Genius of Place

by Justin Martin

  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine began in 1850. Putnam’s was launched in 1853. The two magazines quickly fell into a fierce rivalry, rooted in their divergent editorial approaches. Because no international copyright law existed yet, Harper’s simply raided English magazines, obtaining much of the content by theft—transfer was the editors’ preferred term. Not only was this financially savvy, but it also catered to the literary tastes and cultural insecurities of so many American readers. A steady diet of all things British—that was the road to refinement.

  Putnam’s took an opposite tack. It chose to distinguish itself as proudly nativist, focused on a new wave of formidably talented American writers. The publication’s subtitle further announced that this was a “Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art.” By the time Olmsted became an owner, Putnam’s had already established itself, publishing work by such homegrown talents as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry James Sr. Herman Melville’s classic “Bartleby the Scrivener” was originally published in two installments that appeared in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam’s. The magazine paid its contributors, too. Melville received an unheard-of $5 per page—$85 for the whole story.

  As a first step, Olmsted and Dix made a quick circuit through the Northeast, meeting with some of Putnam’s regular contributors. They wanted to reassure these writers that the magazine, though under new ownership, would continue to pursue the same high literary standards. They also hoped to get some fresh pieces into the pipeline. Olmsted and Dix traveled to Boston, where they met with James Russell Lowell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In Concord, they dropped in on Ralph Waldo Emerson. “This is more than half the battle,” Olmsted wrote his father. “If we can get the writers, there is little fear but that we shall get the readers.”

  Olmsted also took the lead on recruiting an editorial staff. Although he had done some writing, he had zero experience editing and recognized that he and his partners were deficient in such skills as shaping someone else’s work and figuring out the all-important mix of stories to go in an issue. The worldly and cultivated George Curtis agreed to act as the editor of Putnam’s. Charles Dana, another experienced hand, signed on as a deputy. In an odd twist, both men insisted on keeping their existing jobs and working incognito for Putnam’s. That way they could double-dip. Curtis actually wrote the popular “Editor’s Easy Chair” column for Harper’s, the competition. He was one of that magazine’s few American contributors, and he was paid handsomely as well. Dana was second in command at the New York Tribune and wished to hold on to that job.

  Putnam’s physical offices reflected this bizarre collaboration between three green owners and two secret editors. Olmsted, Dix, and Edwards had well-marked offices, accessible to all. They were the face of Putnam’s, as it were. A door in Olmsted’s office, meanwhile, led into Curtis’s office. That door generally remained closed.

  Curtis’s office served as a kind of inner sanctum, the site where the real editorial decisions were made. He was often joined there by Dana. The two engaged in learned debates, centering on which pieces to bulk up and which to pare down, what to acquire and what to kill. Curtis and Dana rejected a short story called “The Cited Curate” simply because it was too English in flavor.

  With two heavyweights as editors, Olmsted’s duties were naturally limited. He acted as a kind of managing editor, crafting manuscript submissions guidelines, corresponding with authors on general subjects such as deadlines, and working with the printer. Another task was dealing with wannabe writers who stormed the Putnam’s offices demanding answers. “I had just now a call from a queer fellow whose poetry had been rejected,” wrote Olmsted to his father, “and who wanted to know why & who struck his breast fearfully and assured me that there must be some mistake for he knew there was no better poetry, and he felt that he had genius.”

  Curiously enough, Olmsted’s most hands-on editorial duty was proofreading. His shoddy schooling had left him an eccentric speller. For this task, fortunately, he could turn to Webster’s: The American Dictionary of the English Language. In the United States, Webster’s was quickly gaining favor over British dictionaries. Olmsted’s use of it was only fitting since Putnam’s was a proudly American magazine. What’s more, a distant cousin, Denison Olmsted, while teaching at Yale, had been a consultant to the original 1828 edition of Webster’s, helping craft definitions for technical terms from fields such as astronomy and meteorology.

