Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T18:41:00.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Echoes from ‘Zenith:’ Reactions of American Businessmen to Babbitt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Thomas S. Hines Jr
Affiliation:
Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Abstract

Perhaps no American novel has cut businessmen so unremittingly as Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. Yet at the time of its appearance in 1922 reactions were surprisingly mixed. As an introduction to the persistence of “Babbittry” in the United States — in. life as in the lexicon of invective — the passions aroused during the first decade of “George Babbitt's” life bear review.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Forgue, Guy J. (ed.), Letters of H. L. Mencken (New York, 1961), 237Google Scholar; Sinclair Lewis to Alfred Harcourt, July 12, 1921, Donald Brace to Sinclair Lewis, December 13, 1921, in Smith, Harrison (ed.). From Main Street to Stockholm: The Letters of Sinclair Lewis, 1919–1930 (New York, 1952), 77, 89Google Scholar.

2 Sinclair Lewis to Alfred Harcourt, December 28, 1920, Grace Hegger Lewis to Alfred Harcourt, July 21, 1921, Sinclair Lewis to Ellen Eayes, July 27, 1921, in Smith, (ed.), Main Street to Stockholm, 59, 79, 80.

3 Schorer, Mark, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life (New York, 1961), 342–45Google Scholar.

4 Lewis, Sinclair, Babbitt (New York, 1922), 2Google Scholar.

5 Lewisohn, Ludwig, ‘Babbitt,’ Nation, CXV (September 20, 1922), 284–85Google Scholar.

6 Henry Lewis Mencken, ‘Portrait of An American Citizen,’ Smart Set, October, 1922, in Schorer, Mark (ed.), Sinclair Lewis: A Collection of Essays (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), 2022Google Scholar.

7 Mencken, (ed.). “Mississippi” in “Americana,” American Mercury, IV (March, 1925), 302Google Scholar; Manchester, William, The Sage of Baltimore: The Life and Riotous Times of H L. Mencken (London, 1952), 118, 135Google Scholar; For Mencken's cultivation of the Babbitt idea, c.f. Mencken, , “The American Novel,” Prejudices: Fourth Series (New York, 1924), 290–91Google Scholar; Feather, William, “Sire of Kiwanis,” American Mercury, I (March, 1924), 351–56Google Scholar; “Pennsylvania,” in Americana,” American Mercury, IV (March, 1925), 303Google Scholar; Mencken, , “Editorial,” American Mercury, XVI (February, 1929), 150–52Google Scholar; Mencken, , “A City in Moronia,” American Mercury, XVI (March, 1929), 379–81Google Scholar; Kemler, Edgar, The Irreverent Mr. Mencken (Boston, 1950), 262Google Scholar.

8 Hudson, Manley O., “Missouri: Doesn't Want to be Shown,” CXVII, Nation (October 17, 1923), 432Google Scholar; “America's Curses Listed,” New York Times (December 19, 1926), II, 2Google Scholar; Joad, Cyril Edwin Mitchinson, The Babbitt Warren (New York, 1927), 173Google Scholar; cf. Barton, Bruce, The Man Nobody Knows (Indianapolis, 1925)Google Scholar.

9 Bliven, Bruce, “The Babbitt in His Warren,” Forum, LXXX (December, 1928), 899903Google Scholar; What is a Babbitt?Forum, LXXXII (August, 1929), xxxiiGoogle Scholar.

10 Leech, Harper, “Babbitt Pays For Babbitt-Baiting,” Nation's Business, XIII (July, 1925), 13Google Scholar; Encyclopedia Americana states that “to be labeled a ‘Babbitt’ carries with it the packaged stigma of obtuseness, philistinisrn, blatant optimism, want of humor, and a smug uncritical acceptance of one's own standards, however narrow, benighted, and un-lovely they may seem to others.” “Babbitt,” Encyclopedia Americana, III (New York, 1962), 4Google Scholar; cf. Morris, Lloyd, “Sinclair Lewis — His Critics and His Public,” North American Review, CCXLV (Summer, 1938), 384–86Google Scholar; Mathews, Mitford M., A Dictionary of Americanisms, I (Chicago, 1951), 55Google Scholar.

11 Grace Hegger Lewis, With Love From Grade, 207–208; Donald Brace to Sinclair Lewis, July 22, 1923, Smith (ed.), Main Street to Stockholm, 105, 106.

