THE HUMILIATION OF HENRY WARD BEECHER IN
THE WEST
by DAVID MEAD
Assistant Professor of English,
Michigan State College
In the columns of Ohio's newspapers of
nearly a century ago
lies the dramatic account of Henry Ward
Beecher's rejection as a
lecturer by the indignant citizens of
the West, a story which has
not been revealed by the biographers of
the great Eastern divine.
Not that Beecher was the first celebrity
to be humiliated by Ohio's
lecture public in the boisterous 1850's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
during his Ohio journeys of 1850 and
1852, had been reminded
often enough that he was a pantheistic
dreamer whose disjointed,
unintelligible philosophizing had little
to do with the practical
affairs of life. In 1854 the New York
reformer George William
Curtis, had visited the state with a
"namby-pamby, up-townish"
lecture on "Success." His
listeners, men who had experienced the
struggle of the West to escape the
economic bondage of the eastern
bankers and who loved their mercantile
account books next to
their homes and families, resented his
implication that wealth had
nothing to do with success in life. And
the western press, in re-
minding Curtis that he would do well to
remain at home, could not
suppress a sneer at the fashionable cut
of his coat "or the particular
shade of yellow gloves."
Parke Godwin of the New York Evening
Post suffered when he took the liberty with Ohioans in 1855
of
contrasting the social standards of the
East and West in a discourse
entitled "American Social
Life." His hearers objected vehemently
to his disparagement of the West's great
middle class, "the sub-
stantial architects of our
greatness," and dismissed both Godwin
and his lecture as "a miserable and
disgraceful failure."
But these orators antagonized Ohioans
merely by their opin-
ions. They offered nothing worse than
annoying philosophical
speculation; Beecher, however, was
associated with something much
more offensive-a financial speculation.
In 1855 the eloquent min-
ister of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church
hired himself out to a shrewd
94
HENRY WARD BEECHER
95
lecture agent, a speculator, and set out
for the West, his right hand
raised in ardent praise of religion and
truth, while, according to
contemporary accounts, his left hand
sought to unfasten the purse
strings of the public. Western citizens
were not usually averse to
financial speculation; indeed they
throve on it. During the early
decades of the century their economic
lives sometimes depended on
it. In 1855, the very year of Beecher's
journey, Ohioans flocked
by the thousands to hear Phineas T.
Barnum, the greatest speculator
in America, the "Prince of
Humbug," deliver his lecture on "The
Philosophy of Humbug." They cheered
and applauded a discourse
which was admittedly a collection of
"stale newspaper scraps and
stump anecdotes, which have been bawled
in all the school houses
of the country during the campaigns of
the last twenty years."
Barnum appealed to their own sense of
humbuggery. Besides, he
was an eminently successful speculator,
and many of his listeners
secretly hoped they would learn
something that could be turned to
advantage in their relations with their
fellow citizens.
In the minds of western people, however,
Barnum and Beecher
were as unlike as two Americans well
could be. Barnum appealed
to the gullibility of the people;
Beecher appealed to the highest
motives of human conduct. Beecher was
the idol of American
Protestants and one of the most
sought-after lecturers in the East.
Western citizens were familiar with his
oratorical fame; they read
his published works and the excerpts
from his sermons which were
scissored from eastern journals and
reprinted by the western
press. Each year Beecher was besieged
with a great volume of
invitations to appear before Ohio's
lyceums.1
The source of Beecher's difficulty lay
partly in his attempt to
lecture under conditions running
contrary to customs developed by
Ohio's lecture system during the early
fifties. The standard ad-
mission price for lyceum lectures was
twenty-five cents; higher
prices were not countenanced by
lecture-goers except on special
occasions when the proceeds were for
charitable purposes. Ap-
pointments for lectures were normally
arranged by lyceum secre-
taries through direct correspondence
with prospective lecturers.
1 In addition to the lectures treated in
this study, Beecher's Ohio engagements
included appearances at Painesville, July 4, 1854; at
Cincinnati, November 16, 1856;
and at Cleveland, July 2, 1854, October 20, 1857,
October 21, 1857, and February 26,
1862.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Lecture agents were not numerous, and
large agencies for sched-
uling speakers' itineraries were not
successfully established until
after the Civil War. Lyceum secretaries
annually wrote many invi-
tations to speakers, and no orator was
likely to attempt the dis-
courtesy of lecturing privately in a
community whose lyceum invi-
tation he had refused.