  One of the pieces that Olmsted proofread was the short story “Benito Cereno” by Melville. He made a number of changes such as mould to mold to reflect American usage as prescribed in Webster’s. Apparently, though, Curtis was something of a traditionalist on spelling. “It is not yet good use to spell in this hideous Websterian manner,” he wrote in a memo. “And, unless you feel that it would too much harm the harmony of the Mag., I will, hereafter, have a U. in my ‘mould,’ and my lustre shall be such and not ‘ter.’”

  The hideous Websterian spellings stayed, however, and “Benito Cereno” ran in three installments during the autumn of 1855. A Melville story was but one bright flash during a dazzling period for Putnam’s. The magazine ran a meticulously researched natural history of bees and a lengthy exposition on the Jesuit faith. Poems by Longfellow—“Oliver Basselin,” “Victor Galbraith,” and “My Lost Youth”—appeared in rapid succession. The magazine even published a Henry David Thoreau workin-progress that would eventually grow into the book Cape Cod. The Hartford Courant described Putnam’s as “higher flight than the Knickerbocker , or even Harper.” At a posh Manhattan literary gathering, William Makepeace Thackeray declared it “much the best Mag. in the world, and better than Blackwood is or ever was.” Thackeray was a lion of English literature, Blackwood’s Magazine a much-venerated English publication. For an American magazine, this was high praise indeed.

  Yet Olmsted was frustrated. His unusual owner-underling status wasn’t the problem. He viewed his role at Putnam’s as a kind of apprenticeship, little different from the agricultural apprenticeships he’d earlier served. When he wanted to learn about farming, he’d learned from the best, George Geddes. Now, he was learning about publishing from some of the top talent in the field.

  The problem was money. Even though Putnam’s was a hot magazine, generating much talk and interest, circulation was frozen at just under 20,000. Six months into his tenure, the partnership’s funds had fallen so low that Olmsted was unable to draw his salary. He had to borrow money from a friend.

  In November 1855, Olmsted finished writing his book. When he approached Dix and Edwards about publishing it, per their original discussion, his partners pointed to the depleted coffers. They asked Olmsted to bear the $500 cost of printing his own book. This was too much money to borrow from a friend. Ashamed, Olmsted approached his father again. In a letter, he tried to cast his request in a positive light: “There is a sort of literary republic, which it is not merely pleasant & gratifying to my ambition to be recognized in, but also profitable. It would for example, if I am so recognized & considered, be easy for me, in case of the non-success of this partnership, to get employment in the newspaper offices or other literary enterprises at good wages—to make arrangement for correspondence if I wished to travel, & so on.”

  The conceit here—the words of a sheepish Olmsted trying yet again to borrow money from his father—is pretty circuitous. But in effect, Olmsted was suggesting that he hoped to crack a “sort of literary republic” that was also potentially “profitable.” Pouring more money into cashstrapped Dix, Edwards & Company to publish his book would provide a hedge in case the partnership failed. Then Olmsted would have the book as an entrée and could get a new job in “newspaper offices or other literary enterprises at good wages.” John Olmsted Sr. allowed paternal love to trump logic. He put up the money.

  An unusual arrangement was struck with Dix, Edwards & Company whereby Olmsted would pay the cost of printing his book and also hand over a small percentage of the sales proceeds to
cover expenses such as distribution and marketing. A large percentage of any proceeds would flow back to Olmsted, which was only fair since he—or, rather, his father—was taking all the risk. This was the reverse of the standard agreement, where the publisher bears the upfront costs and the author gets a smaller royalty.

  Olmsted put the finishing touches on his book. By now, he’d gone through quite a change in thinking since his initial Times dispatches. As a consequence, he stiffened some of his original gradualism, pumping up sentiments such as slavery is an evil that must end now and downplaying sentiments such as allow the South to change over time. Some of his jabs at Northern hypocrisy, like the passage about how the downtrodden in cities like Boston sometimes starved to death, were simply removed. Still, the book was sprawling. Concerned about the reception awaiting such an overstuffed tome, he wrote a wry note to his father: “This ponderosity becomes a goblin of botheration to me.”

  A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States was published on January 16, 1856. The 723-page book had an initial run of 2,000 copies.

