Artemus Ward by Neil Friedrich
Artemus represented the typical American, as caricatured by Charles Browne. Far from perfect, not always logically consistent, scoffing at scholarship and pomp, materialistic and self-reliant, Artemus was good-hearted, unsentimental, and an enemy of hypocrisy in everyone but himself. (Austin 78)
For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, America was a cultural void often importing new ideas from the well established nations of Europe, yet rarely exporting its own literary culture across the Atlantic. However, a notable exception to this unilateral transfer of literature was the humorous writings of sideshow promoter Artemus Ward. Ward, a pseudonym for Cleveland journalist Charles Farrar Browne, achieved renown both in the United States and Britain for his informal letters which employed American diction and idiom to satirize various cultural and political topics. While to Americans, his work offered an opportunity to laugh at everyday occurrences, for British audiences, the letters presented a distorted picture of a largely misunderstood world. His method of using homespun bucolic humor as a means of social commentary resulted in a uniquely American perspective rarely experienced in Europe at the time. For the British audience, reading the Ward letters offered the opportunity to ignore inherent Englishness and travel without moving through the eyes of a stereotypical yet highly caricaturized American.
Browne was born in Oxford County, Maine on April 26, 1834. Yet his upbringing in the morally conservative climate of New England offered limited preparation for his future as an internationally renowned lecturer and humorist. His career began unassumingly enough as an apprentice to a local printer following his father’s sudden death when Browne was only 13. Three years later, Browne began working for the Boston publishing house of Stowe and Wilder as an editor and occasional contributing writer to for their magazine The Boston Carpet-Bag. The influence of this early work for New England periodicals introduced Browne to the literary form of the published letter. Following in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin’s Silence Dogood letters, this form offered the writer an opportunity to express an opinion in an entertaining framework without the necessary plot structure of a narrative (Austin 76). Browne wrote several letters as well as poems and short stories for The Carpet-Bag under the pseudonym Chub. His contributions often described a humorous encounter or awkward situation followed by a moral lesson such as statement condemning drunkenness.
Over a period of years Browne worked as editor for a series of papers both in New England and later in Ohio finally becoming assistant editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1857. At that time, an editor’s responsibilities included not only supervising journalists, but also increasing the readability of incoming news. Since printers received most national news via telegraph, editors needed to expand the short statements and limited descriptions received from contributors to a more readable form which appealed to the public. The editor also supplemented national news with engaging local stories, editorials and other humorous pieces (Austin 29). As an editor, Browne was responsible for increasing readership by filling up empty space with any piece that would appeal to the public.
The persona of the semiliterate showman Artemus Ward most likely resulted from such an attempt to liven up the paper on a slow news day. Relying on his experience with published letters employed while working in New England, Browne created the persona of the shrewd, conniving promoter who toured the country with his menagerie of sideshow acts and other lowbrow entertainments. His first letter dated January 28, 1858, describes the showmen’s newest attraction “consisting in part of a Calforny Bare two snakes tame foxies &c also wax works” (qtd. in Austin 39). Over the following weeks Browne published follow up letters which followed Ward from Pittsburgh, to Wheeling, West Virginia to various cities in Ohio. Each letter contained further details about the show as well as continued requests that the paper promote his sideshow to the citizens of Cleveland. The letter’s bucolic humor and homespun advice attracted a large audience causing Browne to make the Ward correspondence a permanent fixture in the newspaper.
While the early letters had no motivation other than possibly to provide a humorous caricature of showmen in the tradition of PT Barnum, subsequent letters developed a more defined style and purpose (Austin 76). The letters eventually adopted a form beginning with an introduction in which Ward talked about his location and the important parts of his show followed by a narrative section in which Ward recounted a recent experience or interaction with another individual. Finally, each letter concluded with a philosophical denouement or words of wisdom where Ward reflected on the events and offered commentary. Though Ward claimed to “hav no politics. Nary a one” he explored a wide variety of cultural and political topics often adhering to a “common sense” conservatism which adopted a moderate perspective on most issues (Ward Book 178; Austin 78). This moderate political stance aligned well with the political leanings of the Plain Dealer. As the largest Democratic newspaper in Ohio the Plain Dealer viewed itself as a beacon of moderation countering the radically Republican majority of Northern Ohio. This policy of conservatism and moderation governed many of the political statements made through the Ward letters.
