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Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he had early success as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. Hubbard is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Key Information

Among Hubbard's many publications were the fourteen-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short publication A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine SM U-20 off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

Early life

[edit]

Hubbard was born in Bloomington, Illinois, to Silas Hubbard and Juliana Frances Read on June 19, 1856. In the autumn of 1855, his parents had relocated to Bloomington from Buffalo, New York, where his father had a medical practice. Finding it difficult to settle in Bloomington—mainly due to the presence of several already established doctors—Silas moved his family to Hudson, Illinois, the next year.[1]: 7  Nicknamed "Bertie" by his family, Elbert had two older siblings: Charlie, who was largely bed-ridden after a fall when he was young, and Hannah Frances, nicknamed "Frank" like her mother.[1]: 10–11  Charlie died at the age of nine, when Elbert was three-and-a-half years old. Elbert also had three younger sisters who were named Mary, Anna Miranda, and Honor.[1]: 11–12 

The Hubbard children attended the local public school, a small building with two rooms that overlooked a graveyard. Thirty years later, Elbert described his schooling days as "splendid" and "tinged with no trace of blue.... I had no ambitions then—I was sure that some day I could spell down the school, propound a problem in fractions that would puzzle the teacher, and play checkers in a way that would cause my name to be known throughout the entire township."[1]: 14  Mary would remember her older brother's role as a school troublemaker, noting that he "annoyed his teachers... occasionally by roaring inappropriately when his too-responsive sense of humor was tickled."[1]: 15 

Elbert's first business venture was selling Larkin soap products, a career which eventually brought him to Buffalo, New York. His innovations for Larkin included premiums and "leave on trial".[2]

Roycroft

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Elbert Hubbard illustrated in the frontispiece of The Mintage.

Hubbard ... was reborn, in middle age, as Fra Elbertus, the owner, leader, prophet, and boss of Roycroft, a quasi-communal, neomedievalist (after William Morris), semiutopian community of residences and shops that specialized in the printing of handsome leather-bound, hand-illumined books, and in the manufacture of furniture, pottery, leather goods, rugs, baskets, stained-glass lamps and windows, candy, painting, music, all of which bore the Roycroft name.[3]

His best-known work came after he founded Roycroft, an Arts and Crafts community in East Aurora, New York, in 1895. This grew from his private press which he had initiated in collaboration with his first wife Bertha Crawford Hubbard, the Roycroft Press, inspired by William Morris' Kelmscott Press.[4] Although called the "Roycroft Press" by latter-day collectors and print historians, the organization called itself "The Roycrofters" and "The Roycroft Shops".[5]

Hubbard edited and published two magazines, The Philistine—A Periodical of Protest and The FRA--A Journal of Affirmation. The Philistine was bound in brown butcher paper and featuring largely satire and whimsy. (Hubbard himself quipped that the cover was butcher paper because: "There is meat inside.")[6] The Roycrofters produced handsome, if sometimes eccentric, books printed on handmade paper, and operated a fine bindery, a furniture shop, and shops producing modeled leather and hammered copper goods. They were a leading producer of Mission style products.

Hubbard's second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, was a graduate of the New Thought-oriented Emerson College of Oratory in Boston and a noted suffragist. The Roycroft Shops became a site for meetings and conventions of radicals, freethinkers, reformers, and suffragists. Hubbard became a popular lecturer, and his homespun philosophy evolved from a loose William Morris-inspired socialism to an ardent defense of free enterprise and American know-how. Hubbard was mocked in the Socialist press for "selling out". He replied that he had not given up any ideal of his, but had simply lost faith in Socialism as a means of realizing them.[7]

An example of his trenchant critical style may be found in his saying that prison is, "An example of a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied and competition is eliminated."[8]

In 1908, Hubbard was the main speaker at the annual meeting of The Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves.[9] Before he died, Hubbard planned to write a story about Felix Flying Hawk, the only son of Chief Flying Hawk. Hubbard had learned about Flying Hawk during 1915 from Major Israel McCreight.[10]

In 1912, the passenger liner RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. Hubbard subsequently wrote of the disaster,[11] singling out the story of Ida Straus, who as a woman was supposed to be placed on a lifeboat in precedence to the men, but refused to board the boat, and leave her husband.[a] Hubbard then added his own commentary:

Mr. and Mrs. Straus, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty left to your children and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours all your long and useful career was your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things—you knew how to live, how to love and how to die. One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, and the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide is atrocious. But to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus is glorious. Few have such a privilege. Happy lovers, both. In life they were never separated and in death they are not divided."[11]