  Olmsted need not have worried. He had made strides as a writer since Walks and Talks. He received excellent notices and in a much wider range of publications than his previous title. The New York Post wrote: “This remarkable book ... is certainly the most minute, dispassionate, and evidently accurate description of the persons, places, and social institutions of the southern portion of our confederacy, that we have yet seen.” Said the Boston Daily Advertiser: “By far the most valuable book we have on slavery and the Southern social system. That book will gradually assume the position of a standard book of reference among all persons, of whatever opinions, whose interest in slavery or in anti-slavery is more than a pretence.”

  The reviewer’s use of the word gradually proved somehow prophetic. Seaboard Slave States was a big book on a serious topic. The price, $1.25, was five times the cost of Walks and Talks. While reviews were uniformly glowing, sales were very slow. Writing wasn’t going to pay the bills, apparently; it wasn’t going to pay back his father, either.

  Meanwhile, things were changing fast in the intrepid new world of magazine publishing. Harper’s was growing more cautious about stealing English content. Starting with the January 1856 issue, the magazine ran an exclusive serial of the Dickens novel Little Dorrit. This generated great excitement and sold tons of magazines, and Harper’s paid the author for the privilege. Angering Dickens by pirating his work would not have been wise editorial policy, especially because he was immensely popular in the United States. At the same time, Harper’s was starting to publish a great deal more work by American writers.

  When Harper’s zigged, Putnam’s zagged. Putnam’s editors decided to abandon the patriotic focus, the proud emphasis on American writers and American subjects. It was just too limiting. A new formula was needed, especially in light of the magazine’s stagnating circulation and money woes. Time to forge some British literary relationships. Putnam’s needed a coup to equal its rival’s exclusive Little Dorrit serial.

  On February 13, 1856, Olmsted set sail for England aboard the Arabia . The purpose of Olmsted’s trip was pretty amorphous, but boiled down to: obtain some British content. In addition, he had family responsibilities. Olmsted was joined on the trip by Mary, his twenty-four-year-old half-sister, and he was charged with looking after her. This was an era when it was considered untoward for a young woman to visit a strange city alone. In London, Olmsted met with British magazine publishers, trying to strike deals to reprint their stories in Putnam’s. He scouted for writers who could become Putnam’s contributors. Maybe Dix, Edwards & Company could further diversify into book publishing, printing their works. Or perhaps an English publisher would agree to pay a fee to Dix, Edwards & Company for distributing its titles in America. He explored a number of possibilities. Nothing really took.

  When Mary set off for Italy, Olmsted dutifully accompanied her. This was to be a quick travel interlude, and then he planned to return to London and hopefully better luck. In Rome, Mary met up with her younger sister Bertha and Sophia Hitchcock, a family friend. Bertha and Sophia had been living in Italy as students. Olmsted wound up acting as a kind of chaperone, squiring three young women as they took a whirlwind tour through Italy, then on to Vienna and Prague.

  Ordinarily, Olmsted thrived on travel. But he didn’t really enjoy this trip and was instead dogged by concerns both personal and political. His personal dismay related to the fact that his half-sister Bertha had just rejected a marriage proposal from a man named Edward Bartholomew. Bartholomew was a Connecticut native, living in Rome and working as a sculptor. Olmsted appears to have been put off by what he perceived as a cavalier attitude on Bertha’s part. How could she and the other two women jaunt about Europe after something so momentous as a broken engagement? “I should not be much surprised if Bartholomew, supposing he understands Bertha as she meant he should, should be made insane. He is just the man to be ruined by it,” wrote Olmsted to a relative.

  After parting company with the three women, on his way back to London, he wrote a letter directly to Bertha: “But then it troubles me that the state of mind or conviction on which you acted decisively was but one day old, while as you say your instinct or unreflective ‘dream’ (state of mind) had all been for weeks previously of an opposite character.” Olmsted’s prose here is particularly tortured, but he seems to be demanding an explanation. If Bertha felt love for Bartholomew for weeks, how could she decisively break with him based on one day’s reflection? Olmsted seems strangely overinvested in the love life of his much younger half-sister. Maybe, behind the judgmental airs, he was still smarting from his own broken engagement to Emily Perkins.