One issue which appeared time and again in the Ward letters was the issue of race and slavery. In the 1860 election, the Plain Dealer endorsed the candidacy of Stephen Douglas and supported his policies of popular sovereignty and states rights over emancipation. The Ward letters clearly demonstrate Browne’s racist prejudice claiming in a 1861 letter that “Praps the Negro was created for sum wise purpuss, like the measles and New England Rum, but it’s mighty hard to see it” (Ward Book 79). However, his racist rhetoric was often tempered by a compassionate humanity that often won out over partisanship and politics. In his last letter, “The Negro Question” Ward recounts an encounter with a group of reformers soliciting donations to send missionaries to the freed slaves of the South. Ward tells the reformers that he recently traveled in the liberated South and explains that bringing religion to the freed slaves would be ineffective unless the reformers also provide food and other necessities. He tells the group that “I was down there last winter, and I observed that this class had plenty of preachen for their souls, but skurce any vittles for their stummux. Now if it is proposed to send flour and bacon with the gospel, the idea is really an excellent one” (Ward London 48). The variety of views on political issues characterizes the moderate ideology endorsed by Browne and other Plain Dealer contributors.
This moderate ideology allowed Browne to succeed in Britain at a time when many American writers and artists failed to achieve equal success across the Atlantic. Many British journals held the condescending opinion that American writing was “essentially oral” on the level of “the village humorist”. For example, Cornwall Magazine described Browne as “only …one degree above the wax-figure showmen whom he personates’” (qtd. in Featherstone 39). Even his publisher in London Punch “was reportedly only mildly enthusiastic about his work, citing the ‘bad spelling’ as a ‘decided handicap’” (Featherstone 39). Yet it was Browne’s moderate political leanings, which allowed him to gain even partial acceptance in this elitist literary culture. Where other American writers alienated large portions of the international audience with biting political satire, Browne refused to make radical political states. This evenhandedness combined with a “rough humor that traveled easily over geographical and cultural divides” allowed the Ward letters to succeed in London just as they had in America (Featherstone 42). While he was never embraced by the wider British literary culture, the fact that an American could publish in any British paper at a time when many Europeans ridiculed American backwardness is a testimony to the widespread appeal of the Artemus Ward persona. The antics of the traveling showmen offered the British readership the chance to experience the realities of everyday life through an American perspective that they could not obtain elsewhere.
Even prior to his 1866 lecture tour in Britain, Browne used the experience of the traveling showman to present a broad interpretation of English culture. One of his early letters, written for the September 17, 1860, edition of the Plain Dealer, uses a fictitious meeting with the Prince of Wales to satirize many oddities of British life. On the way to the palace, Ward is stopped and questioned by a “red faced man in Millitery close” (Ward Book 149). The soldier refuses to believe that a wax works promoter could obtain an audience with royalty and is so distraught when Ward offers to buy the British Lion to include in his show that the solider “actooally fomed at the mowth” ( Ward Book 151). Browne uses this first opportunity for European commentary to expose the elitist nature of British culture. Using his exchange with the military man as an example, Browne condemns the idea that only certain individuals have the necessary prestige to meet royalty. He further emphasizes the absurdity of cultural exclusivity by presenting the Prince as a normal and socially engaging individual. Once Ward finally enters the palace, “Walls (the Prince of Wales)” and he “sot down on the Pizarro & commenst smokin rite cheerful” (Ward Book 152). While the soldier intended to preserve the traditional cultural elitism, once Ward meets the prince, the two men converse as equals.
While Ward’s early work achieved limited success abroad following the publication of his first book by GW Carleton, his international renown increased significantly during his London lecture tour. While living in London, he wrote seven Artemus Ward letters for Punch and presented lectures at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. While his writings in the Plain Dealer exposed an American audience to the perceived cultural anomalies of Britain, the writings in London aimed to present a British audience with a means of understanding the oddities of their own Englishness. In addition to writing and lecturing, Browne frequented and later joined a group of humorists, playwrights and artists know as the Savage Club. Over the summer and fall of 1866, Browne became the club’s major attraction and spent countless nights drinking, carousing and entertaining the other members. His charming wit and fun loving persona made him a popular entertainer both in Savage Club meeting room as well as in lecture halls and landmarks of London.
One way in which the Ward letters allowed the citizens of London to travel without moving was to present to the citizenry a picture of locations they knew well through a uniquely American perspective. Rather than traveling to a foreign location, this form of travel offered individuals an experience they could never enjoy because of their inherent preconceptions and social expectations resulting from their English upbringing. In one letter, Ward recounts his visit to the quintessential London landmark, the Tower of London. He uses this episode to ridicule both the historicism and national elitism of the British Empire. First, he uses a conversation with a man waiting in line to tour the tower to characterize the stereotypical belief of America as culturally and technologically backwards. The man asks Ward if America has a tower that can compete with the beauty of the Tower of London. Ward responds by lamenting, “we boste of our enterprise and improovements, and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America, oh my onhappy country! thou hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon” (Ward London 55). Browne ridicules the assertion that Americans visit the Tower of London because their own country lacks the technology to create a similar structure by digressing into comic hyperbole. His response aims to expose and condemn the national elitism held by many British citizens.
