Literary Iowa in the Nineteenth Century

Late in the last century readers of books awoke to the fact that the world-including, world-inviting prairies of the Mississippi Valley were no longer inarticulate; that in this great "Heart of the World\'s Heart," among the millions who have been drawn to these prairie states, there are lives as rich—in all that really enriches—as those immortalized in the literature of New England, or of the Pacific slope. It was not to be expected that the westward-moving impulse to create would cease on reaching the Mississippi River.

In Iowa\'s pioneer days but little original matter found its way into print except contributions to the rough and ready journalism of the period. A few pioneer writers, possessed of the historiographer\'s instinct, performed a rare service to the young commonwealth by passing on to future generations their first-hand knowledge of the prominent men and events of the first half of the century. Chief among these are Theodore S. Parvin, William Salter, Alexander R. Fulton, Samuel S. Howe and Charles Aldrich. The two last named published several series of "The Annals of Iowa" which remain unfailing reservoirs of information to later historians and students of Iowa history. Iowa Masonry is specially indebted to Professor Parvin for his invaluable contributions to the history of the order in Iowa. Dr. Salter wrote the first notable Iowa biography, that of James W. Grimes, published in 1876. Fulton\'s "Red Men of Iowa" is as valuable as it is rare, for, though written as late as 1882, it is the first exhaustive attempt to describe the tribes originally inhabiting Iowa.

The war period—1861-5—developed "Iowa in War Times," by S. H. M. Byers, and "Iowa Colonels and Regiments," by A. A. Stuart, also many valuable personal sketches and regimental histories.

Long before the close of the century, the name of Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers had grown familiar to the people of Iowa, because of the popularity of his song entitled "Sherman\'s March to the Sea," and because contemporary historians, attracted by its suggestive title, adapted it as especially appropriate for the most dramatic event in the history of the war for the union.

Major Byers\' most lasting contribution to literature is his poem "The March to the Sea," epic in character and interspersed with lyrics of the war. Reading this, one can hear the thrilling bugle call, and "see once again the bivouacs in the wood."

Looking again, one can see the army in motion—

"A sight it was! that sea of army blue,

The sloping guns of the swift tramping host,

Winding its way the fields and forests through,

As winds some river slowly to the coast.

The snow-white trains, the batteries grim, and then

The steady tramp of sixty thousand men."

Passing over pages filled with stories of the camp and march, and with moving pictures of the dusky throng of camp-followers who saw in the coming of Sherman\'s men "God\'s new exodus," we come to the dramatic climax:

"But on a day, while tired and sore they went,

Across some hills wherefrom the view was free,

A sudden shouting down the lines was sent;

They looked and cried, \'This is the sea! the sea!\'

And all at once a thousand cheers were heard

And all the army shout the glorious word.

"Bronzed soldiers stood and shook each other\'s hands;

Some wept for joy, as for a brother found;

And down the slopes, and from the far-off sands,

They thought they heard already the glad sound

Of the old ocean welcoming them on

To that great goal they had so fairly won."

I would not be unmindful of our Iowa poet\'s other contributions. Before the century\'s close, Mr. Byers had written "Switzerland and the Swiss," and "What I saw in Dixie," also a book of verse entitled "Happy Isles and Other Poems," besides much occasional verse in celebration of events in Iowa history. So many and excellent are Major Byers\' contributions to such occasions that their author has fitly been styled the "uncrowned poet laureate of Iowa." The title is strengthened by two distinctively Iowa songs, one, "The Wild Rose of Iowa," a tribute to our State Flower; the other entitled "Iowa," sung to the air of "My Maryland."

One of Iowa\'s pioneer poets was signally honored by public insistence that his "swan song" was the song of another and greater. In July, 1863, John L. McCreery, of Delhi, Iowa, published in Arthur\'s Home Magazine a poem entitled "There Is No Death." The poem went the round of the press attributed to Bulwer Lytton. A newspaper controversy followed, the result of which was that the Iowa poet was generally awarded the palm of authorship. But error sometimes seems to possess more vitality than truth! Every few years thereafter, the McCreery poem would make another round of the press with Bulwer Lytton\'s name attached! Finally, in response to urgent request, the modest author published his story of the poem.