Conviction and pardon

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At the beginning of World War I, Hubbard published a great deal of related commentary in The Philistine and became anxious to cross the ocean, report on the war and interview the Kaiser himself. However, Hubbard had pleaded guilty on January 11, 1913, in the court of U.S. District Court Judge John R. Hazel for violating Section 211 of the penal code.[12] Hubbard was convicted on one count of circulating "objectionable" (or "obscene") matter in violation of the postal laws.[13]

Hubbard requested a presidential pardon from William Howard Taft, but the administration discarded the request as "premature".[14] When his application for a passport was denied in 1915, Hubbard went directly to the White House and pleaded with Woodrow Wilson's personal secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty. At the time, the President was in the midst of a cabinet meeting, but Tumulty interrupted and, as a result, the Secretary of State (William Jennings Bryan) and Attorney General Thomas Gregory were also able to hear of Hubbard's situation and need.[15]

The pardon was found to be appropriate, and Hubbard's clemency application process lasted exactly one day.[16] Seventy-five percent of those petitioning for clemency during that fiscal year were not so fortunate; their requests were denied or adversely reported or no action was taken.[16] On receiving his pardon, Hubbard obtained a passport and, on May 1, 1915, left with his wife on a voyage to Europe.[b]

Death

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A little more than three years after the sinking of the Titanic, the Hubbards boarded the RMS Lusitania in New York City. On May 7, 1915, while at sea 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, the ship was hit by a single torpedo and sunk by the German U-boat U-20.[18] His end seems to have followed the pattern he had admired in Mrs. Straus. In a letter to Elbert Hubbard II dated March 12, 1916, Ernest C. Cowper, a survivor of this event, wrote:[19]

I cannot say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.

Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms—the fashion in which they always walked the deck—and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, "Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were."

They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, "There does not seem to be anything to do."

The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him.

It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.

The Roycroft Shops, managed by Hubbard's son, Elbert Hubbard II, operated until 1938.[20]

Personal life

[edit]

I am an Anarchist. All good men are Anarchists. All cultured, kindly men; all gentlemen; all just men are Anarchists. Jesus was an Anarchist.

Elbert Hubbard, A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things p.147

Hubbard described himself as an anarchist and a socialist.[21]: 149  He believed in social, economic, domestic, political, mental and spiritual freedom.[21]: ii  In A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things (1901), Hubbard explained his Credo by writing "I believe John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman and Leo Tolstoy to be Prophets of God, and they should rank in mental reach and spiritual insight with Elijah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Isaiah."[21]: i 

Hubbard wrote a critique of war, law and government in the booklet Jesus Was An Anarchist (1910). Originally published as The Better Part in A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things, the essay was described by Ernest Howard Crosby as "The best thing Elbert ever wrote."[22]

Another book which was written by Hubbard is titled Health and Wealth. It was published in 1908 and includes many short truisms.

Legacy

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Contributors to a 360-page book published by Roycrofters and titled In Memoriam: Elbert and Alice Hubbard included such celebrities as meat-packing magnate J. Ogden Armour, business theorist and Babson College founder Roger Babson, botanist and horticulturalist Luther Burbank, seed-company founder W. Atlee Burpee, ketchup magnate Henry J. Heinz, National Park Service founder Franklin Knight Lane, success writer Orison Swett Marden, inventor of the modern comic strip Richard F. Outcault, poet James Whitcomb Riley, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elihu Root, evangelist Billy Sunday, intellectual Booker T. Washington, and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox.[23]

Hubbard's Message to Garcia essay was adapted into two movies: the 1916 silent movie A Message to Garcia and the 1936 movie A Message to Garcia.

Mack Bolan, the main character of Don Pendleton's fiction series The Executioner, frequently cites as inspiration a Hubbard quote, "God will not look you over for medals, diplomas, or degrees – but for scars."[24][25]

The phrase "The graveyards are full of indispensable men" may have originated with Hubbard.[26]

A quote of Hubbard's from his biography of American automotive developer John North Willys, "Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you'll never be criticized", is often misattributed to Aristotle.[27]

Other quotes include [28]

  • Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
  • In order to have friends, you must first be one.
  • Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

The Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum is at the George and Gladys Scheidemantel House in East Aurora, New York. The museum features furniture and decorative items produced by the Roycroft community.

