Elbert Green Hubbard was born in Bloomington, Illinois, in the United States of America, on the 19th June 1856, the son of Doctor Silas and Juliana Frances Hubbard (née Read). His father was not only a country doctor, but a farmer as well.
Whilst still a fairly young man, Elbert Hubbard made a fortune, from direct mail marketing in the soap industry, and as a salesman with the firm of J.D. Larkin and Company of Buffalo, New York.
On the 30th June 1881, in McLean, Illinois, Elbert married Bertha Crawford, who came from a prominent Illinois family, and they moved to East Aurora, New York. Together, they had four children. Elbert Hubbard II, born in 1883, Ralph, born in 1887, Sanford, born in 1888, and Katherine, born in 1896.
In 1892, yearning for an education, Elbert sold all his interests in the soap manufacturing firm and enrolled as a student at Harvard University. Not happy with his progress, however, he quickly dropped out and set off on a walking tour of England. Whilst there, he met William Morris, the famous English designer and leading individual in the Arts and Crafts Movement of his day, who despite the briefness of their meeting, had a profound effect on Hubbard.
On his return to America, Hubbard tried to find a publisher for a series of biographical sketches he had written, but when this met with a total lack of success, in true form, he decided to publish them himself. Consequently, in 1894, he founded The Roycroft Press. Using this medium to publish the thousands of articles and many books he wrote, he soon found fame and fortune. He became the leader of the local arts community.
Elbert also found time to commence a love affair with Alice Luann Moore, a teacher at the East Aurora Academy, which resulted in a daughter, Miriam, being born to them in 1894. In 1903, Elbert and Bertha fought a bitter divorce, with each of them gaining custody of two of their children, and on the 20th January 1904, Elbert and Alice married in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Roycroft Press began publishing deluxe editions of classic literature, and his organization also branched out into providing furniture, stained-glass, metalwork, and leather goods.
So successful was he, that soon visitors flocked to East Aurora to visit the press and before long, in 1903, Hubbard built a hotel, The Roycroft Inn, to accommodate them all. This hotel he furnished in simple style with simple furniture designed with straight lines and made by local craftsmen. The furniture and the soft furnishings produced there became so popular with all the visitors that soon Hubbard set up a community making them for sale. Items produced there included fine bound leather books, hand crafted copper items, leaded glass lamps and wooden furniture.
At its peak in 1910, this community employed some 500 people, including woodworkers, leatherworkers, metalworkers and bookbinders. They called themselves ‘The Roycrofters’ and soon achieved national success with the beauty and style of their products. Hubbard himself fostered the community spirit, with himself at its head, and although pay for the workers there was low, this was compensated for by the living and working conditions and the sense of kinship enjoyed by all. Many of the finest craftsmen of the time learned their skills at Roycroft.
Some critics at the time did not always praise Hubbard’s personal work, however. An article published
in The San Francisco Chronicle after his death said of his writing skills: -
These books were all written in a peculiar style, witty, pungent, but often colloquial, often very coarse. He seemed to have an irresistible desire to say things that bordered on the indecent and this led him recently afoul of the law. Yet his philosophy was one that appealed to thousands and one of his books The Message to Garcia had an enormous circulation.
In fact, this book actually sold some 40 million copies and at the same time, he was also able to publish two monthly magazines The Fra and
The Philistine, as well as making almost non-stop lecture tours all over the country. He was usually referred to as 'Fra Elbertus'
or more simply 'The Sage'!
The problems that bordered on the indecent and ..... led him
..... afoul of the law, occurred in 1913, when he infringed United States postal regulations - presumably by posting material considered at that time to be offensive. At a court in Buffalo, New York, he pleaded guilty to misuse of the mails, and for this, he was fined a mere $100.00, but more importantly, was automatically deprived of his rights of citizenship. One consequence of this conviction was that he was unable to obtain a passport to travel outside the United States!
After the Great War had broken out, and the events of the invasions of Belgium and France had become known, Hubbard had written a scathing condemnation of Kaiser Wilhelm II in The Philistine, entitled
The Man Who Lifted The Lid Off Hell and decided he must go to Europe to deliver its anti-German message in person. He even hoped that he might be able to meet the Kaiser himself, despite the fact that he would hardly be welcome in Germany after the publication of his views! He even stated that he would be happy if the vessel he travelled on was sunk and him with it, so that he would then succeed in his ambition to enter
The Hall of Fame. He also added, somewhat prophetically as events turned out, that should the ship be torpedoed, he would make no effort to get into a lifeboat!
Without a passport, however, this would have been impossible so he petitioned President Woodrow Wilson’s secretary, Joseph Tumulty, to get his citizenship and his passport back. Perhaps because of the subject matter that Hubbard wanted to impart, President Wilson agreed and as a result the flamboyant writer was able to book saloon passage for himself and his wife Alice on the
Lusitania.
