Collection ID: LMC 1521
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960 and Durant, Will, 1885-1981
Abstract:
The Howatt mss., 1902-1959, consist in the main of letters to David Howatt, 1882-1964 , farmer and secretary of Upton Beall Sinclair, from writers Harry Kemp, Upton Beall Sinclair, and William James Durant.
Extent:
1 Box (1 standard)
Language:
Materials are in English .
Preferred citation:

[Item], Howatt mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Background

Biographical / Historical:

David Howatt, 1882-1964, was a farmer and secretary of Upton Sinclair.

Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, September 20, 1878, and grew up there and in New York City. He began his writing career as a teenager, producing pseudonymous boys' adventure stories for pulp magazine publishers, as well as writing jokes for humor magazines. Between 1900 and 1905 Sinclair published five novels, but it wasn't until The Jungle, published in 1906, that he became an internationally known author. The success of this novel, which deals with the appalling conditions in the meat packing plants in Chicago, not only made Sinclair a rich man but also provided the final impetus for passage of the pure food law of 1906. With the proceeds from the sale of the novel Sinclair set up a communal living experiment called Helicon Hall in New Jersey. A fire just one year later destroyed everything and left Sinclair and his young family impoverished once again.

Following a tumultuous separation and divorce from Meta H. Fuller, Sinclair married Mary Craig Kimbrough and in 1914 they took up permanent residence in Southern California. From 1917 through the early 1940s Sinclair himself published virtually all of his books and pamphlets although many of the major works were published simultaneously by New York houses. Despite his well known Socialist beliefs, Sinclair succeeded in winning the Democratic party nomination for governor of California in 1934 and ran on his "EPIC" (End Poverty in California) platform. He lost the election, but many of the ideas he expressed during the campaign affected advisors and officials in Roosevelt's administrations and later found expression in national legislation. In 1940 Sinclair published the first of the best-selling Lanny Budd series, volume three of which, Dragon's Teeth, won the Pulitzer prize for literature in 1943. The eleven volumes were wide-ranging historical novels presenting the political history of the Western World from 1913-1950, and they were immensely popular. After the death of his third wife in December 1967, Sinclair moved to a nursing home in New Jersey to be near his son, David, and family. He died peacefully, November 25, 1968.

Sometimes known as the "Kansas poet," Harry Hibbard Kemp, 1883-1960, was born in Youngstown, Ohio, then attended Mt. Hermon Preparatory School in Massachusetts and the University of Kansas at Lawrence. After a trip tramping around the country, he established his reputation as the "tramp poet" and the "boxcar bard." His first wife Mary Pyne died in 1920, and later he married Frances McClernan. During residence in New York City, he organized The Poets Theater and later, in Provincetown on Cape Cod, the Provincetown Pilgrims Association. Kemp is the author of several poetry collections and a bestselling autobiography, Tramping on Life (1922).

In 1907, Kemp befriended Upton Sinclair, who, newly famous after the success of the Jungle (1906), compared Kemp to a modern Walt Whitman. In 1911, after news of Kemp's affair with Sinclair's wife Meta broke in the newspapers, the Kemp-Sinclair friendship ended.

William James Durant, 1885-1981, philosopher and historian of philosophy, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. Educated Catholic, he entered the seminary in 1909, but withdrew in 1911 after reading Spinoza's Ethics precipitated a crisis of faith. He joined radical circles in New York City and taught at the experimental Ferrer Modern School, but resigned in 1913 to marry his 15-year-old student, Ada (or Ida) Kaufman, whom he called Ariel. In 1917, he obtained his PhD in philosophy from Columbia University and went on to lecture at the Labor Temple School in New York. He is the author of the bestselling The Story of Philosophy (1926) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Story of Civilization, written in collaboration with his wife Ariel (won 1968). He died in 1981 in Los Angeles, California.

Scope and Content:

The Howatt mss., 1902-1959, consist in the main of letters to David Howatt, 1882- , farmer, secretary of Upton Beall Sinclair, and writer, from Harry Kemp, Upton Beall Sinclair, and William James Durant.

The letters, 1902-1915, from Kemp fall mainly in the years, 1902-1910, during which time Kemp was in and out of school first at Mount Hermon School in Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, and later at the University of Kansas. Kemp tells of where he is publishing poems and defines his point of view on matters of concern to him, e.g. his ideas of religion, free thinking, socialism, etc. He comments on books he is reading and on some of his acquaintances, among them Bernarr Adolphus Macfadden, Elbert Hubbard, and Upton Beall Sinclair.

The letters, 1909-1913, 1924, and 1959, from Sinclair to Howatt, most of which were written during 1909-1910, while Howatt was Sinclair's secretary, are concerned largely with odd jobs Howatt was doing for Sinclair. In the 1910-1913 letters Sinclair comments on the publication of his Love's Pilgrimage and on his divorce.

The Durant material consists of a postcard, August 19, 1912, and a letter, January 10, 1928, from Durant to Howatt, and a postcard, July 21, 1912, from Durant to Mrs. Maude (Osborn) Howatt, (Mrs. David Howatt).

Also included in the collection are an undated manuscript of "The red flag," a poem by Sinclair, and photographs of Sinclair, Howatt, Durant, and others.

The first folder in the collection contains newspaper clippings relating to Howatt.

Acquisition information:
Gift: 1961
Physical location:
Lilly - Stacks

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

This collection is open for research.

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TERMS OF ACCESS:

Photography and digitization may be restricted for some collections. Copyright restrictions may apply. Before publishing, researchers are responsible for securing permission from all applicable rights holders, then filling out the Permission to Publish form.

PREFERRED CITATION:

[Item], Howatt mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
1200 East Seventh Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-5500, USA
CAMPUS:
Indiana University Bloomington
CONTACT:
(812) 855-2452
liblilly@indiana.edu