clerks in government bureaus, as secretaries, consuls, and ministers in the foreign service, as officials in customhouses, and as members of Pres idents* cabinets. If one uses the term "writer" uncritically to include historians, editors, and journalists, besides writers of belles-lettres, the number under appointment is very large. In this broad sense of the term "writer," a conservative list comprises forty-five names, including such diverse figures as the historians George Bancroft and J. L. Motley, the editors John L. O’Sullivan and Alexander H. and Edward Everett, as well as such peripheral w riters as Howells’s Ohio frien d , John James P ia tt, and Whitman’s frien d s, W, D. O’Connor and John Burroughs. I f one limits the list to those whose literary significance endures, the count 1 remains large, at least fifteen names, including Irving, Paulding, Haw thorne, Melville, Howells, Whitman, Lowell, and Robinson. I set out here to explore the relation between the political appoint ment of these men and th e ir lite ra ry production. What e ffe c t had p o liti cal appointment on the literary production of these writers? In part the question reduced itself to substantive issues which, given sufficient his torical record, may be answered with certainty. These real issues include dates of tenure, the official nature of the service, the character of the appointment as a literary sinecure, the effect of the appointment on the writer in terms of subject, technique, or the actual production of manu scripts and books, and the rationales of patron and appointee. Of these, perhaps the most revealing is the latter, that is, the contrast betweep . the patron's view of the writer and the writer's view of himself as ap pointee. Necessarily, the patron saw the writer as a political appointee subject to the informal laws of political life. The writer wished to see himself as literary appointee subject to another set of rules. The question of the effect of political appointment also reduced it self to the important issue of the quality of these writers® literary production. Were they better writers for having received appointment? Was the character of their writing made essentially different from what if might otherwise have been? Although their political appointments had a decided impact on their lives, the writers of this study remained unable or chose not to appropriate their official experiences as an imaginative resource. This is a surprising discovery, considering the number of wri ters who sought appointment and the intensity of their desire. Yet the evidence suggests reasons for their failure to use official experience as the substance of writing. Many had defined their art in its most mature form and purpose by the time they received appointments; among such wri ters are Melville and Lowell. Some, like Lew Wallace and Bayard Taylor, accepted formulae of popularity that affected their writing more directly than sinecure; in or out of office they were public literary men, com fortable in their role and their art as limited by their audience. Oth ers, like Howells and Hawthorne, made distinctions between political jour nalism and imaginative literature that forbade their: using imaginative writing as an instrument of party. Thus political appointment did not create the essential character of the works of the writers under consid eration here. This study attempts, then, to contribute a chapter in the broader study of the profession of authorship in the 19th century, with particu lar reference to the effect of political patronage on authorship and the production of