Brian O’Doherty/The Structural Plays

The Graphic Arts Collection received its new copy of Brian O’Doherty/Structural Plays, published by Stoney Road Press, with both pleasure and sadness yesterday. James O’Nolan, co-director of Stoney Road, passed away in July 2018 and so, this will be the last of his beautifully printed books.

Based in Dublin, Stoney Road Press is the only independent commercially run fine art print studio in Ireland. An obituary for O’Nolan, published in The Irish Times, July 21, 2018, was titled “Printmaker who made his mark as an artist. His enduring legacy is as a teacher and mentor, and as an interpreter across different media for some of the country’s most distinguished contemporary artists.”

In his work with his business partner David O’Donoghue at the Stoney Road Press (SRP) in Dublin since 2001, James O’Nolan created an internationally renowned fine print press, counting among its clients some of the most prominent names in contemporary Irish art, and setting a globally appreciated standard of excellence which has seen its products displayed in leading galleries throughout Ireland, the UK and the US.

O’Nolan, who has died aged 65 from injuries sustained while cycling in inner-city Dublin, was a self-taught printmaker, and made his mark as an artist in woodblock and carborundum, examples of which are held in public collections such as the National College of Art and Design and the Arts Council. They are described by James Hanley, Keeper of the Royal Hibernian Academy, as having “an intellectual purity of geometric and colour-filled abstraction.” …In his eulogy at O’Nolan’s Humanist funeral service in Dublin this month, Hanley gave a pointed example of this in practice: “Thirty odd years ago, one student [of O’Nolan’s] vacillated and said she had picked textiles, but really wanted to do fine art. James told her firmly, ‘Go . . . and change to fine art.’ The art student concerned was Rachel Joynt, today one of Ireland’s greatest sculptors.”

…O’Nolan came from a particularly renowned Irish family. His father, Kevin, was a Professor of Ancient Classics at University College, Dublin and one of his uncles was Brian O’Nolan, the writer Flann O’Brien, aka the satirist Myles na gCopaleen, columnist with this newspaper. His mother, Maureen Dwyer, who died when he was aged six, was the matron at Glenstal Abbey School where her husband was teaching when James was born. Kevin O’Nolan later remarried, his second spouse being Marie O’Connell, a noted novelist of the period.

“In re-publishing the Structural Plays,” wrote O’Nolan, “the primary aim was to gather them together in one place, a sort of textbook from which they could be enjoyed, read together, or used as a blueprint to re-create the performances. The original notations are included at the bottom of each. These, together with Brian’s notes on the plays, provide a clear account of how the plays might be performed today.” To page through a digital version, see: https://issuu.com/stoneyroadpress/docs/brian_odoherty_structural_plays-iss


Brian O’Doherty is quoted as saying, “The Ogham Drawings, which preoccupied me for over twenty years, look like drawings, behave like drawings, can be seen as drawings, are drawings, but they also have a voice, that is, they can be spoken and performed. Vowel Grid is a performed drawing.” Many of the structural plays are inspired by Ogham script–an ancient Celtic translation of the Roman alphabet into a writing system of 20 linear characters.

An artist and a teacher, O’Doherty exhibited at Documenta and the Venice Biennale; served as director of both the visual arts and film and media programs at the National Endowment for the Arts; taught film and art criticism at Barnard College and Long Island University; and has written two works of fiction, The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. and The Deposition of Father McGreevy, which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2000. He received the College Art Association’s Mather Award for art criticism in 1965 and was a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2009–2010.

 

 

Maria Philippina Küsel’s Angels

Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel-Werck: alles das jenige Was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments Von den Heiligen Engeln Gottes Dero Erscheinungen, Verrichtungen, Bottschafften, Gesandschafften, auf mancherley Art und Weise aus Göttlicher Verodnung zu finden ist … ; In zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklärungs- und Andachts Reimen vorstellend... [Biblical Angel-Work: all that which is in Holy Divine Scripture Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God, the apparitions, works, bouquets, ministries, in some ways from divine order are to be found …; In dainty cupids, together with German descriptive and devotional rhymes…] (Augspurg: Gedruckt bey Johann Jakob Lotter, [ca. 1705-1710]). 15 cm.

 

Many academic collections including Princeton hold a copy of Johann Ulrich Krauss’s late 17th-century emblem book of angels but our recently acquired miniature edition (seen here) is extremely rare.