It is interesting to note the circumstances under which the first and best stanza was conceived. The author was riding over the prairie on horseback when night overtook him. Orion was "riding in triumph down the western sky." The "subdued and tranquil radiance of the heavenly host" imparted a hopeful tinge to his somber meditations on life and death, and under the inspiration of the scene he composed the lines:

"There is no death; the stars go down

To rise upon some other shore;

And bright in heaven\'s jeweled crown

They shine forever more."

The next morning he wrote other stanzas, the last of which reads:

"And ever near us, though unseen,

The dear, immortal spirits tread;

For all the boundless universe

Is life—there are no dead."

One of the curiosities of literature is the fact that the substitution of Bulwer\'s name for that of the author arose from the inclusion of McCreery\'s poem (without credit) in an article on "Immortality" signed by one "E. Bulmer." An exchange copied the poem with the name Bulmer "corrected" to Bulwer—and thus it started on its rounds. As late as 1870, Harper\'s "Fifth Reader" credited the poem to Lord Lytton! The Granger "Index to Poetry" (1904) duly credits it to the Iowa author.

It is interesting to recall, in passing, the fact that nowhere in or out of the state is there to be found a copy of McCreery\'s little volume of "Songs of Toil and Triumph," published by Putnam\'s Sons in 1883, the unsold copies of which the author says he bought, "thus acquiring a library of several hundred volumes."

It seems to have been the fate of Iowa\'s pioneer poets to find their verse attributed to others. So it was with Belle E. Smith\'s well-known poem, "If I Should Die To-night." Under the reflex action of Ben King\'s clever parody, it has been the habit of newspaper critics to smile at Miss Smith\'s poem. But when we recall the fact that several poets thought well enough of it to stake their reputation on it; and that, in the course of its odyssey to all parts of the English-reading world, it was variously attributed to Henry Ward Beecher, F. K. Crosby, Robert C. V. Myers, Lucy Hooper, Letitia E. Landon, and others, and that Rider Haggard used it, in a mutilated form, in "Jess," leaving the reader to infer that it was part of his own literary creation, may we not conclude that the verse is a real poem worthy of its place in the anthologies? In the Granger Index (1904) it is credited to Robert C. V. Myers,—the credit followed by the words: "Attributed to Arabella E. Smith"!

If support of Miss Smith\'s unasserted but now indisputable claim to the poem be desired, it can be found in Professor W. W. Gist\'s contribution on the subject entitled "Is It Unconscious Assimilation?" [2] Miss Smith—long a resident of Newton, Iowa, and later a sojourner in California until her recent death—was of a singularly retiring nature. She lived much within herself and thought profoundly, as her poetical contributions to the Midland Monthly reveal. In none of her other poems did she reveal herself quite as clearly as in the poem under consideration. It is in four stanzas. In the first is this fine line referring to her own face, calm in death: "And deem that death had left it almost fair."

The poem concludes with the pathetic word to the living:

"Oh! friends, I pray to-night,

Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow—

The way is lonely, let me feel them now.

Think gently of me; I am travel-worn;

My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.

Forgive, O hearts estranged; forgive, I plead!

When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need

The tenderness for which I long to-night!"

I like to think of the veteran Tacitus Hussey, of Des Moines, as that octogenarian with the heart of youth. This genial poet and quaint philosopher made a substantial contribution to the century\'s output of literature, a collection of poems of humor and sentiment entitled "The River Bend and Other Poems." This author has contributed the words of a song which is reasonably sure of immortality. I refer to "Iowa, Beautiful Land," set to music by Congressman H. M. Towner. It fairly sings itself into the melody.