Selected works

[edit]
  • Forbes of Harvard (1894)
  • No Enemy But Himself (1894)
  • Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great (1895–1910)
  • The Legacy (1896)
  • A Message to Garcia (1899)
  • A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things (1901)
  • Love, Life and Work (1906)
  • “A Dozen & Two Pastelles in Prose by Elbert Hubbard,

Being impressions of the Wanamaker Stores, written in as many moods (1907)

  • White Hyacinths (1907)
  • Health and Wealth (1908)
  • The Doctors (1909)
  • The Mintage (1910)
  • Jesus Was An Anarchist (1910), also published as The Better Part
  • An American Bible (1911) Alice Hubbard, Editor
  • The Silver Arrow (1923)
  • Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923)
  • The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
  • The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard (1930)
[edit]
  • Roycroft Campus Visitor Center, June 2019
    Roycroft Campus Visitor Center, June 2019
  • Roycroft Campus welcome sign, 2008
    Roycroft Campus welcome sign, 2008
  • Sign about Elbert Hubbard
    Sign about Elbert Hubbard

See also

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Explanatory notes

[edit]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Elbert Hubbard

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Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, and philosopher who founded the artisan community in , establishing it as a major hub of the Arts and Crafts movement inspired by William Morris's ideals of craftsmanship and simplicity in response to industrialization. After early success as a salesman for the Larkin Soap Company, Hubbard launched the Press in 1897, expanding it into workshops for printing, bookbinding, furniture, and metalwork that employed hundreds and produced handcrafted goods emphasizing quality and self-reliance. His 1899 essay , praising the initiative of Lieutenant Andrew Summers Rowan in delivering a critical dispatch during the Spanish-American War, achieved immense popularity, with tens of millions of copies distributed to promote diligence and unquestioning task completion in business and military contexts. Hubbard died with his second wife, Alice, aboard the RMS when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat off , an event he had anticipated might cement his legacy.

Early Life

Childhood and Family

Elbert Green Hubbard was born on June 19, 1856, in , to Dr. Silas Hubbard, a physician born in New York in 1821, and Juliana Frances Read Hubbard, born in 1829. The family soon relocated to the rural village of Hudson, Illinois, where Silas practiced in a modest country setting. Hubbard grew up as the only surviving son among several siblings, including older brother Charles Silas and sister Frances Hannah, as well as younger sisters such as Anna Miranda. The household faced typical constraints of mid-19th-century rural life, with 's medical practice providing a basic but unremarkable livelihood in an era when country doctors often bartered services for goods amid limited cash economies. This environment instilled early practical skills, as children in such families contributed to farm chores and household tasks, fostering resourcefulness and independence from a young age. Formal education was limited to the local public school, a small one-room structure typical of frontier villages, where Hubbard attended intermittently. He supplemented this with self-directed reading, drawing from access to books influenced by his mother's background in teaching and his father's professional curiosity, which emphasized innate drive and personal initiative over prolonged institutional instruction. These formative experiences in a self-reliant rural laid the groundwork for Hubbard's later emphasis on individual agency, unburdened by dependency on structured systems.

Initial Business Ventures

Hubbard began his business career in his mid-teens as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Company in , peddling products door-to-door and via wagon routes across the Midwest, including Peoria and rural areas. By 1878, as John D. Larkin's brother-in-law, he entered into a under J. D. Larkin & Co., focusing on while Larkin handled manufacturing, which propelled the firm's growth through innovative direct-mail marketing and premium incentives. His early exposure to commerce honed persuasive techniques, emphasizing volume and customer loyalty over high margins, skills that underscored his entrepreneurial drive rooted in practical fieldwork rather than formal . In 1886, Hubbard devised the "Combination Box," a bundled assortment of soaps and toiletries shipped directly to consumers, which boosted sales by simplifying distribution and appealing to mass markets without intermediaries. Rising rapidly within the company, he achieved the role of by the 1880s, overseeing marketing strategies that transformed Larkin into a leading mail-order enterprise, generating substantial revenue through efficient, low-cost operations. These ventures exposed him to nationwide travel and negotiation, fostering a pragmatic understanding of consumer behavior and supply chains that informed his later independent endeavors. Hubbard departed Larkin in 1893 after nearly two decades, selling his stake for approximately $75,000 amid growing dissatisfaction with corporate routine, signaling a pivot to self-directed pursuits built on accumulated commercial acumen. This exit, driven by a desire for creative rather than , marked the culmination of his initial foray into , where hands-on salesmanship yielded tangible success and foundational experience in persuasion and .