At 15 cm or approximately 6 inches, all the plates have been redrawn and newly engraved for the tiny hands of children. In both editions, the frontispiece and 31 plates were made by Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), a member of the celebrated German family of engravers. The daughter of Melchior Küsel I and the niece of Matthäus Küsel, she and her sisters, Maria Magdalene Küsel and Johanna Sibylla Küsel, were admired for their designs and for their technique in copper plate engraving. See volume 20, Hollstein’s German Etchings, Engravings & Woodcuts 1400-1700. Maria Magdalena Küsel to Johann Christoph Laidig (Amsterdam, Van Gendt, 1977). This volume includes Maria Magdalena Küsel (1683-1707), Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), Matthäus Küsel (1629-1681), and other family members.

Nina Musinsky has researched this rare volume and writes:

The original Biblisches Engel- u[nd] Kunst Werck, the first of his religious publications, used an innovative visual presentation, which Krauss would follow in his vast Historische Bilder-Bibel (1698-1700): in the uppermost portion of each of the 34 engravings was a large Biblical scene in rectangular format, while the lower half contained a smaller, related scene within ornamental borders. The explanatory caption and 12-line German poem were engraved at the top and between the two parts of the engravings.

In this “baby” edition, the explanatory text for each plate, which reprints the original engraved text, is printed in letterpress on the facing page. The preliminaries are the same, except that this edition replaces the dedication to Kaiser Leopold with a rather humbler dedication to children, a 7-page Vorrede und Zuschrift an die Gott- und Tugend- liebende zarte Kinder-]ugend, in which Krauss declares his desire to plant the seeds of pious habits in children and youth.

Other than the frontispiece, Kusel’s fine engravings modify the plates of the larger edition in various ways. First, they contain no engraved text. Secondly, Kusel’s adaptations of the upper scenes usually eliminate some architectural or background detail, and select salient details to focus on. Most, but not all, are in reverse. In the lower portions are one to five roundels (occasionally overlapping) on unadorned backgrounds, without the elaborate rococo borders of the original plates, the roundels containing an adaptation of the religious scenes shown in the original engraving, once or twice including a new scene not in the original (e.g., plate 10).

Plate wear shows that this edition post-dates the only other known edition of the plates, printed by Johann Christoph Wagner, ca. 1700, for Krauss. This edition is not to be confused with the 1702 edition of the entire Historische Bilder-Bibel, including the Engel- Werck, which contained smaller reversed copies of the original plates, including the engraved text, also by Maria Philippina Kusel and by her sister Johanna Sibylla Krauss. That 1702 edition (of which the Bavarian State Library is digitized) is much larger than this one, the engravings are different, and it includes no letterpress text; nor was it explictly intended for children, as is this one.

See also Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel- u. Kunst Werck: alles das jenige, was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments von den heiligen Engeln Gottes … zu finden ist … in zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklarungs und Andachts- Reimen vorstellend: mit Fleiss zusammen getragen, in Kupfer gestochen und verlegt / von Johann Ulrich Krause … [Biblical Angels and Art Work: all that is to be found in the Holy Divine Scripture of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God … in dainty cupids, with attached German explanatory and devotional rhymes presented: together with diligence, engraved in copper by Johann Ulrich Krause] (Augsburg: [Johann Ulrich Krauss], 1694). 35 cm. Rare Books Oversize NE654.K81 A2q

Diploma Scherzoso


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this satirical diploma or certificate from the University of Big Noses. Note the empty spaces where we can fill in your name, should it apply.

The document states, it has come to our attention that certain people are carrying inappropriate noses on their faces. All such men and women are to go to the town square (Piazza Bottom), where disproportionate schnozzolas will be ground down to size.

The etcher is Pietro Ridolfi, who was active between 1710 and 1716, although this print has several earlier dates.

 

See left: no. 1247 in Zotti Minici, Le stampe popolari dei Remondini (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, c1994). Marquand Library NE659.2 .Z677 1994

Noi Macrobio Culaccione visitatore generale dell’ Università de Nasi Grossi indecenti nappioni smisurati dinutili difformati e sproportionati auditore di male lingue e maldicenti consultore della Congregatione de Gossi, protettore de buffoni magri, &c. in Bassano per Gioseppe Remondini [18th-cent.] Quarto bifolium, each leaf 220 x 162, each inside page with one engraved plate (158 x 128 within platemarks).