Arriving at the liner’s berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, Hubbard and his wife, boarded the vessel (with ticket number 46096), and were escorted to room B70, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward John Roach who came from the liner’s home port of Liverpool.
Once the Cunarder had left New York behind, the voyage gave Hubbard every chance to exploit his outrageous behaviour, both in manner and dress, and he and his wife made friends with many other saloon passengers, and also Canadian journalist Ernest Cowper. Cowper was travelling second cabin, but could not resist the opportunity to interview some of the notable saloon passengers on board, not least of whom was Hubbard! Cowper's publisher, Percy Rogers, was travelling as a saloon passenger, however, and being befriended by Hubbard, probably effected the introduction.
Hubbard himself intended to relate the events of his trans-Atlantic journey to the readers of
The Philistine, back home in America, by cable, on his arrival in London! He had already formed the opinion that the Germans would not stoop so low as to sink the
Lusitania - especially having warned the world that that was their intention!
Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, when the liner was off the coast of southern Ireland, she was struck by a single torpedo fired by the German submarine
U-20. The Hubbards were actually on deck at the time and were spotted there by second cabin passenger Archie Donald from Edinburgh, in Scotland, who later described seeing them refusing to get into a lifeboat! They were also seen not long afterwards, seemingly paralysed by inaction, by fellow saloon passenger Charles Lauriat, who advised them both to go and get life jackets from their cabin. When neither moved, Lauriat volunteered to fetch them some from B5, which was his own cabin, but he did not see them after that!
What had happened to them was not made clear until March 1916, when their new friend Ernest Cowper wrote to Elbert Hubbard II - the son of ‘Fra Elbertus’
and always known as ‘Bert’ - about the last minutes of the Hubbards’ life. This was later printed by him, in the foreword to
The Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard, which was published in 1928, and read: -
"The Province" Office
Vancouver, B.C., March 12, 1916
Dear Mr. Hubbard:
I should have written what I have written to you a long while ago - but I don't know, it seems as if the Lusitania left its seal on every one who was in it, and even now, almost a year later, I am afraid all the survivors are thinking more seriously of May 7, than they are of their business or the other things they should attend to. I know that is the case with me.
If you have been informed that there was a man on board who was in the company of your father and Mrs. Hubbard on many occasions, I guess they have me in mind, for we really did spend a lot of time together - so much so that he took to calling me ‘Jack.’ I don't know why, unless it was that I was then going on an assignment for the paper called Jack Canuck.
The night previous to the murder, I and Rogers, the proprietor of Jack Canuck, had attended at his cabin for a sort of little conversazione, a fruit feast or steamboat visit, in return for a visit he had made to me the night previously. I did not see him again until the next day, just a little before the torpedo hit us. I then called the attention of himself and Mrs. Hubbard to the extra watch which had been put on for submarines, and walked them forward to where two men were right at the stern with glasses. Two were on each side of the navigating-bridge, and three were in the crow's nest, which is half way up the foremast.
He expressed surprise at this, for he was sure a submarine would never make any effort to torpedo a ship filled with women, children and non-combatants. He mentioned the fact that there were no guns on board, and that there was no place to put them. I agreed that there were no guns, but pointed out that there were places to put them, and walked both round to the places which were built with the vessel for the mounting of guns if required.
Nobody but one having a close acquaintance with a ship would know what the round, elevated patch on the deck was for; but I come from a seafaring family, (my father having been drowned at sea while in command), and so I knew what they were for.
We then parted to go to our cabins before taking lunch. On finishing mine, I went to the top deck, and was smoking with Rogers when I saw the torpedo coming toward us. We both sought the shelter of the companionway until after the explosion, when I saw another coming and again took shelter. After the second one we emerged, for the vessel took a terrible list right away. I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.
Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms - the fashion in which they always walked the deck - and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat, when he said, “Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse that I ever thought they were.”
They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, "There does not seem to be anything to do."
The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.
The blow to yourself and your sister must have been terrible, and yet, had you seen what I have seen, you would be greatly consoled, for never in history, I am sure, did two people look the Reaper so squarely in the eye at his approach as did your father and Mrs. Hubbard. It was there that the philosopher shone. Both showed that they had not been talking for talk's sake, or writing because it presented itself as a means of securing a livelihood. Both were philosophers, and both showed that they were each other's most apt pupils. I don't believe that the prospect at that moment troubled them any more than it would have done had the call been to go to lunch instead of to tread The Valley of the Long Shadow.
If he wrote his philosophy, he certainly lived it to the last moment. He was a big man in life, but to my mind he is a vastly bigger man in death. I suppose you have asked yourself the question; "Was it possible for them to have been saved? Did they really do all that could be done?" To this I would say they could do nothing more than was done, especially if they wanted to remain together, and apparently there was no intention on either side of separating.