"The corn-fields of billowy gold,

In Iowa, \'Beautiful Land,\'

Are smiling with treasure untold,

In Iowa,\'Beautiful Land.\'"

The next stanza, though including one prosaic line, has taken on a new poetic significance since the war-stricken nations of the old world are turning to America for food. The stanza concludes:

"The food hope of nations is she—

With love overflowing and free

And her rivers which run to the sea,

In Iowa, \'Beautiful Land.\'"

Among Iowans in middle-life and older, the name of Robert J. Burdette, or "Bob" Burdette as he was familiarly called, brings vividly to mind a genial, sunny little man from Burlington, who went about doing good, making people forget their woes by accepting his philosophy—a simple philosophy, that of looking upon the sunny side of life. The "Chimes from a Jester\'s Bells" still ring in our ears, though the jester has passed on.

Reference has been made to the pioneer magazine of Iowa, the Midland Monthly, of Des Moines. As its eleven volumes include the first contributions of a considerable number of Iowa authors who have since become famous, this publication may be said to have inaugurated an era of intellectual activity in Iowa. Its first number contained an original story, "The Canada Thistle," by "Octave Thanet" (Miss French), a group of poems by Hamlin Garland from advance proofs of his "Prairie Songs," an original story by S. H. M. Byers, and other inviting contributions.

Looking back over the Iowa field from the viewpoint of 1894, when the Iowa Magazine entered upon its short-lived career (1894-99), I find, in addition to the authors and works already mentioned, a nationally interesting episode of the John Brown raid, by Governor B. F. Gue. Maud Meredith (Mrs. Dwight Smith), Calista Halsey Patchin and Alice Ilgenfritz Jones, the three pioneer novelists of Iowa, were among the magazine\'s contributors. In 1879, the Lippincotts published "High-water Mark" by Mrs. Jones. In 1881 appeared Maud Meredith\'s "Rivulet and Clover Blossoms," and two years later her "St. Julien\'s Daughter." Mrs. Patchin\'s "Two of Us" appeared at about the same time.

Miss Alice French, "Octave Thanet" to the literary world, has been a known quantity since 1887, when her fine group of short stories, "Knitters in the Sun," put Iowa on the literary map. "Expiation," "We All," a book for boys, "Stories of a Western Town" and "An Adventure in Photography" followed. Miss French has continued to write novels and short stories well on into the new century. In fact some of her strongest creations bear the twentieth century stamp.

Hamlin Garland was also known and read by many as early as the eighties. His, too, was the short-story route to fame, and Iowa was his field. From his literary vantage ground in Boston, the young author wrote in the guise of fiction his vivid memories of boy life and the life of youth in northeastern Iowa and southwestern Wisconsin. His "Main Traveled Roads," the first of many editions appearing in 1891, made him famous. Though the stories contained flashes of humor, the dominant note was serious, as befitted the West in the Seventies in which the author as boy and man struggled with adverse conditions. But the joy of youth would rise superior to circumstance, as is evidenced in the charming sketch of "Boy Life in the West." [3] I like to recall the prose-poem with which it concludes:

"I wonder if, far out in Iowa, the boys are still playing \'Hi Spy\' around the straw-piles…. That runic chant, with its endless repetitions, doubtless is heard on any moonlight night in far-off Iowa. I wish I might join once more in the game—I fear I could not enjoy \'Hi Spy\' even were I invited to join. But I sigh with a curious longing for something that was mine in those days on the snowy Iowa plains. What was it? Was it sparkle of winter days? Was it stately march of moon? Was it the presence of dear friends? Yes; all these and more—it was Youth!"

Before the century closed, this transplanted Iowan had also written "Jason Edwards," a story of Iowa politics, "Wayside Courtships," "Prairie Folks," "Spirit of Sweetwater," "Trail of the Gold-seekers," and scores of short stories first published in the magazines.

Mr. Garland\'s twentieth century output has been prolific of popular novels and short stories. His latest book, "A Son of the Middle Border," is pronounced by William Dean Howells a unique achievement and ranking well up with the world\'s best autobiographies.