Intellectual and Philosophical Evolution

Influences from Arts and Crafts

Hubbard's engagement with the Arts and Crafts movement began prominently during his trip to in May 1894, when he visited William Morris's in and observed the production of finely crafted, handmade books using medieval-inspired techniques. This exposure to Morris's operations, which emphasized artisanal quality over machine-driven efficiency, resonated with Hubbard's growing dissatisfaction with American industrialism's dehumanizing effects on labor. Morris's writings, particularly those romanticizing pre-industrial guilds and decrying the alienation caused by factory production, initially aligned Hubbard with a vision of craftsmanship as a means to reclaim worker autonomy and aesthetic integrity. Drawing from Morris's anti-industrial ethos, Hubbard early on endorsed the revival of handmade goods to counteract the uniformity and shoddiness of mass-produced items, viewing such practices as essential to elevating everyday objects and restoring purpose to manual work. However, while sympathetic to Morris's guild-based communal model—which carried socialist undertones aimed at democratizing beauty through collective effort—Hubbard adapted these ideas toward practical American applications, prioritizing self-reliant artisanry over rigid utopian structures that risked economic infeasibility. This selective embrace reflected his belief in craftsmanship as a pathway to personal fulfillment, distinct from Morris's broader advocacy for systemic political overhaul. Throughout the 1890s, Hubbard's public lectures incorporated these influences, promoting a that celebrated the dignity inherent in skilled labor while urging individuals to pursue excellence through voluntary effort rather than enforced collectivism. His talks often highlighted the moral and aesthetic superiority of handwrought items, positioning them as antidotes to the soul-eroding routines of factory life, yet consistently framed as achievable via entrepreneurial initiative and market responsiveness. This approach marked an early divergence from pure Morrisian idealism, foreshadowing Hubbard's emphasis on viable, incentive-driven production models suited to industrial-era realities.

Shift from Collectivism to Individualism

By the late 1890s, Hubbard had transitioned from earlier socialist sympathies, inspired by William Morris's communal ideals, toward a staunch advocacy for free enterprise, observing through his commercial ventures that individual initiative, rather than enforced collectivity, generated economic vitality and innovation. His experiences as a traveling salesman from 1881 to 1893, where he witnessed market-driven success firsthand, convinced him that prosperity stemmed from personal ambition and voluntary exchange, not state-mandated redistribution, which he deemed prone to inefficiency due to the absence of direct incentives. This maturation aligned with causal mechanisms of human motivation, where self-interest propelled productive effort, as evidenced by the rapid growth of his enterprises after 1895, which evolved from artisanal workshop to self-sustaining business employing over 100 workers by 1900 without reliance on communal subsidies. Hubbard critiqued collectivist dependency as a barrier to creativity, arguing that it fostered parasitism and mediocrity by undermining the competitive drive essential for advancement, drawing from observations of socialist proponents who, in his view, often evaded practical labor themselves. Instead, he elevated self-reliant "captains of industry"—entrepreneurs like those profiled in his biographical series—as exemplars of progress, whose risk-taking and organizational acumen harnessed individual efforts into societal wealth, countering the era's rising calls for welfare provisions that he saw as eroding personal accountability. This philosophy prefigured his 1899 essay "A Message to Garcia," which extolled unprompted responsibility amid bureaucratic inertia, reflecting a broader rejection of paternalistic systems in favor of incentive-aligned individualism. Hubbard's evolved stance emphasized that true social harmony arose from decentralized , where imposed burdens that spurred , rather than diffused them through collectives, a position he substantiated by contrasting thriving private operations against utopian schemes lacking empirical validation. He maintained that , while sentimentally appealing, faltered on human nature's realities—aversion to uncompensated toil and preference for —predicting its implementations would yield stagnation over abundance, as later borne out in his defenses of market dynamics against ideological purists. This shift underscored a commitment to verifiable outcomes over abstract equity, privileging the tangible results of voluntary in enterprise.

Roycroft Community and Enterprises

Founding and Expansion

Elbert Hubbard established the community in , in 1895, shortly after visiting William Morris's in during a 1894 trip that inspired his commitment to handmade craftsmanship. Initially focused on a private for producing ornate, hand-bound books, the venture started small, with Hubbard leveraging his sales expertise from prior work at the Larkin Soap Company to promote its output. By 1897, he built the Roycroft Print Shop next to his home on South Grove Street, marking the formal beginning of campus development. The community expanded into a multifaceted artisan hub, diversifying production to include mission-style furniture, goods, and copperwork alongside , reaching approximately 500 employees by the early 1900s. Hubbard structured as a profit-driven enterprise, where revenues from direct sales and marketing sustained growth without subsidies, incorporating communal elements that encouraged worker participation and loyalty. This pragmatic approach blended and Crafts philosophy with commercial viability, attracting apprentices, skilled craftspeople, and tourists to the campus. By the early 1900s, had achieved financial self-sufficiency, with Hubbard's promotional strategies—such as catalogs and mail-order sales—driving demand and enabling infrastructure expansions like additional workshops completed around 1903. The model's success lay in its rejection of unprofitable , prioritizing marketable quality goods that appealed to a broad American audience seeking alternatives to mass-produced items.

