Floyd Dell
Floyd Dell | |
---|---|
Born | Floyd James Dell June 28, 1887 Barry, Illinois, United States |
Died | July 23, 1969 Bethesda, Maryland, United States | (aged 82)
Occupations |
|
Known for | Friday Literary Review The Masses Homecoming |
Spouses |
|
Signature | |
Floyd James Dell (June 28, 1887 – July 23, 1969) was an American newspaper and magazine editor,
Dell wrote extensively on controversial social issues of the early 20th century, and played a major part in the political and social movements originating in New York City's Greenwich Village during the 1910s & 1920s. As editor of left-wing magazine The Masses, Dell was twice put on trial for publishing subversive literature.
Biography
Early life and career
Dell was born in Barry, Illinois, on June 28, 1887 to Anthony Dell, a Civil War veteran and unsuccessful butcher, and Kate Crone, a home maker. Dell spent his childhood in poverty, with his family moving often. He lived in Quincy, Illinois, for a large portion of his childhood. Encouraged by his mother, a former school teacher, Dell became a voracious reader, spending much of his time at Quincy's local library.
In 1903 Dell moved with his family to
In Chicago Dell became editor and book reviewer for of the Chicago Evening Post's nationally distributed Friday Literary Review, the "leading organ of literary modernism in America at the time."[5] Dell used his position as editor to introduce many Americans to modernist literature and promote the work of many Chicago writers, including Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, and Carl Sandburg. Dell's further influence as a critic can be seen in the work of many major American writers from the first half of the 20th century.
Greenwich Village
Relocating to New York City in 1913, Dell became a leader of the pre-war bohemian community in Greenwich Village and managing editor of Max Eastman's radical magazine The Masses. His housemate, the poet Orrick Johns, said of him during this period, "...he was working like a dock laborer. I think he must have spent twenty hours a day writing, for his typewriter could always be heard."[6] Following the passing of the Espionage Act of 1917, the government officially labeled The Masses "treasonable material" in August of that year and issued charges against its staff for "unlawfully and willfully… obstruct[ing] the recruiting and enlistment of the United States" military. The "conspirators" faced fines up to 10,000 dollars and twenty years imprisonment. After deliberating for three days, the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision. The jurors seeking to convict the defendants blamed one juror for being unable to conform to the majority opinion, as he was also a socialist. Not only did the other eleven jurors demand that the prosecutor levy charges against the lone juror, they attempted to drag the socialist supporter out into the street and lynch him. The Judge, given the uproar, declared a mistrial. A second trial also resulted in a deadlocked jury. In 1918 Dell joined Crystal and Max Eastman co-editing The Masses' successor, The Liberator.
Dell joined fellow Davenporters Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook as a member of the Provincetown Players and his play King Arthur's Socks was the first performed by that historic theater group.
Later life and career
Following the war, Dell turned to fiction and his first novel, the bildungsroman (or coming-of-age) Moon-Calf, became a best seller.[7] It was an early book for the publisher Alfred A. Knopf and published at a time when many mid-western writers were writing about small-town life; Sinclair Lewis's book Main Street was published within days of Moon-Calf.[7] By 1920 Moon-Calf had sold 38,500 copies and went through eleven printings.[7]
This was followed by several other novels with limited success. His autobiographical memoir, Homecoming, is a striking eyewitness view of the social and artistic-bohemian history of the midwest. Dell continued to publish both fiction and non-fiction until the end of his life.
Dell joined the WPA and
Floyd Dell died in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., on July 23, 1969.
In 2015, he was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[8]
Partial bibliography
Novels
- (1920) Moon-Calf
- (1921) The Briary-Bush
- (1923) Janet March
- (1925) This Mad Ideal
- (1925) Runaway
- (1926) Love in Greenwich Village
- (1926) An Old Man's Folly
- (1927) An Unmarried Father
- (1929) Souvenir
- (1931) Love Without Money
- (1932) Diana Stair
- (1934) The Golden Spike
Non-fiction
- (1913) Women as World Builders
- (1919) Were You Ever a Child?
- (1924) Looking at Life; essays
- (1926) Intellectual Vagabondage; essays
- (1926) The Outline of Marriage
- (1927) Upton Sinclair: A Study in Social Protest
- (1930) Homecoming; autobiography
- (1930) Love in the Machine Age
- (1947) Government Aid During the Depression to Professional, Technical and Other Service Workers (Washington: Government Printing Office)
- (1947) Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43 (Washington: Government Printing Office)
Essays
- (1914) Feminism for Men
- (1914) Mona Lisa and the Wheelbarrow
- (1915) The Censor's Triumph
- (1915) Enter the Woman
Plays
- (1913) Human Nature: A Very Short Morality Play
- (1914) Chaste Adventures Of Joseph: A Comedy
- (1914) Ibsen Revisited: A Piece Of Foolishness
- (1915) Enigma: A Domestic Conversation
- (1915) Rim Of The World: A Fantasy
- (1915) Legend: A Romance
- (1916) King Arthur's Socks: A Comedy
- (1917) Long Time Ago: A Tragic Fantasy
- (1917) Angel Intrudes: A Comedy
- (1918) Sweet-And-Twenty: A Comedy
- (1920) Poor Harold: A Comedy
- (1928) Little Accident
Further reading
- Dell, Floyd; Homecoming: An Autobiography, New York Farrar & Rinehart Incorporated (1933).
- Clayton, Douglas; Floyd Dell: The Life and Times of an American Rebel, (Chicago: Ivan R, Dee, 1994).
- Hart, John E; Floyd Dell, Twayne Publishers Inc (New York: 1971).
- Dell, Jerri; Blood Too Bright: Floyd Dell Remembers Edna St. Vincent Millay, Glenmere Press (2017).
References
- ^ Krupnick, Mark (1996). Floyd Dell, Sensible Rebel [Review of the book Essays From the Friday Literary Review, 1909-1913, by Floyd Dell (Edited by R. Craig Sautter)]. Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1996.
- ^ Greasley, Philip A., Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Indiana U. Press, 2001
- ^ "The Little Accident (1930)". IMDb. 3 August 1930. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
- ^ "Miss Freeman Dies; Former Librarian Here". The Plain Dealer. Cleveland, Ohio. 31 October 1961 – via America's Historical Newspapers (NewsBank).
- ^ Stansell, Christine, American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century, Princeton University Press; 1 edition (December 6, 2009)
- OCLC 463542875.
- ^ OCLC 908176194.
- ^ "The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame - Author Details - Floyd Dell". chicagoliteraryhof.org. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica: Floyd Dell
- Floyd Dell: A Respectable Radical
- Floyd Dell in Iowa
- Backwards Glance: Feminism for Men in 1914
- Works by Floyd Dell at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Floyd Dell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by or about Floyd Dell at Internet Archive
- Floyd Dell Papers and Miriam Gurko-Floyd Dell Papers at the Newberry Library