Alexander Irvine Papers, 1863-1986, bulk 1906-1941

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Summary

Creators:
Irvine, Alexander, 1863-1941.
Abstract:
This collection contains the papers of Irish-American author, lecturer, and Congregationalist minister Alexander Irvine (1863-1941), and consists mostly of Irvine’s manuscripts, chiefly dating from 1906-1941.
Extent:
290 items in 4 boxes and 4 oversize folders
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists mostly of Irvine’s manuscripts, arranged alphabetically by title. The entirety of the first and the beginning of the second box consist of manuscript drafts - both typescript and autograph - of chapters from the author’s larger works. The rest of the second box consists of manuscript drafts of sermons which Irvine gave after the turn of the century, most of them from his 1909-1910 tenure at the Church of the Ascension in New York City. The third upright box consists entirely of Irvine’s manuscript essays, many of which appeared in publication. Most of these manuscripts are undated but it appears the bulk of these papers come the Irvine’s final thirty years. The collection’s final upright box contains the rest of Irvine’s manuscripts. It also contains twenty-four folders of Irvine’s correspondence, three folders of news clippings, six folders of ephemera, and one folder of photos.

There are several items in oversize. Two large scrapbooks, each housed individually, contain a great deal of ephemera, photographs, and correspondence which Irvine himself organized. Other items in oversize include a small scrapbook containing mainly photos and news clippings from 1922 to 1938, and a large, thin packet containing four editions of The Psychological Review of Reviews from the early 1920s. There are also two oversize manuscripts: one a fragment from the draft of a script, and the other an undated essay titled “The Cost of Something for Nothing.”

Subjects in the collection include: John Brown; California; Eugene Debs; Carter Glass; Grand Army of the Republic; Hitler Youth; John L. Lewis; Abraham Lincoln; Jack London; Mexican Revolution; New York City; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Upton Sinclair; socialism; tuberculosis; Mark Twain; World War I; World War II; vaudeville; vigilantes; and Yale University.

Biographical / historical:

Author, lecturer, and Congregationalist minister Alexander Irvine (1863-1941) was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1863, the son of Anna (née Gilmore) and Jamie Irvine, she a Roman Catholic and he an illiterate Protestant shoemaker. He grew up working in his father’s cobbling business which Jamie Irvine ran out of his small home. The ninth out of twelve children, Irvine’s mother gave him little formal education as he had to supplement his father’s income by selling newspapers instead of attending school. The young Irvine had a religious awakening while working as a scarecrow in a potato field, where he became overawed by the beauty of a sunset and became convinced of a personal connection with a higher power.

Lured by their promises of an education which had for so long eluded him, Irvine entered the British Navy and served in the Mediterranean Sea. Irvine’s acumen for learning and his time serving in the navy had garnered him education enough to matriculate at Oxford during a furlough. Also while on leave, Irvine wed Ellen Mary Skeets in 1886. After two years at Oxford, Irvine determined to pursue missionary work on the other side of the Atlantic shortly, however, and he deserted his post for the United States with his wife and two new sons, William and Gordon, in tow. Shortly after he had landed in New York and proselytized among the poor and homeless in Manhattan’s Bowery district, Irvine’s first wife left him and returned to the United Kingdom where she gave birth to their third child in 1891.

After four years preaching on the Lower East Side, Irvine suffered a nervous breakdown and moved his family to Omaha, Nebraska. There he married Clara Maude Hazen, the daughter of a prominent Iowa politician. His wife gave birth to an additional four children: Robert, Anna, Maurice (known as “Swanee”), and Jack. Irvine felt constrained in Omaha, however, and he took a position as the religious director for the New Haven YMCA in 1898 hoping to delve back into missionary work with the poor. He enrolled at the Yale Divinity School while preaching at the Second Congregation Church of nearby Fair Haven and was ordained at Yale University in tandem with his work with local labor movements and the Socialist Party. His published writings about his life made him famous. By 1906, he had become friends with other well-known Socialists (such as the writer Jack London) and departed New Haven to see for himself the conditions of working people across America. The following year Irvine relocated back to New York City where he began preaching his brand of socialist Christianity at the Church of the Ascension in Manhattan.

By 1910, Irvine’s political entanglements had made him controversial, and he left the Church of the Ascension to pursue a speaking and writing career from a farm in Peekskill. The success of his autobiography From the Bottom Up: The Life Story of Alexander Irvine the same year made such a move tenable. Irvine moved to Los Angeles in 1911 to manage the mayoral campaign of Socialist candidate Job Harriman. In California, Irvine produced his most famous book, My Lady of the Chimney Corner (1913), a story based on his Irish peasant roots. Irvine adapted his literary themes to the vaudeville stage the same year with “The Rector of St. Jude’s.” He spent the balance of his life writing freelance for publications on either side of the Atlantic. Irvine was found dead in his bed at his home in Hollywood, California, on March 15, 1941.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Anna Giarretto, Alexander Irvine, Northbrook, Ill, and Robert Irvine, Glenview, Ill. January 20, 1997.
Arrangement:

Arranged by document type and then alphabetically author and by title, followed by oversize.

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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