In 1854 and 1855 the Cincinnati Young
Men's Mercantile Li-
brary Association had applied for
Beecher's services, but no ap-
pointment was secured. It came as a
considerable surprise to the
Cincinnati lecture public, therefore,
when the announcement was
made in the local newspapers that
Beecher would speak in the city
under the auspices of a Chicago lecture
agent on October 22, 1855.
The press was quick to exploit this
discourtesy to "the first of
lecture associations." The details
of Beecher's lecturing arrange-
ments were available in the Chicago
papers, as the orator had
begun his western tour in that city.
Soon all Cincinnati knew that
Beecher, ignoring the invitations of
lecture associations in Cin-
cinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland, had
arranged with E. S. Wells, a
Chicago agent, to appear in these Ohio
cities. Beecher had agreed
to deliver twelve lectures in the West
for a sum of $1,500, or $125
per lecture. The Cincinnati Daily
Gazette reminded its readers that
the great popular idol had hired himself
out to a speculator, had
offended the Young Men's Mercantile
Library Association, and, to
pad the pockets of Wells, was charging
the exorbitant admission
price of fifty cents.
Beecher lectured on October 22, as
announced. On the fol-
lowing day the Gazette noted with
satisfaction that only three hun-
dred people had attended the lecture. It
was apparent that Wells
had made a bad speculation and that
Beecher had "not added to
his reputation by accepting the
contract." Had Beecher visited the
city under the auspices of the
Mercantile Library Association, "to
whom an unfulfilled promise to lecture
has been out for two years,"
he would have "filled the largest
church in the city every night for
two consecutive weeks." But he had
come as the property of a
speculator, and the Cincinnati public,
by staying at home, "ex-
HENRY WARD BEECHER 97
pressed in a manner as decided as it is
severe, their opinion of the
course the gentleman has pursued."
Beecher defended himself in a letter
published in the Gazette
on November 15, 1855:
In regard to the charge of the
Cincinnati Gazette, that I had broken
an engagement of two seasons in that
city, I pronounce the charge unfounded
and untrue. And no gentleman having
official connection, or having had
such connection, with the Young Men's Association,
will choose to assert any
such thing over his own proper name.
In answer to the accusation that Wells
was a mere speculator,
Beecher declared that his agent was
"an upright Christian gentle-
man, a member of the Presbyterian
Church, active and useful."
As for the fifty-cent admission charge,
Beecher asserted that "the
price is not an unusual one, nor is it
unusual for the avails of a
lecture or a course of lectures to go to
the lecturer and not to local
associations."
On the evening of October 23, Beecher
lectured at Neil's New
Hall in Columbus. The editor of the Daily
Capital City Fact
(October 18, 1855) had prepared the
city's lecture public for
Beecher's appearance with an editorial
entitled "The Lecture
Monopoly." This correspondent
protested that it had become the
practice of some of the country's most
distinguished and talented
lecturers "to hire themselves out
to some Barnum for the lecture
season at a gross sum to be carried
around the country." As the
sole object of the speculator was to
make money, he would not
hesitate to demand an exorbitant
admission fee for his "show."
Thus Beecher "was made to play
cat's paw to put money in the
pocket of a heartless speculator,"
and the people of Columbus
would serve the public interest if they
would "decline the honor of
contributing to Mr. W's missionary box."
This newspaper's review of Beecher's
discourse provides ample
evidence that Columbus citizens quite
agreed with the editor's opin-
ions of the lecture monopoly:
Last evening this gentleman read, very
indistinctly, to forty persons, all
told, a lecture on "Beauty."
He had advertised to read his lecture on
"Patriotism," but after
discovering the want of patriotism in our citizens, in
the gross receipts of fourteen
dollars and fifty cents, he concluded to treat
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
them to a desertation on the love of the
beautiful, not inaptly supposing,
that "money" was an article
possessing peculiar charms in this locality.
