Edward Bok | |
|---|---|
 Bokc. 1918 | |
| Born | Eduard Willem Gerard Cesar Hidde Bok (1863-10-09)October 9, 1863 Den Helder, Netherlands |
| Died | January 9, 1930(1930-01-09) (aged 66) |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | American |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize |
| Spouse | |
Edward William Bok (bornEduard Willem Gerard Cesar Hidde Bok)[1] (October 9, 1863 – January 9, 1930)[1] was a Dutch-born American editor andPulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of theLadies' Home Journal for 30 years (1889–1919). He also distributed popular homebuilding plans and createdBok Tower Gardens in centralFlorida.
Bok was born inDen Helder,Netherlands to an at-the-time wealthy, prominent family. After his father lost most of his wealth due to bad investment decisions, the family immigrated toBrooklyn,New York, when Edward was six years old. In Brooklyn, he washed the windows of a bakery shop after school to help support his family, in addition, he would also go into the street with a basket every day and collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter where the coal wagons had delivered fuel.[2] By the time Bok was in his early teens, he was required to quit school to aid his family with financial support. His first full-time job, in 1876, was as an office boy with theWestern Union Telegraph company.[3]
In 1882, Bok began work withHenry Holt and Company as a stenographer while also taking classes in the evenings.[4] In 1884, he accepted an offer fromCharles Scribner's Sons to became its advertising manager. From 1884 until 1887, Bok was the editor ofThe Brooklyn Magazine, and in 1886, he founded the Bok Syndicate Press, "the country's third syndicate with 137 newspapers subscribed".[4]
After moving toPhiladelphia in 1889, he obtained the editorship ofLadies' Home Journal when its founder and editorLouisa Knapp Curtis stepped down to a less intense role at the popular, nationally circulated publication. It was published byCyrus Curtis, who had an established publishing empire that included many newspapers and magazines.[5]
In 1896, Bok marriedMary L. Curtis, the daughter of Louisa and Cyrus Curtis.[6] She shared her family's interest in music, cultural activities, andphilanthropy and was very active in social circles. Shortly before his marriage, he published an advice book for young men. He noted among other things, that "A man who truly loves his mother, wife, sister or sweetheart never tells a story which lowers her sex in the eyes of others."[7] During his editorship, theJournal became the first magazine in the world to have one million subscribers and it became very influential among readers by featuring informative and progressive ideas in its articles.[8] The magazine focused upon the social issues of the day. When Bok's autobiography,The Americanization of Edward Bok, appeared in 1920, and later received a Pulitzer Prize, the writerH. L. Mencken reviewed it with an interest based on long acquaintance with the magazine. Mencken observed that Bok showed an irrepressible interest in things artistic:
When he looked at the houses in which his subscribers lived, their drab hideousness made him sick. When he went inside and contemplated the lambrequins, the gilded cattails, the Rogers groups, the wax fruit under glass domes, the emblazoned seashells from Asbury Park, the family Bible on the marble-topped center-table, the crayon enlargements of Uncle Richard and Aunt Sue, the square pianos, the Brussels carpets, the grained woodwork—when his eyes alighted upon such things, his soul revolted, and at once his moral enthusiasm incited him to attempt a reform. The result was a long series ofLadies' Home Journal crusades against the hideousness of the national scene—in domestic architecture, in house furnishing, in dress, in town buildings, in advertising. Bok flung himself headlong into his campaigns, and practically every one of them succeeded. ... If there were gratitude in the land, there would be a monument to him in every town in the Republic. He has been, aesthetically, probably the most useful citizen that ever breathed its muggy air.[9]
TheJournal also became the first magazine to refusepatent medicine advertisements.[10]
In 1919, Bok retired from publishing.[4]
In 1923, Bok proposed theAmerican Peace Award. Bok also established a number of awards including the $100,000 American Peace Award in 1923, given for the "best practicable plan for U.S. cooperation in world peace".[11][12]
In 1924, Mary Louise Bok founded theCurtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, which she dedicated to her father, Cyrus Curtis, and in 1927, the Boks embarked upon the construction ofBok Tower Gardens, near their winter home inMountain Lake Estates,Lake Wales, Florida, which was dedicated on February 1, 1929, by the president of the United States,Calvin Coolidge. Bok Tower is sometimes called a sanctuary and is listed on theNational Register of Historic Places as aNational Historic Landmark. Bok is used as an example inDale Carnegie'sHow to Win Friends and Influence People.[13]
Bok died after a heart attack on January 9, 1930, in Lake Wales, within sight of his belovedSinging Tower and was buried at the tower's base.[14] Two of his grandsons are folk singerGordon Bok and former Harvard University PresidentDerek Bok.
