Elbert Hubbard

Born in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1856, I am the son of a country doctor who never made more that $500 per year. My family had settled in Buffalo as early as 1834 but moved west during the cholera epidemic of that year.A born salesman, my first full-time job was selling soap door-to-door. Later I joined the J.D. Larkin Company of Buffalo, one of the most successful mail order houses in the country. It was my idea to introduce premium merchandise as an added inducement to buy the company's products. I also instituted the club plan which made every customer a potential salesman.But something was missing. Secretly I had written a novel and the prospect of a literary career fascinated me. In 1893 I sold my interest in the Larkin Company for $75,000 and retired at the age of thirty-six.I began my intellectual quest by enrolling at Harvard, but resigned after being told that I lacked the basic requirements to achieve a degree in letters.I then embarked on a lengthy trip to the Continent. His purpose was to meet and talk with the leading personalities of the day, gathering material for his first continuous literary effort, the "Little Journeys."While abroad I met the English Socialist William Morris whose printing and publishing firm convinced me of the feasibility of the Roycroft idea.RoycroftI established the Roycroft Printing Shop at my home in East Aurora. I gathered bookbinders from the Old World, young people and fallen women ó the finest handmade books of the 19th Century, books that were purchased by Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt and Queen Victoria.The Roycrofters prospered and by 1905 were operating their own factory, blacksmith shop, farms, bank and later an inn which still stands today. The completely self-sufficient community eventually grew to five hundred people under my forceful but expert guidance. Actually, the inn was built as a matter of necessity. Thousands came from all over the world to see and praise an idea which had become a reality.From 1905 to 1915, I was the most sought after lecturer in the United States. My writings were in great demand, and the Hearst Newspapers paid handsomely for my services as a correspondent. The outbreak of World War I provided a wealth of material for "Little Journeys," my biographical sketches of famous people which I had continued to publish. Aglow with a reporter's enthusiasm I set sail for England, and I hoped, an eventual interview with Kaiser Wilhelm. But one of the Kaiser's instruments of war eliminated that possibility. The sage of East Aurora died aboard the Lusitania, sunk by a German submarine in April 1915.