 
See a copy that has been hand colored: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/stampe/schede/H0110-16026/

The Photogravures of the American Realists

[left] John Sloan, “The Toymaker Sounded a Bacchic Refrain,” photogravure from drawing, v.3, p.66 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

 

In 1904, William Glackens (1870-1938) was one of several artists commissioned to illustrate a set of the 19th-century French novels of Charles Paul de Kock, translated into English for the Frederick J. Quinby Company of Boston. The plan was to produce fifty volumes in a variety of editions from deluxe to less expensive. When Glackens realized the extent of the project, he contacted his friends John Sloan (1871-1951) and George Benjamin Luks (1867-1933), who were also hired by the Quinby firm.

William Glackens, “Here are Your Trousers,” photogravure from drawing, v.16, p.7 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

Some volumes include the work of several artists, while other novels were reserved for only one. Both etchings and drawings were created and editioned under the direction of the artist before being shipped to Boston. The drawings were primarily reproduced as high-end photogravures, quite an extravagance for such a large series. Eventually the publisher fell behind on payments to the artists and finally declared bankruptcy in 1907, long before all fifty volumes were completed.

John Sloan, “In Vain Did Dupont Shout, ‘Stop! Stop!” etching, v.4, p.224 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

John Sloan, “The Violin Mounted the Counter, The Hunting-Horn Seated Himself Upon the Loaves of Sugar, the Clarinet Upon a Keg of Glue, and the Fife Upon a Barrel of Molasses,” etching, v.4 frontispiece in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

Both Sloan and Glackens had their etchings editioned by the Peters Brothers in Philadelphia, following the bon à tirer each artist had approved. The photogravures were probably printed by the F. A. Ringler company in New York City.

“F. A. Ringler Company, at 21 and 23 Barclay Street and 26 and 28 Park Place, is called the largest printing-plate establishment in the world. …. The company’s building has over 25,000 square feet of floor space, where 175 skilled employees are engaged. Adjoining the office is the art department, where designs for all kinds of illustrations are made. Above is the electrotyping foundry, for which a whole floor, 50 x 175 feet, is used, and every conceivable invention for the perfect production of duplicate plates. . . . Above is the photoengraving department, in which the half-tone, zinc and copper etchings, and the general processes of engraving are conducted. Eight of the largest cameras, each operated by a separate artist, are required to keep up with the orders. –Kings Handbook of New York City (New York: M. King, 1893). Volume 1.

In 1910 John Quinn purchased a complete set of the etchings Sloan made for the de Kock series, paying (according to Sloan’s diary) $250. Helen Sloan noted that after Quinn’s death the artist bought back the whole collection from Quinn’s estate for $300.

George B. Luks, “Marie-Jeanne … Listened and Waited,” etching, v.22, p.82 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

George B. Luks, “The Dear Husband … Fell Down … and Found Himself on Top of Gustave,” photogravure from drawing, v.22, p.45 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

William Glackens, “Edmond Rose and Walked about the Room,” photogravure from drawing, v.20, p.23 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

William Glackens, “By Jove! Everybody Was Fighting, and I Did Like the Others,” etching, v.20 frontispiece in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

The Longest Painting in America

Longer than the Empire State Building is tall. Longer than three Statues of Liberty. Longer than fourteen blue whales. The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World is on view at Kilburn Mill, New Bedford, until October. https://nbwm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=19513a5d13964a48aa9d00973c8a9674

All 1,275 feet of the panorama are currently on exhibit for the first time in generations, authentically depicting a whaling voyage originating from the port of New Bedford in the mid-19th century. Two years in the making, the narrative work was completed around 1848 in five rolls by New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell, who traveled it around the country as a commercial enterprise.

The first four of Purrington and Russell’s rolls have been conserved and installed to the public thanks to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. https://www.whalingmuseum.org/programs/spectacle-motion-grand-panorama-whaling-voyage-round-world/

The location of the fifth and final section is unknown but hopefully the publicity this display receives will lead to the discovered of the last section.

 

Benjamin Russell lost his money in a banking scandal and signed on to a whaling ship that took him around the world. This is the trip he depicts, with a few historical events added throughout. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life are just a few of the literary sources referenced in the painting.