Operations and Artisan Productions

The Roycroft enterprises produced handcrafted goods using traditional methods reminiscent of medieval guilds, including hand-press for illuminated on handmade bound in or , alongside Mission-style furniture, copperwork, items, , rugs, baskets, and stained-glass windows. These items emphasized and , with furniture designed for using rough-hewn timbers and local field stones without formal blueprints, evolving into a distinctive "Roycroft Style" that earned international awards in , , and . Production occurred in expanded shops on the East Aurora campus, employing up to 500-800 workers at peak, with meticulous processes like lead-pencil manuscripts revised for accuracy before . The community operated as a practical structured around hands-on apprenticeships for local , blending manual labor with skill-building to foster and through daily routines of half-day work and . Hubbard oversaw merit-based progression, transitioning capable apprentices into skilled artisans via direct training rather than formal contracts, though this drew union criticism for high apprentice ratios and wages as low as $10 per week for college youths and over 40 young women. Weekly payrolls ensured , with Hubbard enforcing standards through personal involvement in operations, prioritizing output quality over volume. Commercially, achieved viability through targeted sales via annual catalogs, mail-order subscriptions advertised in periodicals like The Philistine, and direct shop sales to visitors, reaching book-lovers nationwide and generating reinvestable revenue from items like limited-edition books priced at 2−2-10. Success stemmed from Hubbard's marketing acumen, with high-volume sellers such as millions of copies of and 225,000 issues of a flag-insert Philistine edition, supplemented by the Inn's $2 daily room-and-board fees. Yet, the artisanal model's inherent constraints—such as two-year delays fulfilling 100,000-copy orders and reliance on small-scale, labor-intensive facilities—highlighted barriers amid the industrial era's mass-production efficiencies, occasionally necessitating and limiting expansion despite profitability.

Writings and Publications

Major Essays and Books

Hubbard's seminal essay "", published in March 1899, draws on the historical account of U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew Summers Rowan, who in April 1898 successfully delivered a confidential message from President to Cuban insurgent leader during the Spanish-American War, navigating hostile terrain without seeking excuses or clarifications. The piece extols Rowan's initiative as a model for employees who execute tasks reliably amid ambiguity, critiquing the prevalent worker complacency that demands excessive guidance and evades responsibility. Initially appearing in The Philistine magazine before standalone publication by the Roycrofters, it achieved vast circulation, with estimates of over 40 million reprints by the early , underscoring its endorsement of unprompted action and personal accountability. The "Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great" series, comprising approximately 170 biographical essays first serialized from 1894 onward and compiled into book volumes through 1915, profiles achievers in fields such as , , , and , attributing their success to traits like perseverance, , and rejection of . Hubbard's narratives dissect causal factors in these figures' triumphs, such as self-directed learning and bold experimentation over rote adherence to convention, while portraying societal inertia as a common obstacle to eminence. Published under the press, the series culminated in collected editions, including a 14-volume memorial set issued posthumously in , emphasizing empirical patterns of individual agency drawn from historical examples. Additional essays, such as those in "Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book" (1923 compilation of his aphorisms and reflections), reinforce themes of rugged by decrying dependency on external validation or state provision as eroding personal efficacy and innovation. Works like "Jesus: A Story of the Christ" (1896) and "An American Bible" (1911) extend this critique, analyzing religious and cultural icons through a lens of practical , positing that true progress stems from autonomous effort rather than or entitlement.

Periodicals and Editorial Style

Hubbard launched The Philistine: A Periodical of in 1895 as a monthly that served as a platform for unfiltered social and literary commentary, incorporating , philosophical reflections, advertisements, and critiques of prevailing moral conventions. The magazine, produced by his press, continued until 1915 and attained a peak circulation exceeding 100,000 copies monthly by challenging bourgeois respectability through provocative essays and parodies. Complementing The Philistine, Hubbard established The Fra in April 1908 as a more elegant quarterly, initially subtitled "A Journal of Affirmation (Not for Mummies)," which featured refined essays on and while sustaining an irreverent critique of institutional in religion, , and culture. It persisted until July 1915, emphasizing affirmative amid broader cultural discourse, though on a smaller scale than its predecessor. Hubbard's editorial approach across both periodicals favored direct, aphoristic prose with short sentences and brisk paragraphs, eschewing for blunt assertions that elevated truth-telling above polite restraint, thereby fostering a populist vein of unburdened by . This style, evident in mock editorials, squibs, and open letters, positioned the magazines as outlets for candid rather than consensus-building.

