The Professor

From the Modern Galleries in Philadelphia last week went forth an offer to sell one of the strangest collections of drawings yet unearthed in the realm of Americana. Depicted in 1,676 black & white wash drawings, all a little more than a foot square and all by the same artist, was a breathtaking medley of scenes and events, ranging from the crucifixion of Christ to the execution of Nathan Hale, from an attack of delirium tremens to the Ride of John Gilpin, from Little Britches left out in the snow to Poet Poe addressing the Raven. Sentimental though most of the subjects were, the craftsmanship in each picture was remarkably good. And not a single one had ever seen the light of print or public exhibition.

Ninety-five years ago there was born to Philadelphia's most prominent dentist, Dr. Stephen Thomas Beale, a son named Joseph Boggs. For blueness of blood the Beales take no backtalk from Biddles or Drexels or Rushes since they were direct descendants of Friend William Penn's Friend Andrew Griscom who reputedly built the first brick house in town. Little Joseph Boggs Beale was also a great-grandnephew of Betsy Ross. Accordingly he was sent to the most reputable school in town, the old Central High School. Almost immediately after graduation he joined the faculty as instructor in drawing, and proceeded to grow a fine pair of side whiskers. Though he fought through the Civil War and spent far more time as a hack illustrator than he ever had as a teacher, he was known for the rest of his life as "The Professor."

Few modern art critics have ever heard of Joseph Boggs Beale, and the Professor, busy making colored lantern slides, illustrating Bible tracts, mat calendars, children's books, probably never dreamed that they would. But among his best friends were men of whom critics have learned a great deal--Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase, Albert Rosenthal. Beale was a member of the old Philadelphia Artists' League and shared Artist Eakins' passion for rowing. At the Professor's death in 1926 he was the oldest living member of the Undine Barge Club. A hard worker, particularly in his later years, Artist Beale seemed to have a more regular income than his infrequently published drawings would indicate. Only last week did newshawks ferret out where it came from.

Beale's 1,676 hitherto unknown drawings reached the Modern Galleries through a retired manufacturer of lantern slides whose name the gallery proprietor last week stanchly refused to reveal. In 1874 the slide-maker had gone quietly to Joseph Boggs Beale and asked him to do a set of drawings to illustrate Pilgrim's Progress. They were a great success with Epworth Leagues and Sunday Schools. Soon the slide-maker asked for other drawings, in black & white, to illustrate books that he one day hoped to publish. From 1880 to 1900, methodical Joseph Boggs Beale produced drawings, always in the same technique, always in the same size, and the slide-maker always bought them for around $17.50 each. This private deal gave Artist Beale a regular income of between $35 and $40 per week. Year ago the slide-maker, now an elderly, respected bibliophile, went to the Modern Galleries with a few pictures illustrating the life of Lincoln. The manager was unable to sell them on commission, but, interested in other Bealeana, he went out to the slide-maker's home in Germantown to see what else he could discover. He found trunk after trunk of unused drawings, stowed away for 35 years. Few if any of them had captions and it was the work of months to sort into subjects and series the 1,676 pictures that Joseph Boggs Beale hoped one day to see published. Some weeks Artist Beale, in humorous vein, would confect such a series as The First Auto (see cut), in which a swank couple in duster and goggles buy a two-cylinder Pope-Hartford, take to the open road, encounter a thunderstorm, suffer a breakdown (which they attempt to mend with a gimlet and a hatchet), and finally drive on into a sentimental rainbow. More rough & tumble were Beale's ideas of Mrs. Casey's goat which butted a respectable Philadelphian into a watering trough or Uncle Rastus and His Mule. Literature particularly attracted the Professor. He made illustrations for such things as Evangeline, Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, Elegy in a Country Churchyard (32 pictures in this set), Othello, The Wreck of the Hesperus. One of his favorites was Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight! Long before Minnie Maddern Fiske transposed the scene from Britain's Civil War to that of the U. S., and swung to theatrical fame on the clapper of a cardboard bell, Joseph Boggs Beale had produced a lively drawing of Bessie in the belfry, her wild hair and her reticule swinging free, silencing the signal for Basil Underwood's death.

Occasionally the Professor's imagination, his instinctive sense of design and sure draughtsmanship made him antedate the modern surrealists by two generations with such a drawing as Bridget's Dream, a nightmarish wedding of nightshirts, handkerchiefs, sunbonnets and bed socks (see cut). Generally however, he preferred historical scenes like the Opening of the Erie Canal or The Casting of the Liberty Bell. The Professor viewed the problem of woman suffrage with considerable alarm. He did a satirical series of pictures on the Triumph of Women's Rights. Typical was the scene at the polling place (see cut), where female ward heelers, one in pants, make life miserable for an unfortunate male.

Joseph Boggs Beale was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, General John Hancock, many another bigwig. Yet elderly Philadelphians last week could remember but one political story connected with him. When James A. Garfield was offered the Republican nomination against Winfield Hancock in 1880, he wrote to his mother asking her advice. The Professor was having a dish of tea at the Garfield home when the letter arrived.

"What shall my boy do?" asked Mrs. Garfield.

Artist Beale put down his cup, scratched his chin.

"Well," said he, "it's worth a try."

Mr. Garfield was elected and assassinated within a year.

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