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Guide to the Isaac Russell Papers, 1898-1927 M0444
M0444
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Isaac Russell Papers
Creator:
Russell, Isaac
Identifier/Call Number: M0444
Identifier/Call Number: 1541
Physical Description:
8 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1898-1927
Gift of Mrs. Althea Strohschein and Mrs. Robert Russell, 1983 and 1985
None.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
[Identification of item] Isaac Russell Papers, M444, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
Isaac Russell was born in Salt Lake City on 14 December 1879 to Samuel and Henrietta Russell. With the death of his father
twelve years later, young Isaac went to live with a family friend, Charles Burton, also of Salt Lake. At the outbreak of the
Spanish-American War in April 1898, he joined the Utah Volunteer Battalion. Reporting first to Camp Richmond near San Francisco,
he was sent to Manila that summer. He spent the next two years in the Philippines, serving both as the editor of
The American Soldier, a newspaper for the troops, and, later, as General John J. Pershing's secretary.
Shortly after returning to the United States in July 1900, Russell, traveling through Palo Alto, accidentally met David Starr
Jordan, President of Stanford University. Learning of the youth's regret that he lacked the course credits necessary to attend
Stanford, Jordan administered a special exam for him, and Russell was admitted that fall. While at the University, Russell
strengthened his journalistic skills, editing the student publications,
Quad, and
Chaparral for each of his four years there.
Graduating with an AB in English in 1904, Russell returned to Salt Lake City, where he soon found employment as a reporter
for the
Deseret News. Whatever satisfaction he might have initially found in this job, it had all but entirely dissipated by the end of 1908. By
then, Russell became disenchanted with his low salary, especially in light of the fact that he had gotten married the year
before to Althea Farr, (ca. June-July 1907) and could now expect to have a growing family to support. (He and his wife did
in fact have three children, two sons and a daughter.) Russell also became disillusioned with the "conservative" approach
of the
News. Like so many journalists of the time, he did not wish to confine his writing merely to straightforward reporting but, rather,
sought to attack existing inequities and press for reform. Isaac Russell, in short, was a muckraker. Indeed, in the same year
as the publication of Upton Sinclair's
The Jungle (1906), Russell lauded
Collier's fight against patent medicines and in the years to come wrote on several other concerns of the muckrakers: the trusts, political
corruption, land fraud, and the like. These writings, of course, were submitted not to the large dailies but to magazines
such as
Collier's,
Pearson's, and
Harper's, all sympathetic to the muckrakers' aims.
Quitting the
Deseret News in the spring of 1909, Russell moved to New York City, joining first the staff of the
Sun, and then, a few months later, the
Times. Among the major stories covered by Russell during his six-year tenure at the
Times were: the sinking of the Titanic (which he was apparently the first journalist to report); the continuing aviatory efforts
of the Wright brothers; and U.S. interference in Nicaragua in 1913-1914. This period also witnessed the emergence of Russell
as a staunch, outspoken defender of the Mormon faith, to which he belonged. In Feb 1911 he asked Theodore Roosevelt to refute
charges that as President he had negotiated secret deals with the Mormon leadership. Roosevelt's lengthy response lambasted
his critic and praised the Mormons, and Russell made sure the piece was prominently published. On a less spectacular, but
equally passionate level, Russell also began writing letters to editors of various newspapers in which he tried to correct
their misconceptions about Mormonism, particularly in regard to polygamy.
On 1 June 1915, as a result of a supposedly inaccurate article he wrote on Amos Pinchot, Russell was fired from the
Times. Shortly thereafter he joined the staff of the
New York Evening Mail, becoming its city editor in 1916. During his years with the
Mail, Russell continued his muckraking activities, focusing his attention in particular on conditions in the military and, above
all, in the labor market. Besides writing numerous articles on U.S. Army training camps, he condemned what he perceived to
be the frequent use of court-martials and the supercilious attitude of officers for the "underdog" in his criticism of low
wages and poor working conditions among the country's laborers. Nor did he limit his actions to writing alone. In July 1918
he was appointed a "special field representative" for the National War Labor Board; in February 1919 he became an examiner
for the Railroad Wages and Working Conditions Dept. of the U.S. Railroad Administration; and the following month he joined
the American Labor Party.
In the early 1920s, Russell's professional interests came to center on two issues: Utah and food. As his correspondence with
Heber Grant and George Thomas--presidents of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints and the University of Utah, respectively,--reveals,
Russell believed that the leadership of both church and state was so obsessed with matters of religion and finance that it
stifled independent intellectual and creative initiative. Along with this anxiety over Utah's future went a desire to commemorate
her past--a desire to which Russell gave concrete expression in numerous articles and, more elaborately, in his first book,
Hidden Heroes of the Rockies, published by World Book in late 1923.
Of equal, if not greater concern to Russell was the question of nutrition, about which he had been writing and lecturing at
least since 1917. In 1921 he asked for--and received--the editorship of the Mail's newly-established food department; but
he did not stay in that position long, for the following January, having acceded to the American Baking Institute's request
that he edit its new journal,
Baking Technology, he moved to Chicago, where the Institute was headquartered. In this capacity--and, indeed, in all his writings about food--Russell
acted in the best muckraking tradition, berating, for example, the AMA's belittlement of nutritional science and bakers' reluctance
to adopt new methods. Russell revealed his own fervently "scientific" approach to food in his second, and final book,
The Romance of the Holes in the Bread (published in 1925 by the Chemical Publishing), which extols the achievements of Louis Pasteur and contains a preface by his
old friend and mentor, David Starr Jordan.
Nutritional and Utahan affairs were not the only targets of Russell's often wrathful pen during these years. The electrical
industry, the Wright-Curtiss patent dispute over airplanes, the move to change Mount Rainier's name to Tacoma, even the laws
of the road--all received Russell's vigorous attention. In the winter of 1926-1927, he left the American Institute to edit
the journal
Public Relations. Only a few months after assuming this new position, however, he fell seriously ill and had to be hospitalized. But he was
at home when he died, of a massive heart attack, on 7 September 1927. He was not yet forty-eight years old.
The Isaac Russell papers document the personal and professional activities of a once-noted journalist and editor. The value
of the collection is not solely of a biographical nature, for a sizable portion of Russell's correspondence and writings pertains
to major events, personalities, and trends of his era. On subjects as diverse as Mormonism and aviation, Progressivism and
nutrition, the Russell papers cast light on significant aspects of early twentieth century American civilization.
The collection, which spans 8 linear feet, is comprised of correspondence, manuscripts, published articles and newsclippings,
government and legal documents, photographs, and ephemera. The papers date from 1898-1927, the bulk having been generated
between 1907 and 1927. The collection is arranged into five series