Ray Stannard Baker

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Ray Stannard Baker (around 1910)

Ray Stannard Baker (* 17th April 1870 in Lansing , Michigan ; † 12. July 1946 in Amherst , Massachusetts ) was an American journalist and writer known for his eight-volume biography about US President Woodrow Wilson in 1940 the Pulitzer Prize awarded .

biography

After attending school, he first studied at the East Michigan Agricultural College and graduated from it in 1889. He broke off later further studies at the University of Michigan after one semester in 1892 and then began working as a journalist for the daily newspaper The Chicago Record . During his six years at the newspaper, he wrote about the 1894 Pullman strike in Chicago and the 1893 march of a group of unemployed men led by Jacob S. Coxey to Washington, known as the "Coxey Army." Both events helped strengthen Baker in his belief in the need for social reform.

After he was from 1898 to 1905 next to Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell in the magazine McClure's Magazine to the group of so-called Muckraker that as editors a kind of early investigative journalism operated and corruption cases were specialized by politicians and government employees. One of his contributions was: Railroads On Trial . In it he dealt in five parts from November 1905 - April 1906 the different tariffs of the railways:

  • Part I - Railroad Rate , p. 47
  • Part II - Railroad Rebates , p. 179
  • Part III - Private Car And The Beef Trust , p. 118
  • Part IV - Private Cars And The Fruit Industry , p. 398
  • Part V - How Railroads Make Public Opinion , p. 435

In 1906, Baker left McClure and together with the other collaborators, Steffens, Tarbell and the editor John Phillips, founded the American Magazine , which was known for its radical enlightenment, and wrote articles for it until 1915.

He began his actual writing activity in 1907 under his pseudonym "David Grayson" with the publication of Adventures in Contentment , a collection of essays . With these novels he touched the hearts of millions of readers and established his fame as a writer. Follow the Color Line (1908) was the first book to deal with the problems of African Americans .

Baker with Allied officers on the Italian front in September 1918.

Baker met Woodrow Wilson for the first time in 1910 and increasingly became his ardent supporter, for he saw in him the person who would tackle social reform and supported his election campaign for the presidency. After Wilson took office in 1912, Baker belonged to the inner circle of friends. In 1918 President Wilson sent Baker to Great Britain, France and Italy as special envoy for the State Department . Through this post he met statesmen and leaders of the liberal movement and also reported on possible revolutionary forces in these countries. In 1919, Baker took part in the Paris Peace Conference as director of the American delegation's press office. This task inevitably made him the president's press secretary and required close cooperation. This connection with Wilson would last until the end of his life, and Baker became a strong advocate of Wilson's work as a peacemaker, and especially the League of Nations. In his book “ What Wilson Did at Paris ” (1919) and in his three-volume edition “ Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement ” (1922), Baker described Wilson's efforts for a lasting peace. Baker was also co-editor of the six volume edition of The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson with William E. Dodd, which were published from 1925 to 1927. After stepping down from his presidency in 1921, Wilson named Baker his official biographer. This gave Baker access to all papers and his own office. Baker spent 15 years writing the biography. The first two volumes “ Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters ” appeared in 1927. For this comprehensive overview of the life and work of the US President, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biographies in 1940, especially for the seventh and eighth volumes .

Baker also wrote his memoirs under the titles Native American (1941) and American Chronicle (1945) .

On January 1, 1896, Baker married the daughter of his former biology professor, Jessie Irene Beal. They had four children: Alice Beal (Hyde), James Stannard, Roger Denio and Rachel Moore (Napier). In 1910 they moved to Amherst, Massachusetts.

The Michigan State University awarded him in 1917 the honorary doctorate . Since 1920 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Works

  • Shop Talks on the Wonders of Crafts . Chicago, 1895
  • The Boy's Book of Inventions: Stories of the Wonders of Modern Science . New York: Doubleday, McClure, 1899
  • Our New Prosperity . Doubleday, McClure, New York 1900
  • Lakes in Germany . McClure, Phillips, New York 1901
  • Boys' Second Book of Inventions . McClure, Phillips, New York 1903
  • Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy . Doubleday, Page, New York 1908
  • New Ideals in Healing. Frederick A Stokes, New York 1909
  • The Spiritual Unrest. Frederick A Stokes, New York 1910
  • What Wilson Did at Paris. New York, 1919
  • Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement. (3 vols New York, 1922)
  • An American Pioneer in Science: The Life and Service of William James Beal . co-author with Jessie B Baker Amherst, Mass: Privately printed, 1925
  • Wilson's Public Papers. co-author with William Edward Dodd. Harper & Brothers, New York. (6 vol., 1925-26).
  • Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. 8 vols Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, and Doubleday, Doran, 1927-1939
  • Native American: The Book of My Youth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons , 1941
  • American Chronicle: The Autobiography of Ray Stannard Baker . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945

Works under "David Grayson"

  • Adventures in Contentment Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1907
  • Adventures in Friendship . Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1910
  • The Philosophy of the Soul Country Life in America XIX (Mar 15, 1911): 387-388
  • The Friendly Road: New Adventures in Contentment Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1913
  • Hempfield: An American Novel Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1915
  • Great Possessions: A New Series of Adventures . Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1917
  • How David Grayson Feels About the War in: American, LXXXV (May, 1918): 24-25 +
  • Adventures in Understanding . Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Page, 1925
  • Adventures in Solitude . Illustrated by David Hendrickson New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1931
  • The Well Flavored Earth in: Reader's Digest XXIV (June 1934): 102-104
  • Pet Economies Reader's Digest XXV (Jan 1935): 62
  • The Countryman's Year . Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1936
  • Spring is in the Air , in: Reader's Digest XXXVII (May 1940): 116-118
  • The Man in The Glass Cage , in: Reader's Digest Reader (New York, 1940)
  • My Unexpected Harvest , in: Reader's Digest XXXVIII (May 1941): 137-139
  • Under My Elm: Country Discoveries and Reflections . Illustrated by David Hendrickson New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1942
  • Full Reward of Labor . In: Coronet , 27 (Dec 1949): 113
  • The Power of Love . In: Coronet , 27 (Jan. 1950): 31
  • The Majesty of Genius . In: Coronet , 28 (Mar 1950): 47
  • Books by Ray Stannard Baker (and pseudonym David Grayson) in the Internet Archive

Web links

Wikisource: Ray Stannard Baker  - sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Pullman Strike Chicago, 1894
  2. ^ Coxey's Army . In: Ohio History Central
  3. ↑ Mac Clure's Magazine , Vol. 26, November 1905-April 1906, Text Archive - Internet Archive
  4. ↑ Ray Stannard Baker Papers, 1887-1944  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Princeton University Library.@1@ 2Template: dead link / findingaids.princeton.edu  
  5. ^ Jones Library, Inc. Amherst, Massachusetts
  6. ↑ List of Honorary Doctorates from Michigan State University
  7. ^ Members: Ray Stannard Baker. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 14, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Baker, Ray Stannard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES David Grayson (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Lansing , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1946
Place of death Amherst , Massachusetts