  On the political front, a horrifying event occurred in the United States while Olmsted was traveling, and it also colored his experience. On May 22, 1856, Preston Brooks, a South Carolina congressman, walked up to Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts senator, during a recess and proceeded to strike him in the head with a gutta-percha cane. Incredibly, tensions between the North and South had erupted into violence in the very halls of Congress. On about the sixth blow, the cane broke, but Brooks kept whacking Sumner. “Hit him, Brooks, he deserves it,” yelled a fellow Southern senator. Meanwhile, a Northern congressman rushed to Sumner’s aid. “I’m dead,” cried Sumner. “Oh, I’m most dead!” Sumner lived, but he was never the same. It would be more than three years before he was sufficiently recovered to return to his Senate seat.

  With the Brooks-Sumner incident as a backdrop, Olmsted found his journey disconcerting. Things felt so much different from his recent walking tour. America was supposed to be a beacon of democracy in hidebound old Europe, but instead his country was an object of scorn. He recorded the following impression: “The position of an American traveling in Europe is just now a most unpleasant one. In railway carriages and other public places when he is not known as an American, he is obliged to hear language applied to his country which it is difficult to allow to pass in silence, and yet which he cannot deny to be just.”

  Back in London, Olmsted hoped finally to stir up some business for Putnam’s. He dropped in on John Parker, the editor of Fraser’s, a supremely serious magazine that featured the work of John Stuart Mill, George Henry Lewes, and the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Olmsted walked away from the meeting with Parker feeling like maybe some kind of deal had been struck. But the details were vague.

  A more enticing possibility involved Thomas Gladstone. Gladstone, older brother of the future British prime minister, was a correspondent for the Times of London. While Olmsted was in London, Gladstone was in the United States, covering events in Bleeding Kansas. Olmsted read his dispatches with great interest. What if Dix, Edwards & Company were to publish a book based on Gladstone’s reportage? Olmsted wondered. This had potential: An Englishman’s perspective on Bleeding Kansas was kind of an ideal property for an American publisher seeking to tilt more British.

  Olmsted also attended a party that Thackeray threw each year at his hom
e for the editors of Punch, a brilliant and merciless British humor magazine. Olmsted showed up at the event overdressed. Absolutely everyone present was in black tie save for Olmsted, who appeared in white tie and tails. “Here comes Olmsted, in a white stock,” called out Thackeray. Everyone laughed. Thackeray giveth—with his earlier high praise for Putnam’s—and Thackeray taketh away. Olmsted was embarrassed. Still, he recovered sufficiently to chat up various Punch editors, white tails and all. He sent a letter home suggesting to his partners that maybe it would make sense to publish an American edition of Punch. This would come to nothing.

  Besides trying to further the interests of Dix, Edwards & Company, Olmsted also used his time in London to promote his own book. He hand-delivered copies of A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States to the many editors with whom he met. Like clockwork, reviews began to appear in the months ahead in such publications as the Athenaeum, Fraser’s, and the Times. In England, too, Olmsted received glowing notices, but still the book sold slowly. But he was starting to build a small and influential overseas audience for his unique ideas about slavery and the South.

  Back on Tosomock Farm, meanwhile, John was using his brother’s travel notes and Times pieces to stitch together a second book, covering their Texas journey together. The book was to feature Fred’s byline, but John would receive two-thirds of any royalties. This easy collaboration speaks to the special bond the brothers shared. What’s more, by working in this fashion, Olmsted would appear to all the world to be a literary juggernaut. He’d be able to churn out a second lengthy book in the space of a year!

  While Olmsted’s writing was going well, so well that it didn’t even require his physical presence, things at Putnam’s were going very poorly in his absence. Olmsted received a letter from Joshua Dix, his publishing partner. Apparently, the magazine’s finances were much more precarious than anyone had suspected. Dix was in such a dither that he contacted John at Tosomock Farm, pressing him to write his brother as well. Immediately following Dix’s letter, Olmsted received another letter from John, saying that Putnam’s circulation had “fallen off alarmingly” and that he should return to the United States at once.