Later, during his tour of the tower, Ward complains because the tour guides still mourn for atrocities committed inside the tower hundreds of years before. When the guide asks the guests to shed a tear for the individuals killed on the grounds during the tower’s storied past, Ward responds, “Others may drop one if they feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion were a bad a lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago” (Ward London 56). The encounter with the tour guide suggests that the British focus too closely on former glory and past historical events rather than looking forward to the future. His future-oriented American perspective ridicules this attachment to the past as a major oddity of the British people.
In another Punch letter, Browne uses the premise of a visit to the British Museum to comment further on the cultural elitism present in London society. After viewing the museum’s public collection, which is “kept open for the benefit of all,” Ward seeks admission to the private reading room (Ward London 75). However, the docent informs him that he must submit a letter of application as well as provide references before he can enter the room. Ward responds by asking an “elderly gentleman, with a beneverlent-lookin face” to certify his respectability (Ward London 78). Rather than helping Ward’s situation, the man threatens to place him in the care of a policeman and affirms that he has no chance of entering the reading room.
As further evidence of the contrast between progressive principles of the Victorian age and the traditional aristocratic class structure, Browne compares the policies of the reading room to the goals of the public museum. He prefaces the anecdote by explaining that in the British museum “the humble costymonger, … can go to the mooseum and reap benefits therefrom as well as the lord of high degree” (Ward London 75). Browne corroborates the assertion that lower class citizens can be enlightened by the cultural artifacts presented at the museum by describing the disposition of young yeoman kneeling in front of the Statue of Apollo. He recounts that the man views the statue “with silent admiration.” While in other circumstances the yeoman would be swearing and carrying on, “in the presence of Art, he is a changed bien” (Ward London 78). A contrast between the social equality symbolized by the public collection and exclusive nature of the reading room illuminates a dichotomy in English culture. The remnants of an aristocratic past often conflict with the enlightened perspective of the Victorian age. The same culture which allows the common man to worship objects of artistic merit beside the social elite also prevents him from seeking further enlightenment in the great reading room.
While the Punch letters offered the British public the opportunity to view their own culture in a new light, Browne’s lectures presented the American lifestyle as described from an American perspective. The combination of the painted panorama described by the playbill as “rather worse than panoramas usually are” (qtd. in Seitz 196) and the accounts from his travels in the American west allowed the audience to enjoy a vicarious travel experience. Over the course of the evening, the audience not only saw artist renderings of notable western sites such as the Great Salt Lake or Rocky Mountains, but more importantly experienced the homespun humor and American rhetorical style of the lecturer. A London magazine described, “to be sure, Artemus Ward’s delivery of fun is eminently ‘un-English.’ But there are a good many things English one would like to see un-Englished” (qtd. in Seitz 198). Featherstone credits this un-English presentation with exposing American popular culture to England. The Ward lectures brought the best aspects of the American “freak show, comic lecture and minstrel show to a quasi-theatrical venue like the Egyptian Hall” (Featherstone 47). Browne’s tour in London took many of the best parts of an evolving American popular culture and presented it in a manner appealing to the British populace. His unequaled success during his six months in London worked to change the international opinion of the backwardness of American culture.
Charles Browne’s influence is most evident as an inspiration and encouragement for other American writers. To achieve success as a comedian and writer in an era when American literature was often dismissed as simplistic and forgettable is a remarkable achievement. In a letter to his friend Jack Ryder, Browne confides, “This is the proudest moment of my life: to have been as well appreciated here as at home; to have written for the oldest comic journal in the English language … and to have my picture and my pseudonym as common in London as in New York” (qtd. in Seitz 190). However, in addition to opening doors for his American contemporaries, Ward also opened the minds of Englishmen to the wonders of American popular culture. Countless American writers followed Browne’s lead to seek success across the Atlantic and each imported narrative provided Britain with a clearer picture of American life. The pattern of stationary travel stemming from the Browne’s 1866 lectures finally presented an American perspective of life and society to an audience previously unwilling to accept colonial ideology. His influence in London finally rectified the one sided export of ideas forcing the British populace to reexamine advancements made outside of Europe.
Sources:
Austin, James. Artemus Ward. Twayne: New York, 1964.
Featherstone, Simon. “Artemus Ward and the Egyptian Hall”. Leeds Centre Working Papers in Victorian Studies: Platform, Pulpit, Rhetoric. 3 (2000): 37-49.
Seitz, Don Carlos. Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) a biography and bibliography. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1919.
Ward, Artemus. Artemus Ward, his book. With many comic illustrations. New York: Carlton, 1862.
- - -. Artemus Ward in London, and other papers. With comic illustrations by J. H. Howard. London: GW Carlton and Co., 1867.