The four cotton rolls are hanging thanks to hundreds of magnets so that no damage will be done to the actual painting, and so that the entire display can travel if another venue is found somewhere around the country. Until then, the panorama has been digitized and can be viewed here: https://nbwm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=19513a5d13964a48aa9d00973c8a9674

See also: Allan Forbes, Whale ships and whaling scenes as portrayed by Benjamin Russell. Presenting reproductions in color of the paintings of the foremost artist in that field edited by Ralph M. Eastman, assisted by K.G. Rogers (Boston: Second Bank-State Street Trust Co., 1955). Forrestal Annex ND237.R86 F7

Shahn’s Jersey Homesteads Mural


Twenty minutes east of Princeton is the Jersey Homesteads (now called Roosevelt) created to resettle Jewish garment workers living in tenements in New York and Philadelphia. Each family accepted into the community was charged $500 and approximately 200 took advantage of the opportunity to live in government designed houses outside the city.

Many artists have been attracted to the area, beginning with Ben Shahn (1898-1969) and his partner (later wife) Bernarda Bryson (1903-2004). Shahn was invited to create a mural for the school and between 1937 and 38, Ben and Bernarda completed a 45-foot fresco depicting the history of the Jersey Homesteads. By 1947, the government begun selling the houses, first to their residents, then to outsiders. Shahn and Bryson rented a home for several years, finding it hard to give up their NYC apartment, but eventually moved to Roosevelt full-time.

The Shahn mural begins at the left with Jewish immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, featuring portraits of Shahn’s mother, Raphael Soyer, Albert Einstein, and Charles Steinmetz. The center section is filled with the crowded sweatshops and tenements where residents used to live, and the far right shows the planning and development of the Roosevelt cooperative factory and farms. Among the recognizable figures are the architect Alfred Kastner, Heywood Broun, Rexford Guy Tugwell, Senator Robert Wagner, Sidney Hillman, and John Brophy.

Bust of Roosevelt by Jonathan Shahn, located a short distance from the school.

 

Generations of Artists: Roosevelt, NJ from Princeton Community Television on Vimeo.

Art Across the Gutter

The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University holds the drawing “Ringside Seats” by George Bellows (1882-1925), which caused tremendous headaches for the artist when Collier’s magazine [ReCAP Oversize 0901.C711q] used it to illustrate the story “Chins of the Fathers” by Jonathan Brooks in the May 3, 1924 issue.

Bellows was promised $400 for this single drawing in graphite, black chalk, pastel and lithographic crayon along with scratchwork and stumping on smooth surfaced multi-ply cream wove paper. However, Collier‘s reproduced it as a double-page spread, the gutter slicing the single picture into two, along with cropping it on the right and in the middle. Bellows was furious.

Bellows sent the magazine a new invoice charging $800 for two drawings. As transcribed in Charles Morgan’s George Bellows Painter of America (1979), he continued:

“If there were any way of suing you for libel on the reproductions I would do so. To trim, cut, and otherwise mutilate an artist’s work is quite analogous to misrepresentation before the public, in this case going as far as criminal libel… It is time for publishers to be taught a lesson on this score for their guidance on the rare occasions when they deal with the work of serious artists.”

“…Not only have you shown the worst of taste, and a total lack of consideration for me, you are also guilty of [a snide trick.] Sanding the sugar, watering the milk, stretching one into two. Instead of appearing then before the public as having created one beautiful drawing, in which the proportion of light and shade was basic, I am shown by you as having made two rotten drawings in which [with] your trimming and cutting light and shade is completely destroyed. I therefore intend at least to be paid for the “two” rotten drawings, as per contract…”

Bellows hired Judge Van Slyke and sued the magazine, while continuing to work on an oil painting after the drawing. On July 14, Van Slyke sent a telegram “Defendant’s motion of Judgment denied, Judge holding that your picture was mutilated, its artistic merit destroyed and that our action for libel is maintainable. Congratulations!”

Sadly, Bellows died of peritonitis on January 8, 1925, resulting from a ruptured appendix, never seeing the lawsuit to its close.

George Wesley Bellows, Ringside Seats, 1924. Graphite and chalk drawing. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums

George Wesley Bellows, Ringside Seats, 1924. Oil on Canvas. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution.

 

The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland

Given that Princeton University has both Presbyterian and Scottish roots, this photography album filled with portraits by Thomas Annan (1829-1887) of ministers, elders, and missionaries affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a fitting acquisition. [See: Leitch, Alexander. A Princeton Companion.