12 Anne O'Hare McCormick, “Zenith Discusses Babbitt, Epic of Pullmania,” New York Times Book Review (October 22, 1922), 3.

13 Schorer, Sinclair Lewis, An American Life, p. 344; “Babbitts are Found Everywhere,” from “Topics of the Times,” New York Times (October 16, 1922), 14.

14 Mansfield, J. B., “Babbitt,” National Real Estate Journal, XXIII (December 18, 1922), 43Google Scholar.

15 Melville, Arthur, “George Follansbee Babbitt, Realtor,” Rotarian, XXII (February, 1923), 8384Google Scholar.

16 Boost,” Kiwanis Magazine, X (November, 1925), 473Google Scholar; cf. Chicago Tribune, n.d., in Babbitt Boiling Hot,” The Literary Digest, LXXXII (September 19, 1925), 3031Google Scholar; Crowell, Chester T., “New Facts and an Ancient Tradition, Big Men and Their Little Critics,” Saturday Evening Post, CXCVIII (July 11, 1925), 31Google Scholar.

17 Jones, Benjamin F., “I'm Proud to Be Called a Babbitt,” Colliers, LXXVI (November 21, 1925), 23Google Scholar; Some twenty-five years after Jones' statement, Lions International sponsored the writing of a club history, which, in retrospect, recognized the attacks on the service clubs as “bitter but beneficial medicine.” The writers, however, exempted the Lions Club from the list of vulnerable victims, since the Lions could “point to evidence of their own right thinking and acting before the days” when such critics as Lewis and Mencken became the “self-appointed diagnosticians of what ailed most of us. But one may be permitted,” they continued, “to speculate on what effect, if any, the Babbitt-baiting had, particularly on groups that most resented it.” The Lions, they concluded, “seem never to have been directly in the line of fire of the monthly barrage from Baltimore.” Casey, Robert J. and Douglas, W. A. S., World's Biggest Doers (New York, 1949), 4143Google Scholar.

18 “Rotarians Strike Back at Sinclair Lewis, Off His Rocker, Protests Officer Over Radio,” New York Times (August 21, 1925), 15; Babbitt Battles For His Rights,” Nation's Business, XIII (October, 1925), 38Google Scholar; of. Hobbs, Arthur E., “Is There Anything Wrong With Rotary?Rotation, XXVII (November, 1925), 6–7, 50, 5255Google Scholar; Manchester, Sage of Baltimore, 135.

19 Prothro, James Warren, Dollar Decade: Business Ideas in the 1920's (Baton Rouge, 1954), xviiGoogle Scholar; Merle Thorp, , “Dare To Be A Babbitt,” Nation's Business, XIII (June, 1925), 40Google Scholar.

20 Wright, Chester M., “What Would We Do Without Babbitts?Nation's Business, XIV (February, 1926), 1819Google Scholar.

21 Leech, Harper, “Babbitt Pays For Babbitt-Baiting,” Nation's Business, XIII (July, 1925), 1315Google Scholar; Babbitt Through The Ages,” Nation's Business, XIV (December, 1926), 25Google Scholar; XV (January, 1927), 23; XV (March, 1927), 29; XV (April, 1927), 31; XV (May, 1927), 29; XV (June, 1927), 27; XV (July, 1927), 33; XV (August, 1927), 33; Burton, Bradley, “Babbitt Ballads,” Nation's Business, XVI (January, 1928), 2829Google Scholar.

22 Thorp, Merle, “Through the Editor's Spectacles,” Nation's Business, XIII (December, 1925), 8Google Scholar; R. S. H., , “Go On and Be a Babbitt,” Nation's Business, XIII (September, 1925), 34Google Scholar.

23 Hines, Edward N. to editor. Nation's Business, XIV (May, 1926), 9Google Scholar; Smith, Alex C. to editor, Rotarian, XXXIV (April, 1929), 43Google Scholar; Maxwell, M. A. to editor, Rotarian, XXXIV (May, 1929), 42Google Scholar; cf. Frederick, J. George, “Babbitt Cracks,” Scribner's Magazine, XC (July, 1931), 4649Google Scholar; Callahan, Thomas M. to editor, Rotarian, XXXVIII (June, 1931), 22Google Scholar; Vickery, A. C., “Vieksburg Kiwanians Boost City,” Kiwanis Magazine, XXII (July, 1937), 433Google Scholar; Prothro, Dollar Decade, 62–64; Knoeppel, Raymond, “Rotary States Its Case,” Forum, LXXX (December, 1928), 953–54Google Scholar.

