Drennan's "Death in a Prairie House"

[Mark Hertzberg]

The book continues to be popular in spite of its many shortcomings. There was recently a discussion about it on Facebook's The Wright Attitude. I revisit my critical 2007 review now on: www.wrightinracine.com

Mark Hertzberg

[SDR]

Thank you for pursuing this matter, Mark.

Today is J S Bach's birthday. In the last couple of days, the Bay Area's only classical music station, KDFC, has more than once broadcast one of Leopold Stokowski's bastardized versions of Bach's more popular works. Why, one wonders, when there are thousands of hours of respectable performances of the composer's timeless music---presented as written---would a broadcaster specializing in the classical realm foist upon its listeners such bombastic and sentimentalized drivel.

By the same token, and referring to your review and re-review, why would those seeking to know more about Frank Lloyd Wright's life wish to wallow in careless or willful misinformation, when there is plentiful reliable material on the shelves from which to choose ? Sadly, it is left to those who know the difference, like you, to guide readers away from the shoals and into clear water. I don't think you need to apologize for making the effort.

Really---a book with a hatchet on the front . . .! The hatchet job is perhaps contained within its covers ?

S

[Roderick Grant]

Radio announce Jim Svejda called Stokowski's version of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor "Bach in drag."

[SDR]

And we thought Ormandy was bad . . . I won't be sullying the More Bach thread with their names !

S

[Lukunor]

Speaking as Mamah Bothwick’s second cousin thrice removed and the author of her forthcoming biography, I can only heartily concur. The chronology of my book naturally requires me to reserve my description of the murders until near the end. Here is my endnote #2 for that chapter (all this is in draft).

2. It is suggested here that on a hot day they ate on the terrace but it may have been the adjoining dining room. Reports that Carlton served soup are not supported by testimonies.
A motive for the attack may be inferred from two testimonies: Harper Harrison, one of the deputies who captured Carlton, testified that Carlton told him Brodelle had been abusive and that it motivated his actions. Dr. Wallis G. Lincoln, who treated Carlton in the jail, said Carlton told him of “an altercation on Saturday [August 15] morning, during which Brodelle abused me for more than a half hour. I told him I would ‘get him,’ and I waited for my chances.”
In light of this, the idea that Carlton began by attacking Mamah instead of Brodelle makes little sense. Drennan’s (2007) description of the scene, repeated by Hendrickson (2019) in unnecessarily and obscenely graphic terms, is a sensationalist fantasy. A frontal blow to her breast that Mamah received would have come prior to the fatal head wound, indicating that she responded to Carlton’s menacing entry and tried to protect her children. Drennan takes issue with a commonly assumed sequence in Carlton’s murderous movements only to provide an alternative version that is equally unrealistic. There are unanswered questions about Carlton’s timing in the attacks and the distances involved but Drennan does not resolve them. The absence of the Taliesin floor plan in his book, essential to any assessment of what happened, is curious.
Newspaper accounts of the murders were reconstructions based on statements by witnesses and rescuers. The same story without byline was repeated verbatim in many newspapers. A unique, credible version appeared in the Moline, Illinois Dispatch whose circulation manager was Wright’s cousin, Ralph Lloyd Jones. Vacationing at Spring Green at the time of the murders, he helped place Mamah’s body in the pine casket. He is likely to have filed the story with the Dispatch (whose editor probably added the term “love castle”). It would have been Lloyd Jones who provided what was probably the only complete eyewitness description of her wounds as follows:

“There were no witnesses to the murder of Mamah Borthwick and her two children. The three were seated at luncheon in the family dining room at the end of the north wing of the "love castle." The outer door was found locked and it is believed that Carlton entrapped Mrs. Borthwick and the children as he did the others. The room was destroyed by fire, but the passage connecting the two dining rooms is not burned, showing that Carlton set each dining room afire in turn. It is believed that he also threw gasoline upon the three in the family dining room. Mrs. Borthwick had been struck on the head and breast with the hatchet, it was found. Her daughter, Martha, was cut and burned in the neck. Fire removed all trace of the wounds in the boy John.” The Dispatch, August 17, 1914, p. 12.
This description also answers Drennan’s confusion (2007, n. 90) about the location of the men’s dining room. Carlton followed an indirect “passage” of sorts totaling sixty feet connected the family dining room to the men’s dining room in the southeast residential area, not the studio area. In addition to the Dispatch, the Wisconsin State Journal, August 16, 1914 provides useful details of the proximity of threshers nearby and the behavior and appearance of Gertrude.

I should note that I have started a blog MamahBorthwick.com concerning my efforts on the manuscript (98 K words, 33 chapters, 50+ photos) whose working title is The Feminist and the Architect: Mamah Borthwick, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Road to Taliesin. But don’t hold your breath on a publication date. I have been told by two literary agents so far that the subject does not have a big enough market unless it comes across like a nonfiction version of Loving Frank replete with a real journal and letters written by Mamah. Horan’s novel, like Drennan’s book, may have poisoned the well.
- Mark Borthwick

[Roderick Grant]

"Ralph" Lloyd Jones? Not "Richard"?

[Lukunor]

No, not the infamous Richard.

[EvangelineMiller]

Saved pictures and all joy are fit for the approval of the target or the field. The skills of the pile and best essay writing website are assumed for the team. The chunk is fit for the full use of the perspectives for the challenges for the kids.

[Randolph C. Henning]

Don't give up Mark. I'm sure there are academic presses that would publish your work, or you should consider publishing your tome privately.

[Reidy]

Boyle, in The Women, says that racial insults are what set Carlton off. How good is the evidence for this?

[JimM]

A recent incident with Brodelle had to do with Carlton resisting a request (demand?) to saddle a horse for him which supposedly ended with a racial slur. It's possible this was not the only confrontation between them. Of course nothing would justify the events, but there may have been ongoing issues and although it's impossible to know his state of mind prior to and during the attacks, something ignited him for whatever reason(s). It would also appear that some degree of planning was involved, and other than the "why" the question is how long extracting such revenge had been lingering... is it even possible such a frenzied attack could be spontaneous? Carlton was hired for house duty and certainly would resent others assuming his availability to perform any task at their whim, especially if coupled with stereotypically racial treatment.

Most likely the the facts will never be known, but any degree or acceptance of racial enmity at Taliesin is an unsettling thought. Regardless, to me the fascinating aspects of the murders are their occurrence while Wright was away and that no one (other than his wife) was exempt from Carltons actions. Whether a proud black man tired of menial treatment, simple madness, or an attempt to leave no witnesses... at some point and possibly more all must have converged to account for that day.

[SDR]

I missed this fact: was Brodelle one of those killed ?

S

[JimM]

Yes.

[Roderick Grant]

This is the first I have heard of anything concerning racial bias as a motivation. It is wise to be careful not to rewrite history. Anything of this sort should be accompanied by notation to the source. An example of messing with history is the infamous "Lincoln" situation, which spread like wildfire by nothing more than a supposition without corroboration. Although, I suspect FLW wouldn't mind a bit of fiction finding its way into his biography; he wrote more than a little of it himself in his so-called Autobiography, like 1869.

[SDR]

I would take it as a given that a) a person of African descent would be treated, subtly or overtly, as an inferior being, at the place and time of the event in question, and that b) such person might resent that treatment. After all, this is still the situation, today, is it not ?

If Julian Carlton was indeed "mad," that doesn't mean that such treatment could not have exacerbated his condition or played a part in his response. Neither the presence of racism nor the mental condition of the assailant excuses what happened, of course---but they might help to explain it.

S