Annan printed these images as deep, rich woodburytypes to preserve them for future generations (although the album pages are now quite warped). We don’t have a final date for the album but it includes material from 1862-82, including a composite photograph of identified theological students and their professors by Annan and an additional composite photograph of unidentified students and their professors “who have just finished their Theological course” by Edinburgh photographer John Moffat.


 

The men are identified on the lower part of each support by a facsimile autograph, followed by their position within the church. Below each portrait is engraved “Photo by T. Annan” and his respective studio addresses from Glasgow & Edinburgh spanning 1862-1882. It is unclear whether the album was commissioned by the Church or sold to the individuals but it is a rare volume. We hope someday to compare it with the one held by The University of Glasgow Special Collections: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/results_ca.cfm?ID=100789

Making and Knowing Prints

On Sunday there was a public lecture entitled, “A History of European Printmaking Processes in the 15th and 16th Centuries, with Their Antecedents” given byAd Stijnman at Columbia University to kick off a week of printmaking hosted by The Making and Knowing Project. It was a colorfully illustrated overview of precursors to relief and intaglio printmaking up to 1400, followed by an extended survey of Europe’s technical developments 1400–1600 in woodcut, metalcut, letterpress, engraving, etching and related printmaking techniques.

According to their website,

The Making and Knowing Project is a research and pedagogical initiative in the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University that explores the intersections between artistic making and scientific knowing. Today these realms are regarded as separate, yet in the earliest phases of the Scientific Revolution, nature was investigated primarily by skilled artisans by means of continuous and methodical experimentation in the making of objects – the time when “making” was “knowing.”

Drawing on techniques from both laboratory and archival research, the Making and Knowing Project crosses the science/humanities divide and explores the relationships between today’s labs and the craft workshops of the past, and between pre-industrial conceptions of natural knowledge and our understanding of science and art today.


Pamela H. Smith and The Making and Knowing Project, “Historians in the Laboratory: Reconstruction of Renaissance Art and Technology in the Making and Knowing Project,” Art History, Volume 39, Issue 2, pp. 210–233.
Pamela H. Smith, “New Directions in Making and Knowing,” West 86th, Volume 21, No. 1 (2016), pp. 3-5.
Donna Bilak, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel A. Klein, Pamela H. Smith, “The Making and Knowing Project: Reflections, Methods, and New Directions,” West 86th, Volume 21, No. 1 (2016), pp. 35-55.
Pamela H. Smith, Amy R. W. Meyers, Harold J. Cook, Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge, Paperback Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Stay tuned to the Making and Knowing Project for a longer workshop and lectures in October.

 

Carl Browne’s Open Letter

Carl Browne (1849-1914), Carl Browne’s Illustrated Open Letter (San Francisco, Calif.: C. Browne, [1800s]). January 16, 1887 issue composed of multiple sheets, entirely hand drawn and printed, with masthead also hand drawn. Cover design includes “a copy of an etching by Th. Nast of himself and presented by the Great Caricaturist of Harper’s Weekly to Carl Browne, ‘The Nast of the Pacific Coast.'” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

 

The Washington Post, Saturday, January 17, 1914https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-ragtag-band-reformers-organized-first-protest-march-washington-dc-180951270/

Carl Browne was an American cattle rancher, cartoonist, journalist, and politician. A former close political associate of controversial San Francisco politician Denis Kearney, Browne is best remembered as a top leader of the Coxey’s Army protest movement of 1894.

Carl Browne was a hulking ex-con, an itinerant labor leader and a mesmerizing speaker. A guest at Coxey’s farm and oddly dressed in fringed buckskin suit, he’d marched around, pronouncing that Coxey had been Andrew Jackson in a past life. Browne considered himself the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and asked that admirers call him “Humble Carl.” His eye for spectacle also made him a brilliant promoter. Together with Coxey, he planned a pilgrimage to Capitol Hill to present their Good Roads Bill, a $500 million Federal jobs plan.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-ragtag-band-reformers-organized-first-protest-march-washington-dc-180951270/#zigYFGUPuYzQtHz1.99

Browne was born July 4, 1849 in Newton, Iowa, and worked a variety of jobs during his younger years, including time as a printer, a painter, a cattle rancher, a cartoonist, and a journalist. He moved to San Francisco and became active in politics as an active member there of the Workingmen’s Party. Browne was recognized for his commitment to the organization and served as personal secretary to Denis Kearney, a politician who championed exclusion of the Chinese people from the United States.

