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Ralph Adams Cram on the Cycles of History

On November 30, 1919, at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, Lloyd Douglas reviewed a book by architect Ralph Adams Cram entitled, Walled Towns. That was also the title of Douglas’s sermon, but it wasn’t actually a sermon; just a book review. In fact, Douglas didn’t even give his own opinions about the book; he just read large portions of it. He had already sent out a brochure about the sermon in advance, however, and had made clear in that circular that he thought Cram’s book was important and deserving of everyone’s attention.

Looking back on this sermon a century later, I don’t see anything of importance in Cram’s book. Perhaps I’m missing something. He said that history moves in distinct 500-year waves, in which one civilization rises and falls, then another takes its place, with the intervening years being periods in which monasticism flourishes within “walled towns.” I’m not convinced that that’s true, but I’m especially not impressed by Cram’s prediction that the present world order would come crashing down by the year 2000, or that monastic conclaves would make survival possible.

For our purposes, though, the question is what this book meant to Lloyd Douglas; and that, too, is a mystery. Douglas was a modernist; Cram was a medievalist. Douglas saw history as progress; Cram believed in recurring cycles. Douglas believed in the power of individuals to change the world; Cram was (apparently) deterministic.

But there was something about Cram’s book that excited Douglas’s imagination — and it had to do with Cram’s dividing of history into 500-year epochs.

From promotional brochure for sermon entitled, “Walled Towns.” In LCD 1918 Scrapbook, Box 5, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

In this diagram, Cram represented history as an ebb-and-flow in which civilizations rose and fell (A), with monasticism playing an important role during each crisis moment (B). What seems to have interested Douglas was Cram’s predictions about the next two decades (the 1920s and 30s), and especially his prediction of the fall of the present civilization by the year 2000. We know that this book stimulated Douglas’s thinking because he mentioned it again in an article he published in the YMCA’s monthly newsletter. Also, a book reviewer some years later would recall hearing Douglas speaking about this rise-and-fall diagram during a lecture in Chicago around this same time.

Why is this important? Because it strongly influenced Douglas’s novel Green Light, which was published fifteen years later. In the following passage, we can see Douglas’s more mature reflections on Cram’s thesis. This is from Chapter 13, pages 214-217 in the original printing. At a dinner party, Dean Harcourt of Trinity Cathedral has been asked to share his views on the cycles of history:

“‘It all goes back at last,’ [the Dean says], ‘to the engaging story of the Long Parade. We must break our bad habit of talking about human progress as if it were a gradual upward journey from the jungle to Utopia. It isn’t quite that simple. We’ll have to think of that upward course in terms of planes, as if mankind proceeded on a series of steps up –‘

“‘Like climbing a terrace?’ [someone asks].

“‘Exactly! The half-dozen generations comprising a certain era will move along rather uneventfully, at times almost apathetically, on an approximately level plane. The upheavals, revolutions, and excitements of climbing up out of the era immediately preceding will already have become legendary. In this particular economic and political set-up that we are considering, customs crystallize rapidly into laws, the laws take on dignity and resolve themselves into codes, constitutions, charters. Manners beget morals. Traditions become established. After a while, there is a well-defined group of reliances: the State, the Church, hero worship, ceremonials; norms — the norms of beauty in art, norms of gallantry in conflict, norms of social conduct, norms of intellectual fitness… Very well. Then — when everything has become neatly integrated and the Parade has had its relatively serene period of recuperation from the now almost forgotten struggle of the climb to the level on which it is traveling, it wants to look out! — for the time has come for the taking of another steep grade!

“‘Customarily, these sharp ascents have been made within the space of a single generation. Sometimes it has taken a little longer — but not often. The people who are called upon to make the climb up to the next level unquestionably get a more comprehensive view of the Great Plan for humanity’s eventual destiny than is possible for the people who live midway of an era when things are, as we would say, normal. In the course of this rough scrambling up to the next plane of living, practically all of the old reliances are under heavy stress. Long-respected statues are found to be obsolete and obstructive. Emergency measures of an economic nature inevitably upset the morals which had prevailed — for the ethical imperatives of a given time are, in most cases, the product of economic conditions. Cherished dogmas, vital and useful yesterday but now defunct, are skinned and stuffed for museums. Art — supposedly long, in relation to the fleetingness of Time — yields to the clamor for reappraisal, along with everything else.'”

A little later he adds that “the people who happen to be in the line of march when Destiny determines that a grade is to be taken may be no better, no stronger than their fathers; no fitter than their sons. They just happen to be in and of the long Parade when it arrives at the foot of the ascending hill…’

“‘Hard on the old folks,’ grinned Mr. Sinclair.