Beecher did not read very well,
"and who could-to a beggarly
account of empty boxes?" At the
very outset he "called up the
mourners" to draw close around the
stand so that he could see
them. Then, "very incoherently at
times," he delivered his lecture
to his "woefully slim
auditory." No doubt Beecher's mission as a
lecturer was a noble one, but the name
of a "traveling showman"
had been attached to him, and,
"until the name of Barnum has
become obsolete, his highest and most
worthy endeavor to . . .
ameliorate the condition of man, will in
a measure prove futile,
proportionately as the public has
resolved to be humbugged no
longer."
In his Cincinnati letter, Beecher
commented briefly on his visit
to Columbus:
Of Columbus, O., I have nothing
to say. I spent a pleasant day at the
Neil House with a circle of much-loved
friends; and if, the next day, any of
its citizens were found with heretical
notions they certainly were not infected
by coming to hear my lecture. The
Secretary of the Association there, who
wrote me a letter, will one day be an
older man and I trust a wiser one.
At Cleveland, where he lectured on
October 24, Beecher met
the full wrath of the press. The editor
of the Herald (October 22,
1855), maintaining that Beecher broke an
engagement with the
Cleveland Library Association to deliver
this lecture, exhorted the
public "to effectually put a damper
upon all such gouging designs
of showmen, by staying away, and thus
leaving this clerical imitator
of the example set by traveling
curiosities to discourse to bare
walls, and the exhibitor, Mr. Wells, to
pay expenses out of his own
pocket."
On the day of the lecture, Wells and
several of Beecher's Cleve-
land friends posted handbills which
announced that the lecturer
would vindicate himself from the
slanders of the western press.
The Herald called this action
"A Trick Worthy of Barnum," adding
that "for this privilege of setting
Mr. Beecher right before the
public, this Mr. Wells charges that
public only fifty cents per head.
Viva la humbug!!"
HENRY WARD BEECHER 99
The announcements of Beecher's lecture
were an undignified
mixture of robust western humor and
sharp editorial temper:
GRAND LITERARY CIRCUS
Mr. Wells, of Chicago ................
Manager
Unparalleled Attraction, for One
Night Only
The Manager announces that, at an
expense of $125 per night, he has effected
an engagement with that distinguished
individual, the
REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER,
Who will make his only appearance in
Cleveland, on Wednesday evening,
Oct. 24th. The public are requested to
contribute fifty cents each towards
paying the celebrated performer more
money for an hour's talking than an
intelligent mechanic can make by nine
hundred hour's labor, in three months.2
Mr. Wells, the Chicago showman, will let
his fifty-cent lion roar at
Concert Hall, to-night. The smooth walls
of that Hall are excellent for the
reverberations of the lion's voice, and
we hope there will be few woolen
coats and silk dresses to deaden it.3
The newspaper editors had their way.
According to the Herald,
only 104 persons were present to hear
Beecher's lecture on "Patri-
otism," and there were not more
than sixty paid admissions.
Beecher's humiliation was complete. He
attempted to salvage
something of his reputation in a letter
printed by the Cleveland
Plain Dealer on October 25. He denied that he had broken an
agreement to lecture before the
Cleveland Library Association.4 He
upheld the character of Wells, whom he
described as a merchant
and president of Chicago's Metropolitan
Library Union. Comment-
ing on the fifty-cent admission price,
Beecher wrote:
I think not only that fifty cents
(except for lectures devoted to some
charitable end in the community, and
where the fee may be regarded as a
contribution to some public end) is too
much, but that it would be better to
charge less than twenty-five cents. It
would answer the ends of popular
education better were lectures to be afforded for a shilling, and
this could be
done with profit to the managers if
Halls were large enough.
2 Daily Clevelander, reprinted in Daily Commercial Register (Sandusky),
October
24, 1855.
3 Cleveland Morning Leader, October 24, 1855.
4 The correspondence of the Cleveland
Library Association is reviewed in the
Cleveland Herald, October 27, 1855. Most of the letters are
communications between
the secretaries of the Cleveland and the
Chicago Library Associations. The Chicago
secretary talked with Beecher in the
East and attempted to make arrangements for
lectures in both Cleveland and Chicago.