Personal Relationships

First Marriage and Children

Elbert Hubbard married Bertha Crawford on June 30, 1881, in . The couple had four children: Elbert Hubbard II (born June 19, 1882), Sanford Hubbard, Ralph Hubbard (born June 22, 1885), and Katherine Hubbard. The family initially resided in , where Hubbard worked in the soap manufacturing industry, before relocating to , in the mid-1890s amid his shifting career interests. Hubbard's extensive travels for business, including sales trips and later development of ventures, contributed to marital strains, leading to the couple's separation by the late 1890s and formal in 1903.

Affair and Second Marriage

In the early 1890s, while married to Bertha Crawford Hubbard, Elbert Hubbard initiated an extramarital relationship with Alice Luann Moore, a teacher employed at the East Aurora Academy associated with his enterprises. The liaison produced an illegitimate daughter, Miriam Elberta Hubbard, born on September 16, 1894, prompting Hubbard to relocate Moore temporarily to a in to maintain secrecy during her . Bertha Hubbard, suspecting the affair, confronted the situation and filed for in 1903, citing incompatibility and Hubbard's as key factors in the dissolution of their , which had produced two sons, Elbert II and Sanford. The proceedings unfolded amid scrutiny, with Hubbard acknowledging the "temperaments essentially antipathetic" between him and Bertha, though the centered on his ongoing involvement with Moore. Following the finalization of his from Bertha in late 1903, Hubbard married Alice Moore on January 21, 1904, in , where records listed him as a 47-year-old divorced farmer from East Aurora and her as a 40-year-old resident of . The union integrated Moore into Hubbard's household, including raising alongside his sons from the prior marriage, though it drew widespread condemnation for flouting conventional marital norms and contributing to the breakdown of his first family. The publicized affair and rapid provoked significant backlash, described contemporaneously as an "ugly " that alienated segments of Hubbard's audience adhering to traditional values, as evidenced by the ensuing divorce's notoriety and Hubbard's own mottos carved in response to the fallout. This personal upheaval underscored the tangible repercussions of Hubbard's choices, including familial disruption and reputational costs, without mitigating the empirical reality of the relationships' progression.

Obscenity Conviction

In 1913, Elbert Hubbard was charged under U.S. postal laws prohibiting the mailing of obscene, lewd, and lascivious materials, specifically for content published in his periodical The Philistine, a publication known for its satirical essays and humor. The allegations centered on off-color jokes and anecdotes that federal authorities classified as indecent, reflecting the era's strict moral standards enforced through the Comstock Act and related statutes aimed at suppressing vice via the mails. These elements, mild by contemporary assessments—such as light-hearted common in informal discourse—were deemed sufficient to warrant prosecution, illustrating early 20th-century government efforts to regulate printed expression deemed corrosive to public morals. Hubbard pleaded guilty to the charges, receiving a $100 fine and the revocation of his second-class mailing privileges, which had allowed cost-effective bulk distribution of periodicals like The Philistine and The Roycroft Magazine. This penalty, imposed amid broader campaigns against perceived immorality in print media, directly hampered Roycroft operations by increasing distribution costs and limiting reach to subscribers, as alternative mailing classes imposed higher rates on non-periodical matter. Some accounts indicate the plea involved six counts, with sentencing focused on one conviction while suspending penalties on others, underscoring the discretionary application of . The conviction exemplified conflicts between individual free expression and federal authority over communications infrastructure, where postal officials wielded significant power to interpret "obscenity" without uniform judicial oversight, often targeting unconventional publishers challenging Victorian norms. Hubbard's case drew attention to the potential for overreach in , as the contested content lacked explicit depictions but ventured into territory that offended puritanical regulators.

Pardon and Implications

President granted Elbert Hubbard a full and unconditional on March 22, 1915, following his 1913 for violating federal postal laws by circulating obscene material. This action came after President had denied an earlier request in February 1913, deeming it premature, and restored Hubbard's civil rights, including access to mailing privileges essential for his publishing operations. The revocation of mailing privileges had severely hampered the Roycroft community's viability, as its relied on inexpensive bulk postal rates for distributing periodicals like The Philistine and The Roycroft Magazine, as well as mail-order sales of artisan goods and books. Restoration enabled resumption of these activities, averting potential and allowing the enterprise to stabilize amid ongoing expansion. The episode exemplified the perils of federal overreach into private commercial speech, as Hubbard's conviction stemmed from a single off-color deemed lascivious under Comstock-era statutes, disrupting a self-sustaining without evidence of broader harm. Hubbard's individualist , which emphasized personal responsibility over regulatory moralism, framed such interventions as antithetical to creative and , reinforcing his broader advocacy against puritanical constraints on expression.

