- Person
- Joel Spingarn
- Lived
- 1875–1939
- Field
- Civil rights & criticism
- From
- American
The story
Joel Spingarn was born in New York City in 1875, the eldest son of an Austrian Jewish tobacco merchant. He became one of America's leading literary scholars as a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, until a clash with the university's president cost him his post in 1911. Independently wealthy, he kept writing and editing, and during the First World War he served as an army major, travelling to France with the American Expeditionary Forces.
After returning from France in 1919, Spingarn turned to publishing. That year he was a co-founder of the firm launched as Harcourt, Brace and Howe, alongside Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace, two Columbia graduates who had worked at the publisher Henry Holt, and the editor Will David Howe. After Howe left in 1921 the company became Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Spingarn served as its literary adviser, according to EBSCO until 1924; the Jewish Virtual Library says he remained an editorial consultant until 1932. From 1920 to 1924 he edited the European Library, a series of twenty-five volumes. The young firm quickly built an impressive list, publishing writers who became internationally renowned, among them Walter Lippmann, Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf and T. S. Eliot, and later James Thurber, George Orwell and Robert Penn Warren.
Publishing was one of several ways Spingarn brought ideas to the public. In 1911 he had bought the Amenia Times, the local newspaper in Amenia, New York, near his country estate, Troutbeck, and become a newspaper publisher. All the while he continued his work for the NAACP, which he served as chairman of the board, treasurer and president. He also amassed what was described as the world's largest collection of clematis, wrote about the early history of landscape gardening and horticulture in Dutchess County, New York, and served on the Board of Managers of the New York Botanical Garden.
Harcourt, Brace grew into one of the major American publishing houses. Under later names, including Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, it published fiction, nonfiction and school books for decades, and in 2007 it became part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Why it matters
Through Harcourt, Brace, Spingarn helped launch a publishing house that brought major American and European writers to a wide readership for generations.
About Joel Spingarn
Literary scholar who became one of the NAACP’s first Jewish leaders, its chairman, treasurer and second president, and founder of the Spingarn Medal for African American achievement.
More about Joel Spingarn
- Joel Spingarn called for a “new criticism” in 1910In a 1910 Columbia lecture called The New Criticism, Joel Spingarn argued that each work of art should be judged afresh, on its own terms.
- Joel Spingarn gave $100 to defend a tortured farmerIn 1910 Joel Spingarn read of a Black tenant farmer in Arkansas tortured to force a confession, gave $100 to his defense fund, and soon joined the NAACP.
- Joel Spingarn led the NAACP and created the Spingarn MedalJoel Spingarn, a Jewish literary scholar, led the NAACP for decades and in 1914 created the Spingarn Medal for Black achievement, still awarded today.
- Joel Spingarn launched the New Abolition campaignIn 1913 Joel Spingarn began a campaign he called the New Abolition, reviving the spirit of the abolitionists and spreading the NAACP to new cities.
- Joel Spingarn lost his job defending a colleagueIn 1910 Joel Spingarn offered a faculty resolution supporting a Columbia professor summarily dismissed by the university's president, and was himself dismissed weeks later.
- Joel Spingarn helped win a suit against a segregated theaterIn 1911 Joel Spingarn accompanied Black men to a New York theater that refused them tickets, then helped the NAACP's Vigilance Committee win a lawsuit against the management.
- Joel Spingarn outfitted Howard students who enlistedDuring World War I Joel Spingarn trained as an officer, served as a major and donated uniforms for one hundred Howard University students who enlisted.
Sources
- Joel Elias Spingarn Wikipedia
- Joel Elias Spingarn EBSCO Research Starters
- Joel Spingarn Jewish Virtual Library
- Harcourt (publisher) Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.