“‘Quite!… Whatever sympathy may be felt for bewildered Youth on these occasions, the people in the Parade who find the climb most difficult and painful are the mature. For they have learned all they know about living under the more or less stable and predictable regimentation of the long plateau over which they have come. It does strange things to them as individuals. The same degree of heat required to refine gold will utterly consume a pine forest — and that doesn’t mean that a pine forest is of no value. In such periods of transition many individuals who, in a normal time, might have been very useful, crumple into defeat. Many others who, under normal circumstances, might have lived mediocre lives, endure the unusual with high distinction.'”

Someone remarks that this new age “gives the youngsters a chance”:

“‘Who are too immature,’ said the Dean, ‘for such a responsibility. So — they all go scrambling up the hill, everybody talking at once, rather shrilly. And at length, they reach the top and come out upon a broad plateau; write off their losses, tie up their bruises, mend their tattered boots, and the Long Parade trudges on. New customs settle into laws. New codes are framed. New constitutions written. New moral standards are agreed upon…. And then –‘

“‘Another half-dozen generations of that,’ assisted Norwood.

“‘Yes — and when everything has become nicely articulated again in that era, so that the people know practically what to expect of their institutions, their schools, their banks, their parliaments, their methods of transportation, communication, propaganda, social welfare; then you need to look out! It’s about time to take another grade!’

“‘Why — we’re taking one now!‘ exclaimed Elise, wide-eyed. ‘Aren’t we?'”

Yes, says the Dean, “‘…we are taking one of these grades now. It isn’t asked of us whether or not we would like to be members of the Long Parade during this brief period of hard climbing. We are members of it. And the only option extended to us as individuals is our privilege to determine whether we prefer to be dragged up — in which case we are an obstacle and a liability — or to proceed under our own power…'”

When Houghton Mifflin published this book in 1935, Douglas drew an illustration for his editor, showing him the general idea. His editor, Rich Kent, liked the drawing so well, he used it as the “end-papers” for the book (the inside cover). Here are those pages as they appeared in the original printing:

The end-papers (inside cover) of Douglas’s novel Green Light (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935).

Douglas didn’t want readers to think that he believed life was “a bed of roses.” He wanted them to know that there was some hard climbing ahead. And there was… for they were in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Second World War was already on the horizon.

Publishing Miracle 7: The Medical Profession

by Ronald R Johnson

I’ve been talking about the reasons the novel Magnificent Obsession became a bestseller after its release in the fall of 1929. One very important reason was the fact that it was a medical drama. We’re used to that sort of thing now; it seems like there’s always, at any time, at least one current TV series set in a hospital. But in 1929, it was rare for novelists to be able to write authoritatively about the lives of doctors and nurses.

As Reader’s Digest editor Charles Ferguson would later write in Cosmopolitan Magazine, “So authentic and convincing are the medical passages in the novels of Doctor Lloyd Cassel Douglas that not a few of the thousands of letters he receives each year are addressed to him as a medico. These letters detail the clinical histories of people who have suffered many things and now come to him as a last resort. Nor is this surprising. Every reference he makes to a disease or its treatment is invariably checked by the best authorities. Moreover, while Lloyd Douglas never studied medicine, he has read avidly on medical topics since early college days when the hankering to be a doctor first laid hold on him” (Charles W. Ferguson, “Lloyd C. Douglas, Cosmopolite,” Cosmopolitan, November 1938, p. 8).

And doctors noticed.

The magazine, American Medicine, printed a review of Magnificent Obsession. “This is one of the most unusual novels we have read in a long time,” the reviewer said – and it must have been unusual, indeed, for a novel of any kind to be reviewed in a medical journal. The reviewer explains why it seemed appropriate: “The setting for the story is medical throughout, and remarkably true to life, even to the accurate description of the latest technique in blood transfusion…. Whether one regards this book as a theme story or as a human-interest novel, it is well worth reading, especially for those in the medical profession or associated with it. The present reviewer, in fact, picked up the volume one night after dinner, and could not bring himself to put it down until he had reached the last page many hours later.”

Another medical journal, The Canadian Lancet and Practitioner, also gave the book a positive review.

And doctors wrote to Douglas. On one occasion Douglas compiled some blurbs from his fan mail and gave them to his publisher for possible use in advertising. (This can be found in the Jewell Stevens File, Moore Library, Special Collections, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.) Here is one of those comments:

“From a prominent physician in Oklahoma City: ‘I have read this book through twice; parts of it several times more. The medical references are correct; excellent! What percent of this book is fiction?'” (That question at the end must have made Douglas smile.)