There was a preponderance of women and children on board. This fact is accounted for owing to the number of wives and children of men belonging to the Canadian contingents (which were almost wholly composed of Old-Country men) who were going to England, where they could live cheaper and be near to the hospitals where their dear ones would be taken in case of injury.
Some of the horrors of the disaster can never be committed to print. I can tell you this: there were a surprisingly large number of women on board who were in advanced stages of pregnancy - presumably English women who were going to their parents for the birth of their children. I saw the corpses of four of these in the mortuary at Queenstown, and they had been delivered of their infants in the water, precipitated labour owing to shock being the cause. But can you in your mind conjure such a picture! Because Great Britain is at war, there should be stretched out on the cold flagstones of the mortuary at Queenstown the bodies of four women in a condition which even animals respect, and this for the furtherance of the Kultur which Emperor William would impose on Europe, and America next, I suppose, were he not stopped (and he is stopped). And this is but one of the many horrors I could tell you.
It must be a source of gratification to you to know that they are getting the crews of the subs right along. The announcements are not made, but rest assured they are getting them. My mother resides in Liverpool, and a younger brother is in the service of Cammel-Laird's (Birkenhead, across the river from Liverpool). Cammel's are shipbuilders, and of course are now busy on warships.
My mother tells me that there is not a week goes by but what the crews of one or more German submarines are taken from them at Cammel's yards and buried in the little cemetery just near the shipyards. They work round the estuary of the Mersey. The destroyers get them, and they are brought up the river to Cammel's, where they are opened up and the bodies taken from them.
While I was in Scotland I was alongside the Gareloch, and they had got two away up the Clyde that morning - but never a word in the papers about it. If there is one thing the British Navy does better than another, it is to keep its mouth shut. But what a lot there will be to learn after it's all over and the story is written!
Yours very faithfully,
Ernest C. Cowper
Cowper was clearly wrong in the points he made in his last two paragraphs and whether he knew this at the time and was merely trying to help the Hubbard family to bear its loss, or he actually believed it, is not clear. There
was a small cemetery near to the Cammel-Laird's
shipbuilding yard in 1916, that of St. Mary’s churchyard, next to Birkenhead Priory, but there is no evidence that a single German naval crew member was buried there throughout the war years. Similarly, there is no evidence that two German U-Boats were ever destroyed in one morning in the Gareloch!
Elbert and Alice Hubbard obviously then perished in the sinking and as their bodies were never recovered and identified afterwards, neither has a known grave. Elbert Hubbard was aged 59 years, although he stated that he was only 42, when he gave his personal details to The Cunard Steam Ship Company on buying his ticket! Bedroom Steward Roach, who had looked after both the Hubbards in room B70 did survive the sinking, however, and eventually made it back to his Liverpool home.
When news of the tragic loss reached East Aurora, it was greeted with stunned disbelief until dismayed acceptance took over. Then all the flags were flown at half-mast and pictures of the couple were draped in black crepe. Perhaps Elbert Hubbard’s prophesy had indeed come true as his death did indeed elevate him to The Hall of Fame!
His son Bert for a while refused to believe that his father and step mother had not survived, but he eventually accepted it - presumably after he had received Ernest Cowper’s letter - and he then took over the running of The Roycroft Press. This then carried on working and producing goods until 1938, when inevitable changing tastes and the effects of the Great Depression finally led to its decline and closure.
Elbert Hubbard II, on behalf of himself, and Elbert’s other three children by his first marriage, Ralph, Sanford, and Katherine, and Elbert and Alice’s daughter Miriam, filed claims for compensation for the deaths of Elbert and Alice in the tragic sinking. On 2nd October 1924, the Mixed Claims Commission rendered their decision.
The Commission awarded Elbert Hubbard II and Miriam the sum of $25,000.00, each, and Katherine Hubbard the sum of $7,500.00 in compensation for the loss of their parents, and Elbert Hubbard II, as executor of both Elbert and Alice’s wills was awarded a further $2,000.00 for the loss of their personal belongings, which went down with the great liner.
In July 1917, aged 22 years, Miriam Hubbard married H.D. Roelofs, a university instructor, and by October 1917, they couple had four children.
Elbert Hubbard’s first wife, Bertha, moved to Boulder, Colorado, with their daughter Katherine, who became a music teacher.
There is a memorial to Elbert Hubbard in a cemetery in East Aurora.
Illinois Marriage Index 1860 – 1920, Connecticut Marriage Records 1897 – 1968, 1860 U.S. Federal Census, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, 1892 New York State Census, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1905 New York State Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 437 & 438, The Roycroft Community, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard, Seven Days To Disaster, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.