In 1895, Bok began publishing inLadies' Home Journal plans for building houses which were affordable for the American middle class – from $1,500 to $5,000 – and made full specifications with regional prices available by mail for $5. Later, Bok and theJournal became a major force in promoting the "bungalow", a style of residence which derived from India. Plans for these houses cost as little as a dollar, and the1+1⁄2-story dwelling, some as small as 800 square feet, soon became a dominant form of new domestic architecture in the country.[15]
Some architects complained that by making building plans available on a mass basis, Bok was usurping their prerogatives, and some, such asStanford White openly discouraged him—although White later came around, writing
I believe that Edward Bok has more completely influenced American domestic architecture for the better than any man in this generation. When he began ... I refused to cooperate with him. If Bok would come to me now, I would not only make plans for him, but I would waive my fee for them in retribution for my early mistake.[15]
Bok advocated using the termliving room for the room then commonly called aparlo[u]r ordrawing room, and is sometimes erroneously credited with inventing the term. This room had traditionally been used only on Sundays or for formal occasions such as the displaying of deceased family members before burial; it was the buffer zone between the public sphere and the private one of the rest of the house. Bok believed it was foolish to create an expensively furnished room that was rarely used, and promoted the alternative name to encourage families to use the room in their daily lives. He wrote, "We have what is called a 'drawing room'. Just whom or what it 'draws' I have never been able to see unless it draws attention to too much money and no taste ..."[16]
Bok's overall concern was to preserve his socially conservative vision of the ideal American household, with the wife as homemaker and child-rearer, and the children raised in a healthy, natural setting, close to the soil. To this end, he promoted thesuburbs as the best place for well-balanced domestic life.[15]
Theodore Roosevelt said about Bok:
[He] is the only man I ever heard of who changed, for the better, the architecture of an entire nation, and he did it so quickly and effectively that we didn't know it was begun before it was finished.[15]
At theLadies' Home Journal, Bok authored more than 20 articles opposed towomen's suffrage, which he believed threatened his "vision of the woman at home, living the simple life".[17] One of his first commentaries on the issue clearly stated that "women were not yet ready for the vote".[18] TheJournal's wide reach among American middle-class women made Bok a key ally of theanti-suffrage movement.[19]
Bok also opposed the concept of women working outside the home, some aspects of thewoman's clubs, and education for women. He wrote thatfeminism would lead women to divorce, ill health, and even death. Bok solicited articles against women's rights from former presidentsGrover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt (though Roosevelt would later change his mind to become a supporter of women's suffrage). Bok viewedsuffragists as traitors to their sex, saying "there is no greater enemy of woman than woman herself."[19] On the other hand, the magazine was an advocate of causes such as "conservation, public health, birth control, sanitation, and educational reform".[18]
Because of criticism of some of their programs and methods in theJournal, women's clubs attempted to organize a boycott of the publication, for which Bok threatened them with legal action. He did not proceed with that and reached a compromise with theGeneral Federation of Women’s Clubs. The magazine would start a new department, with content provided by the Federation.[20]
Bok's 1920 autobiographyThe Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After[8] won the Gold Medal of the Academy of Political and Social Science and the 1921Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
TheWorld War IILiberty shipSS Edward W. Bok was named in his honor.[21]
TheEdward W. Bok Technical High School inPhiladelphia, opened in 1938, was named in his honor. The school closed in 2013.
its weekly letter on women's topics, written by journalist Ella Wheeler Wilcox, grew to an entire women's page
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Bok immediately engaged counsel in the city where the club was situated, and instructed his lawyer to begin proceedings, for violation of the Sherman Act
Previously the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography from 1917–2022 | ||
| 1917–1925 |
|   |
| 1926–1950 |
| |
| 1951–1975 |
| |
| 1976–2000 |
| |
| 2001–2025 |
| |
 | ||
| Key people | ||
| Related topics | ||