24 E. J. Landon to editor; Callahan, Thomas M. to editor, Rotarian, XXXVIII (June, 1931), 22Google Scholar; Sorrells, John H., “I Hate Babbitts, But I Am One of Them,” Rotarian, XXXVI (April, 1930), 9Google Scholar.

25 A Rotarian's Son Predicts,” Rotarian, XXXVIII (May, 1931), 15, 40Google Scholar.

26 Martin, John C. to editor, Rotarian, XXXII (June, 1928, 63Google Scholar; Lee, W. H. to editor, Rotarian, XXXVIII (June, 1931), 46Google Scholar; cf. Elmer E. Tiedt to editor; W. Herbert Tappan to editor; Palmer, Eldridge W. to editor, Rotarian, XXXVIII (June, 1931), 23Google Scholar; “Heggie” Brandenburg, to editor, Rotarian, XXVII (December, 1925), 26, 39Google Scholar; Witherspoon, Walter M., “Boosters and Knockers,” Rotarian, XXVIII (May, 1926), 15, 6970Google Scholar; Gharrity, Will, “Menckenitis,” Rotarian, XXVIII (March, 1926), 8Google Scholar; Baker, Hugh A., “Why Have a Rotary Club?Rotarian, XXVIII (March, 1926), 9Google Scholar.

27 Aikman, Duncan, “The New Decadents; Babbitt Starts to Reform,” Harper's, CLIII (September, 1926), 453–56Google Scholar.

28 Carter, Vivian, “Anglo-American Contrasts; Rotary and Its Critics; Babbitt in Two Varieties,” Rotarian, XXXIV (March, 1929), 1416Google Scholar; cf. Knoblock, Otto M. to editor, Rotarian, XXXIV (April, 1929), 43Google Scholar; Perry E. Stone to editor, New York Times (August 16, 1931), III, 2; Melville, Arthur, “Heads or Tails? Two Current Estimates of Rotary and Kindred Organizations: Sinclair Lewis — Elmer T. Peterson,” Rotarian, XXVIII (March, 1926), 14, 38, 40Google Scholar; Pooley, Joseph E., “Why They Laugh,” Rotarian, XXXII (May, 1928), 12, 47Google Scholar; Marvin, Dwight, “Let Them Laugh,” Rotarian, XXXII (May, 1928), 13, 47, 48Google Scholar; McFee, William, “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Wants to Enter Literature,” Bookman, LXIX (May, 1929), 251254Google Scholar; Melville, Arthur, “Mr. Pepys at the Rotary Club,” Rotarian, XXX (February, 1927), 11Google Scholar.

29 Schroeder, Eric G., “The Other Side of Main Street; An Interview With William Allen White,” Rotarian, XXX (June, 1927), 1213Google Scholar; cf. Peterson, Elmer T., “A Defense of Boosters,” Saturday Evening Post, CXCVIII (January 30, 1926), 16Google Scholar; Forward March,” Saturday Evening Post, CXCIX (March 19, 1927), 28Google Scholar.

30 Benchley, Robert, “Cease Firing,” Forum, LXXXI (February, 1929), lxvi–lxviiiGoogle Scholar; Tarkington, Booth, “Rotarian and Sophisticate,” World's Work, LVIII (January, 1929), 42–44, 146Google Scholar; cf. “Romance Among Realtors,” New York Times (April 9, 1930), 26.

31 Beard, Charles Austin, “Is Babbitt's Case Hopeless?Menorah Journal, XIV (January, 1928), 2128Google Scholar; Simeon Strunsky, “About Books More or Less: The Truth About Georgie,” New York Times Book Review (January 22, 1928), 4; Sullivan, Mark, “Historian Looks at Rotary,” Rotarian, XLVIII (February, 1936), 16–17, 5961Google Scholar.

32 Schroeder, “The Other Side of Main Street,” Rotarian, 12–13; Babbitt in Winnepeg,” Kiwanis Magazine, IX (August, 1924), 414Google Scholar; Schorer, Sinclair Lewis, 311; Miller, Perry, “The Incorruptible Sinclair Lewis,” Atlantic Monthly, CLXXXVII (April, 1951), 34Google Scholar.