Stance on War and Society

Pre-War Pacifism

Hubbard consistently critiqued war and militarism beginning in the 1890s through essays and his periodical The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, launched in 1895, framing conflicts as economically ruinous diversions that benefited governing elites while impoverishing the productive masses. In his 1899 essay "I Am an Anarkist," he highlighted how peacetime standing armies withdrew over three million men globally from industry to shield one state apparatus from another, arguing this resource drain subsidized conquest and violence at the expense of trade and mutual prosperity. He rejected militaristic adventures, such as deploying warships to subjugate distant peoples defending their liberty, as destructive statutes enabling murder and waste rather than genuine security. This stance emphasized pragmatic costs over abstract idealism, portraying war as "man at his worst" and militarism as anti-democratic pomp that perpetuated swashbuckling hierarchies incompatible with individual freedom. Hubbard endorsed and initiatives, compiling anti-war reflections in works like his Scrap Book (1923 compilation of earlier ideas), where he echoed sentiments that reallocating war expenditures could advance and public welfare instead of slaughter. He promoted arbitration for international disputes, as expressed in The Notebook of Elbert Hubbard, favoring reasoned over armed escalation to avert bloodshed, and drew on historical examples like imperial overreaches to illustrate how force eroded . Opposing national drafts, Hubbard stressed voluntary cooperation and personal , decrying conscription's transformation of individuals into soulless instruments of state violence, which preempted debates on forced service by championing an ethos of autonomous and non-coercive association. True resolution, he maintained, lay in ideas, , and reason as the sole "arms" against aggression, rejecting force as antithetical to human advancement.

World War I Engagement

Despite his pre-war pacifist leanings, Hubbard expressed sympathy for the Allied cause as the conflict escalated, criticizing in publications such as the October 1914 issue of The Philistine, where he decried "Kruppism" and the invasion of in the article "Who Lifted the Lid Off Hell?". He continued issuing war commentary through The Philistine into 1915, reflecting ongoing engagement with the European crisis rather than outright . In early 1915, Hubbard planned a voyage to explicitly for journalistic purposes, intending to secure interviews with key figures including Kaiser Wilhelm II, despite having previously disparaged the German leader in his writings and musing privately about whether "Bill Kaiser" would receive him hospitably. This decision underscored a pragmatic about the war's realities, prioritizing firsthand observation over detachment, even as U.S. neutrality held and submarine threats loomed. Hubbard's actions highlighted an internal tension: while skeptical of unbridled on any side, he rejected naive that ignored geopolitical dynamics, favoring informed critique derived from direct exposure rather than abstract ideals. His travel plans, amid warnings of peril, demonstrated a commitment to empirical understanding of the conflict's causes and players.

Death

Voyage on the Lusitania

Elbert Hubbard and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, boarded the at Pier 54 in on May 1, 1915, for its eastbound crossing to , . The Cunard Line's vessel, a British-registered renowned for its speed and luxury, departed at noon that day as voyage 202, carrying 1,257 passengers and crew alongside general cargo. The Hubbards occupied first-class accommodations, consistent with Hubbard's status as a prominent and publisher. Hubbard's decision to sail stemmed from professional objectives, including plans to travel onward to for business related to his enterprises and potential interviews, despite the escalating perils of transatlantic travel following the outbreak of in July 1914. 's declaration of a war zone around the in February 1915 had intensified submarine threats, with U-boats already sinking merchant and passenger vessels; by April, targeted Allied shipping without prior warning. On the morning of departure, the German Embassy in Washington published advertisements in major New York newspapers, explicitly warning travelers that "vessels flying the , or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters" and advising Americans against booking passage on such ships. These notices, placed adjacent to the Lusitania's own sailing advertisements, underscored the risks amid the ongoing , yet Hubbard disregarded them in pursuit of his itinerary. The Lusitania's cargo manifest, as documented in shipping records, included military supplies such as 4,200 cases of small-arms cartridges and 1,248 cases of shrapnel shells from the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, undermining assertions of the ship's neutral or unarmed civilian character under international maritime law. Physical recovery of such munitions from the wreck in subsequent dives corroborates these manifests, highlighting how the vessel's dual role as passenger liner and auxiliary war transport exposed passengers to heightened jeopardy in the contested Atlantic.