While in San Francisco, Browne launched a radical weekly newspaper, which he edited and for which he drew political cartoons, The Open Letter. In a 1929 monograph, historian Donald L. McMurry described the colorful Browne in the following manner: “Browne’s picturesque appearance made him a conspicuous figure wherever he went. Tall, heavy, and bearded, his unkempt hair streaked with gray, he added to the effect by wearing an exaggerated Western costume. It consisted of a buckskin coat with fringes, and buttons made of Mexican silver half-dollars, high boots, a sombrero, a fur cloak when weather permitted, and around his neck, instead of a collar, a string of amber beads, the gift of his dying wife…. Closer inspection revealed the reason why his men called him ‘Old Greasy. It was suggested that he would have been a more pleasant companion if he had bathed oftener.”

At a Chicago convention of advocates of free silver held in August 1893, Browne made the acquaintance of Ohio politician Jacob Coxey, who saw in the charismatic labor agitator Browne a potential popularizer of his proposed governmental reforms. Browne had become well-known in Chicago as an exceptional public speaker, addressing a series of public meetings at Lake Front Park on the problem of unemployment and its possible solution — one means of which, he is said to have suggested, would be a march of unemployed workers on the nation’s capital.

Impressed with the charismatic Browne’s effectiveness and intellectual proximity to his own ideas, Coxey convinced Browne to join his campaign for the Good Roads Bill — a plan for putting the unemployed to work improving the transportation infrastructure of the United States. Browne obliged, both speaking in its behalf and drawing a series of cartoons illustrating the dysfunctional nature of the current economic system and depicting the benefits to be obtained by society through passage of the Coxey plan.

Coxey was pleased with Browne’s commitment to the cause of labor reform and persuaded him to stay with him at his home in Massillon, Ohio through the winter of 1893-94, a grim time when the United States was buffeted by the severe economic contraction known to history as the Panic of 1893. Together Coxey and Browne discussed a means of better publicizing the Good Roads Bill, with the pair determining to, in Coxey’s words, “send a petition to Washington with boots on” through a cross-country march of the unemployed.

Browne and Coxey held a series of public meetings in Massillon and other towns in the area, drawing attention to Coxey’s proposed Good Roads Bill and drawing attention to the planned march, which was to depart from Massillon for Washington, D.C. on Easter Sunday 1894.

Browne gained notoriety for his Theosophic religious views and Coxey was converted to his unorthodox ideas. They came to regard their march as an “Army of Peace,” giving the name “Commonweal of Christ” to their movement. This quasi-religious interpretation of the 1894 march movement was broadly ridiculed, generating some publicity for the cause but generally doing “a great deal more harm than good,” in the estimation of at least one historian.

The “Commonweal of Christ” arrived in Washington, DC on May Day, 1894, with about 400 marchers in the ranks. “Coxey and Brown made their way to the steps of the United States Capitol to address the accompanying crowd, but were blocked by mounted police. The pair jumped a stone wall in an attempt to reach their goal, along with Christopher Columbus Jones, leader of the marchers from Philadelphia, but police on foot chased the three down and detained them, first holding down Browne and beating him, tearing his clothes and ripping off the amber bead necklace from his neck. Coxey was released, but Browne and Jones were placed under arrest, with bond posted by two wealthy sympathizers of the marchers.”

On May 2, Coxey, Browne, and Jones were charged in police court with carrying an illegal banner on capitol grounds, with Coxey and Browne additionally charged with trampling the grass. A jury trial followed, during which the District Attorney denigrated Browne as “a fakir, a charlatan, and a mounteback who dresses up in ridiculous garments and exhibits himself to the curious multitudes at 10 cents a head.” The three defendants were convicted on the morning of May 8 and freed on bond.

Sentence was pronounced on May 21, with Coxey and Browne each fined $5 for walking on the grass, and Coxey, Browne, and Jones sentenced to 20 days in jail for carrying banners on capitol grounds.

In January 1914, Browne collapsed and died at the age of 64 years old. Special thanks to Donald (“Rusty”) Mott for all his good research on Browne. This post is also copied from the following sources:

W.T. Stead, Chicago To-Day, or, The Labour War in America. London: Review of Reviews, 1894.

Donald L. McMurry, Coxey’s Army: A Study in Industrial Unrest, 1893-1898. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1929.

Benjamin F. Alexander, Coxey’s Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015; *pg. 119.

Carlos A. Schwantes, Coxey’s Army: An American Odyssey. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1985.