A new name associated with Iowa at the close of the last century was that of Emerson Hough. "The Story of the Cowboy" (1897) can hardly be classed as fiction, and yet it "reads like a romance." Mr. Hough, long a roving correspondent of Forest and Stream, first tried "his \'prentice han\'" as a story-writer in "Belle\'s Roses," a tense story of army life on the plains. [4] This was followed by several promising short stories and, in 1902, by "The Mississippi Bubble," a historical romance of quality founded upon the adventurous career of John Law, pioneer in the fields of frenzied finance. Three years later came his "Heart\'s Desire," a beautiful love story of the Southwest. In 1907 appeared his "Way of a Man" and "Story of the Outlaw." Several other novels have come from his facile pen. The most severely criticized and best seller of the series is his "54-40 or Fight," a historical novel based on the diplomatic controversy over Oregon in 1845-6. Mr. Hough is the most successful alumnus of Iowa State University in the difficult field of fiction.

Lingering over the index to the eleven volumes of Iowa\'s pioneer magazine, I am tempted to mention in passing several other names that stand out prominently in the memory of Midland readers.

Mrs. Virginia H. Reichard contributed an interesting paper, "A Glimpse of Arcadia." Mrs. Caroline M. Hawley gave a valuable illustrated paper on "American Pottery." Mrs. Addie B. Billington, Mrs. Virginia K. Berryhill, Mrs. Clara Adele Neidig, and other Iowans contributed to the poetry in the magazine\'s columns. Hon. Jonathan P. Dolliver, Hon. William B. Allison, Gen. James B. Weaver, and many other men prominent in the public life of Iowa contributed articles of permanent value. Mrs. Cora Bussey Hillis was the author of "Madame Deserée\'s Spirit Rival." Editor Ingham, of the Register, then of Algona, Editor Moorhead, then of Keokuk, now a Des Moines journalist, Minnie Stichter (Mrs. C. J. Fulton of Fairfield), Mrs. Harriet C. Towner, of Corning, Charles Eugene Banks, born in Clinton County, now a prominent journalist and litterateur in Seattle, Dr. J. Foster Bain, then assistant state geologist, now a resident of London, and one of the world\'s most famous consulting geologists, Barthinius L. Wick, of Cedar Rapids, a voluminous historiographer, are among the many who, during the last five years of the old century, did their bit toward putting Iowa on the literary map.

Irving Berdine Richman, of Muscatine, had already written "Appenzell," a study of the Swiss, with whom, as consul-general, he had lived for several years. His Midland sketch, "The Battle of the Stoss," was followed by a little volume, "John Brown Among the Quakers, and Other Sketches." But the two great historical works to which he gave years of enthusiastic research were not published until well on in the twentieth century. The first of these, "Rhode Island; a Study of Separation," was honored with an introduction by John Bryce. It was so well received that the "study" was amplified into a two-volume work, "Rhode Island; Its Making and Meaning." The second, a work compelling years of research in old Mexico and Spain, is entitled "California Under Spain and Mexico." These alone give the Iowa historian an enviable world-reputation.

Literary Iowa in the Twentieth Century

Our study of the high places in Iowa literature has already been somewhat extended into the new century. The transfer of the Iowa magazine to St. Louis, in 1898, and its speedy suspension thereafter did not deter many Iowans from continuing to write. Difficult as it was for our unknowns to find a market for their wares in Eastern magazines and publishing houses, the persistent few, who knew they had what the public should want, "knocked" again and again "at the golden gates of the morning," and in due time the gates were opened unto them.

Edwin Legrange Sabin\'s first essay in Midland fiction was "A Ghostly Carouse,"—full of promise. His first book, "The Magic Mashie and other Golfish Stories," in common with all his other works, throbs with the heart of youth. His magazine verse, mainly humorous, has the same quality. Latterly he has been illuminating history, and especially the fast-dissolving wild life of the West, with stories closely adhering to fact and yet rampant with adventure—the kind of books our outdoor boys take to bed with them! To his readers Kit Carson, Fremont, Buffalo Bill, are as much alive as are the heroes of the stadium, the tennis court and the links. But underneath this delightfully light literature there is well-nigh concealed a poet of the Swinburne type, as witness this bit of verse:

"Upon the purple hillside, vintage-stained,

In drowsy langour brown October lies,

Like one who has the banquet goblet drained,

And looks abroad with dream enchanted eyes." [5]

Mrs. Bertha M. Shambaugh\'s Midland sketch of "Amana Colony; a Glimpse of the Community of True Inspiration," [6] suggested something more than "a glimpse," and in 1908 appeared an exhaustive study of that "peculiar people," entitled "Amana, the Community of True Inspiration," a valuable contribution to Iowa history.