He reached no satisfactory agreement and
wrote that Beecher's treatment of him
was "rather shabby." It is clear that Beecher
broke no promises with lecture
associations in the West. He simply did not reply to
their invitations.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
On this occasion Beecher declared that,
because of his agree-
ment with Wells, he had no control over
the admission price for
the lecture. Later, in his Cincinnati
letter, he defended the fifty-
cent admission as a just one.5
On October 25, the day of the lecturer's
departure, the Cleve-
land Herald pointed out that in the largest cities in Ohio-Cincin-
nati, Columbus, and Cleveland-Beecher
had "had the pleasure of
addressing 449 men, women, and children."
But if he had come to
the state as his respect for himself
should have demanded, he
would have had audiences in these cities
"of many hundreds, night
after night." As for Wells, he had
perhaps learned that "clergymen
are poor showing stock," and that
"the people of Ohio are not quite
so green as he took them to be."
In November 1856, Beecher returned to
Cincinnati and de-
livered two lectures under the auspices
of the First Orthodox Con-
gregational Society. His success was
almost without precedent in
the city's lecture annals. The debacle
of the previous year was
completely forgotten by the lecture
public. Describing the crowd
that assembled to hear "The
Ministry of the Beautiful," the editor
of the Commercial (November 17,
1856) asserted that he had "not
observed such a multitude, excited and
swarming about any place
of public meeting in this town since the
Buchanan Convention,
when the same ground presented a similar
scene."
Beecher, "dressed in black, his
coat buttoned tightly up, dis-
playing to advantage his portly
proportions in a style rather mili-
tary than clerical," completely
captivated his audience with the
beauty and power of his eloquence.
Twenty-three hundred people jammed Smith
and Nixon's Hall
to hear the lecture on
"Patriotism." The audience, eager to see and
hear the great pulpit orator, sprawled
over the stage and stood in
the aisles and doorways. Hundreds more,
unable to gain admission,
were sent away disappointed. Henry Ward
Beecher had returned
to the West in triumph.
5 The Cincinnati letter, written about
three weeks after the Ohio lectures, was
much less apologetic than the Cleveland
letter. In the former, Beecher declared that
the attitude of Ohio's lecture
associations was "arrogant avarice."
THE HUMILIATION OF HENRY WARD BEECHER IN
THE WEST
by DAVID MEAD
Assistant Professor of English,
Michigan State College
In the columns of Ohio's newspapers of
nearly a century ago
lies the dramatic account of Henry Ward
Beecher's rejection as a
lecturer by the indignant citizens of
the West, a story which has
not been revealed by the biographers of
the great Eastern divine.
Not that Beecher was the first celebrity
to be humiliated by Ohio's
lecture public in the boisterous 1850's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
during his Ohio journeys of 1850 and
1852, had been reminded
often enough that he was a pantheistic
dreamer whose disjointed,
unintelligible philosophizing had little
to do with the practical
affairs of life. In 1854 the New York
reformer George William
Curtis, had visited the state with a
"namby-pamby, up-townish"
lecture on "Success." His
listeners, men who had experienced the
struggle of the West to escape the
economic bondage of the eastern
bankers and who loved their mercantile
account books next to
their homes and families, resented his
implication that wealth had
nothing to do with success in life. And
the western press, in re-
minding Curtis that he would do well to
remain at home, could not
suppress a sneer at the fashionable cut
of his coat "or the particular
shade of yellow gloves."
Parke Godwin of the New York Evening
Post suffered when he took the liberty with Ohioans in 1855
of
contrasting the social standards of the
East and West in a discourse
entitled "American Social
Life." His hearers objected vehemently
to his disparagement of the West's great
middle class, "the sub-
stantial architects of our
greatness," and dismissed both Godwin
and his lecture as "a miserable and
disgraceful failure."
But these orators antagonized Ohioans
merely by their opin-
ions. They offered nothing worse than
annoying philosophical
speculation; Beecher, however, was
associated with something much
more offensive-a financial speculation.
In 1855 the eloquent min-
ister of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church
hired himself out to a shrewd
94