Final Moments and Aftermath

The was torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-20 on May 7, 1915, approximately 11 nautical miles off the , , resulting in the deaths of Elbert Hubbard and his wife Alice. Survivor accounts describe Hubbard maintaining composure amid the chaos; he remained at the port-side saloon entrance with Alice, his arm around her waist, refusing offers of lifeboat places and remarking, "What is to be, is to be." According to fellow passenger Charles Lauriat, the Hubbards showed no panic, instead retreating together to a stateroom on the Boat Deck, where they closed the door before the ship sank. Ernest Cowper, another survivor, recalled Hubbard's calm assessment upon hearing the explosion—"They have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were"—met with Alice's equanimous reply that there seemed nothing to do. Neither Hubbard's nor Alice's bodies were recovered or identified from the wreckage. Hubbard's estate, including the operations, was administered by his son, Elbert Hubbard II, who assumed interim management of the shops and continued production following his father's death. The sinking drew renewed attention to Hubbard's recent writings critiquing German aggression, amplifying their circulation posthumously despite his prior pacifist leanings having evolved toward Allied support. From a causal standpoint, the disaster stemmed in part from British operational decisions to maintain the Lusitania's civilian crossings in a declared war zone and passengers' choices to embark amid explicit German warnings of risks, factors that compounded vulnerability beyond the initial strike.

Legacy

Cultural and Economic Impact

The shops, initiated by Elbert Hubbard in 1895 as a , expanded into a multifaceted enterprise producing handcrafted books, furniture, goods, and metalwork, thereby disseminating Arts and Crafts principles across the . These efforts fostered appreciation for in , with Roycroft volumes noted for their superior bindings and layout designs that elevated American book . In furniture design, Roycroft's Mission-style pieces, emphasizing sturdy oak construction and minimal ornamentation—such as the influential —helped propagate geometric simplicity in household interiors during the early . Roycroft's economic framework underscored the sustainability of small-scale, branded craftsmanship against industrial mass production, achieving profitability through direct sales, catalogs, and a workforce peaking at 500 local artisans without reliance on external subsidies. This approach integrated Arts and Crafts ideals of worker dignity with pragmatic American commerce, generating revenue via premium-priced, hand-forged items that appealed to middle-class consumers seeking alternatives to machine-made uniformity. Hubbard's 1899 essay "A Message to Garcia" resonated in business circles by advocating self-initiative and task completion without oversight, leading to its mass distribution—such as to thousands of railroad workers—and incorporation into corporate training to instill reliability during the rise of organized labor in the Progressive Era. Its emphasis on personal accountability influenced literature and practices, with adaptations extending to instruction, reinforcing a cultural push for individual effort in industrialized workplaces. Post-Hubbard's 1915 death, the community endured under his son Bert until the shops shuttered in 1938 amid economic shifts, yet revival efforts in the 1970s restored key structures, culminating in status in 1986 to safeguard its role as an enduring emblem of artisanal enterprise.

Philosophical Reception and Critiques

Hubbard's advocacy for and received acclaim for promoting personal initiative amid growing institutional . His 1899 essay , which celebrates unprompted task execution as a model of rugged dependability, resonated in early 20th-century and self-improvement circles, underscoring the value of autonomous action over rote obedience. This emphasis influenced subsequent figures like , who drew on Hubbard's principles of earnest utility and manner-driven influence in works such as How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by (1926), integrating quotes and exemplars that echo Hubbard's call for self-directed excellence. Critics, however, have faulted Hubbard's philosophical framework for its eclectic synthesis of influences—ranging from anarchist leanings to arts-and-crafts —lacking systematic rigor or first-principles derivation. Early explorations of socialist ideas, evident in his initial sympathy for collective reforms, gave way to staunch defenses of free enterprise, a shift some right-leaning analysts hail as prescient validation against socialism's empirical failures in centralizing and stifling , attributing prior flirtations to sentimental rather than enduring . Personal indiscretions, including his abandonment of his first wife for a younger partner in , further eroded claims to moral consistency, as detractors argued such conduct contradicted his preached of disciplined self-mastery. Contemporary evaluations affirm Hubbard's cautions against philosophy's institutionalization—warning that professionalizing it dilutes its vitality into —as applicable to modern bureaucratic encroachments that prioritize process over outcomes. Yet, his romantic veneration of pre-industrial craftsmanship, embodied in the community's guild-like structure, stands critiqued as empirically ungrounded, ignoring data on industrialization's causal role in elevating living standards through scaled and , rendering his anti-machine sentiments nostalgic rather than realist.

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