Professor Selden L. Whitcomb, of Grinnell, had previously published several outlines for the study of literature, but his first volume of "Lyrical Verse" appeared in 1898. Two other books of poems followed, one in 1912, the other in 1914. His verse is marked by delicacy of poetical suggestion and perfection of rhyme and rhythm.

George Meason Whicher, of New York, whose name is now often seen in The Continent of Chicago, is the author of "From Muscatine and Other Poems" and of recent prose with Italian and Latin background. Mr. Whicher is the author of four poems in the Midland, all harking back to the poet\'s boyhood days in Muscatine, Iowa.

Dr. Frank Irving Herriott, dean of sociology at Drake University, a voluminous writer on historical and sociological themes, has a long list of works to his credit, all bearing twentieth century dates except one published by the American Academy which appeared in 1892. He wrote for the Midland a strong plea for public libraries, a plea which, doubtless, had its influence in inaugurating the library movement in Iowa beginning with the new century.

Another scholar in the sociological field who has made his impression upon thousands of students and adult readers is Dr. Frank L. McVey, president of the University of North Dakota. His historical sketch in the Midland, "The Contest in the Maumee Valley," was followed by other published papers and these by several books on sociological themes, among them "Modern Industrialism" and "The Making of a Town."

There are few more scholarly literary critics than Welker Given, of Clinton, Iowa. His Shakespearean and classical studies have won for him an enviable place among students of the classics.

Mrs. Anna Howell Clarkson, of New York, wife of Hon. J. S. Clarkson, long prominent in Iowa journalism and in national politics, followed up her Midland article on "The Evolution of Iowa Politics" with a book entitled "A Beautiful Life and Its Associations," a tribute of loving regard to a former teacher and friend, Mrs. Drusilla Alden Stoddard.

A critique on "Our Later Literature and Robert Browning" in the Iowa magazine in April, 1897, may, or may not, have turned the current of Lewis Worthington Smith\'s whole life; but its critical power made friends for the Nebraska professor and warmed the welcome given him when, in 1902, he took up his work in the English department of Drake University of Des Moines. While Professor Smith has published several works on language and literature and an acting drama entitled "The Art of Life," his literary reputation rests mainly upon his poetry. Since the opening of the new century, volume has followed volume; first "God\'s Sunlight," then "In the Furrow," and, in 1916, "The English Tongue," and "Ships in Port." Many of the poems in the two last named evince the impact of the World War upon a soul of strong sensibilities. Tempted to quote whole poems, as showing the wide range of this poet\'s vision, I will limit myself to the first stanza of "The English Tongue":

On to where Indus and Ganges pour down to the tide.

Words that have lived, that have felt, that have gathered and grown.

Words! Is it nothing that no other people have known

Speech of such myriad voices, so full and so free,

Song by the fireside and crash of the thunders at sea?"

Jessie Welborn Smith, wife of Professor Smith, is a frequent contributor of short stories and sketches to popular magazines.

The late Henry Wallace, though for many years an agricultural editor in Iowa, modestly began his contribution to general literature in the Midland with a pen-picture of the Scotch-Irish in America. Subsequently he wrote his "Uncle Henry\'s Letters to a Farm Boy," which has run through many editions; also "Trusts and How to Deal With Them" and "Letters to the Farm-Folk."

Eugene Secor, of Forest City, published poems in the Midland which were followed by "Verses for Little Folk and Others," "A Glimpse of Elysium" and "Voices of the Trees."

Helen Hoyt Sherman\'s modest "Vill............