As I mentioned in earlier posts, Douglas was well-connected with the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School during his days in Ann Arbor, from 1915 to 1921, and he stayed in touch with some of them. One was Dr. G. Carl Huber, who was Dean of the University of Michigan’s graduate school when Magnificent Obsession came out, but for many years before that was a respected faculty member at the medical school, well known for his work in neurosurgery. Carl Huber makes an appearance in Chapter 8 of Magnificent Obsession. Bobby Merrick, who is going through medical training, gushes about his Anatomy professor, whom he calls “old Huber.” He tells Nancy Ashford:

“And old Huber’s a prince! He handles those poor cadavers as if they were our relatives. I’ll bet if some of them had been given as much tender consideration while alive as Huber gives them in the lab, they might have lived longer… Buries their ashes, Huber does, at the end of the semester… conventional interment – bell, book and clergy… Contends that these paupers and idiots and criminals, however much they may have burdened their communities while they lived, have so completely discharged their obligation to society by their service in the lab, that they deserve honorable burial… A fine old boy is Huber, believe me!”

Douglas sent a copy of the novel to Huber and received the following letter back, dated November 11, 1929:

“My dear Dr. Douglas:

“Thank you very sincerely for the copy of your novel, Magnificent Obsession. The book came to the laboratory and was taken to the house and read by Mrs. Huber before I had a chance to really see it. She, and other members of the family, pointed with real pride to a certain page on which you referred to me. It is nice of you to think of me in this way, and although I have a recollection that I once stated that you might refer to the incident if you did not use my name, that was long ago, and I will pretend that I have forgotten, as I see you did forget. I am taking the spirit of it as sincere.

“I enjoyed the book as a whole very much. I found it quite worthwhile reading. Your characters are not all creatures of the imagination – I have met them, and all have interest. The entire novel is worked out very nicely, and I enjoyed it more knowing its author and having recognition of his worth.”

That last paragraph is especially interesting, since it tells us that other characters besides Dr. Huber were based on real people at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Incidentally, Douglas mentioned Dr. Huber in an article in the Akron Times-Press. After briefly describing the passage in the book about him, Douglas said, “I had a letter from him the other day. He said he was surprised to find himself in a novel he was reading without a thought that the story had any relation to him. That would be a funny sensation, wouldn’t it?” I gather, instead, that Dr. Huber was a bit chagrined at seeing his name in a novel when he had probably just expected Douglas to use the incident in a sermon sometime.

At any rate, the medical connection helped boost sales of the book, not only because doctors and other health professionals became interested in it, but also because the general public liked such stories. As a reviewer in the Chicago Herald Examiner wrote, “Its story has many reasons for general appeal.” The first reason he gives is this: “It concerns the always fascinating atmosphere of medicine and surgery.”

But there is a more specific way in which the medical aspect helped generate interest in the book: in the novel, Merrick achieves a technological breakthrough in brain surgery that was actually occurring in real life at that time. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post.

Anatomy of a Publishing Miracle

by Ronald R Johnson

In November 1929, just after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, a gaudy-colored book with an enigmatic title was released to the world by a little-known publishing company in Chicago, far from all the action. It would take a year and a half for the industry to notice its appearance, but another year later they’d treat the book as a phenomenon. Noel Busch, in an article for Life Magazine, called Magnificent Obsession “a publishing miracle.”

There was little about the book that would attract readers. The publisher’s description on the cover was completely unhelpful. “A novel of strong color and varied interests,” they said, “dealing with strange, transforming life forces.” If books are truly judged by their covers, this one might have turned off a lot of people. What was the book about? And why should we care?

The inside flyleaf was more effective. It elaborated on the theme of mystery…

“Within the first third of the book,” it said, “you come to this…”

‘I wonder what was on that page.’

He laughed. ‘That was what Hudson wanted to know. Now it’s your question – and mine.’ He gripped her arm in strong fingers. ‘And – no matter how stiffly we revolt against this thing, we’re sure to be sneaking back to it.’

She nodded without looking up. ‘It’s likely to make us as nutty as he was!’

Bobby strolled to the window… ‘I can’t afford to dabble in such stuff! You can go into it if you want to. I’m out!’

Nancy’s voice was husky.

‘You’ll not be able to get away from it! You’re too far in! It’s got you! … A form of insanity, maybe; but you may as well come along – first as last!’

It reads like a detective novel. What have they gotten into? Sounds dangerous. And sexy. A man, a woman. He grips her arm. She has a husky voice. The whole thing has a seductive quality, drawing us in. What the woman says to the man is really meant for us: “It’s got you! You may as well come along…”

But first we have to become interested enough to pick up the ugly orange book and read the flyleaf. (Sorry. Maybe you like orange. Maybe it made people want to pick it up and read it. It certainly was “a book of strong color.” My own opinion, however, is that it would have appeared gaudy, especially since bookstores at first displayed it in their Religion section, where only ministers and very religious people tended to browse.)

The fact that the book became both a bestseller and a classic (and is still in print a century later) is indeed a “publishing miracle.” But thanks to Douglas’s scrapbooks and correspondence, we can analyze how it all unfolded. Over the next dozen posts, I’ll give a detailed explanation: the anatomy of a publishing miracle.