Elbert Hubbard
Overview
 
Elbert Green Hubbard was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois
Hudson, Illinois
Hudson is a village in McLean County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,838 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Bloomington–Normal Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Hudson is located at ....

, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin soap company
Larkin Administration Building
The Larkin Building was designed in 1904 by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1906 for the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York. The five story dark red brick building used pink tinted mortar and utilized steel frame construction. It was noted for many innovations, including air conditioning,...

. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft
Roycroft
Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the USA. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895 in the village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters...

 artisan community in East Aurora, New York
East Aurora, New York
East Aurora is a village in Erie County, New York, United States, southeast of Buffalo. The Village of East Aurora lies in the eastern half of the Town of Aurora.The population was 6,673 at the 2000 census...

, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

. Among his many publications were the nine-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short story A Message to Garcia
A Message to Garcia
A Message to Garcia is a best-selling inspirational essay written in 1899 by Elbert Hubbard that has been made into two motion pictures.Felix Shay, Hubbard's personal assistant, wrote:...

. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard
Alice Moore Hubbard
Alice Moore Hubbard was a noted American feminist, writer, and, with her husband, Elbert Hubbard was a leading figure in the Roycroft movement – a branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England with which it was contemporary.Born Alice Luann Moore in Wales, New York to Welcome Moore and Melinda...

, died aboard the RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...

, which was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.
Hubbard was born in Bloomington
Bloomington, Illinois
Bloomington is a city in McLean County, Illinois, United States and the county seat. It is adjacent to Normal, Illinois, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, to Silas Hubbard and Juliana Frances Read on June 19, 1856.
Quotations

Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth. The intellectual kings of the earth have seldom been college-bred.

Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters‎ (1899), p. 186

It is not to be wondered that men have worshiped the ocean, for in his depths they have seen mirrored the image of Eternity — of Infinity. Here they have seen the symbol of God's great plan of oneness with His creatures, for the sea is the union of all infinite particles, and it takes the whole to make the one.

"The Sea" in The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard (1916), p. 169

By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing — "Carry a message to Garcia!"

If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

 
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