Elbert Hubbard: An American Original
Conformists die, heretics live forever.— Elbert Hubbard
In the documentary, “Elbert Hubbard: An American Original,” which first aired on PBS in 2009, director/writer Paul Lamont presents Hubbard, a major figure in the American Arts and Crafts Movement, as a man of contradictions. Hubbard was devoted to art, yet motivated by business; interested in the welfare of the common man but his Roycrofters created exquisite items only the wealthy could afford; family played a central role in his life, yet he was involved in a long-lived extramarital affair.
Hubbard’s early life is the stuff of Horatio Alger lore. He began selling soap at the age of 16 for the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York. With a keen mind for business, and perseverance, young Hubbard quickly rose up the ranks in the company by introducing “from factory to family” direct catalog sales. In 1880, Hubbard married Bertha Crawford and began a family. Three years later the Hubbards moved to East Aurora, a village outside of Buffalo.
Elbert Hubbard, photographer unknown.
Source: http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1216826209p5/114059.jpg
Yet with all his success Hubbard felt unfulfilled and began to question the direction of this life. The works of Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman deeply moved and influenced him. Later on Hubbard would repackage many of these writers’ ideas as catchy mottoes in order to promote his ideals.
