Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist,
theatre critic
Theatre criticism is a genre of arts criticism, and the act of writing or speaking about the performing arts such as a play or opera.
Theatre criticism is distinct from drama criticism, as the latter is a division of literary criticism whereas t ...
, playwright and writer of
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
, who worked for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine, which skewered the magazine's inverted narrative structure. Gibbs wrote, "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"; he concluded the piece, "Where it all will end, knows God!" He also wrote a comedy, ''Season in the Sun'', which ran on Broadway for 10 months in 1950–51 and was based on a series of stories that originally appeared in ''The New Yorker.''
He was a friend and frequent editor of
John O'Hara, who named his fictional town of "Gibbsville, Pa." for him.
Early life
Gibbs was born in New York City on March 15, 1902.
He was the son of Lucius Tuckerman Gibbs (1869–1909) and Angelica Singleton (
née Duer) Gibbs, who married in 1901.
His father was a
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach a ...
-educated mechanical and electrical engineer who variously worked for
Otis Elevator
Otis Worldwide Corporation ( branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment.
Based in Farmington, Connec ...
s, American Rheostat and obtained patents for motors, running gears and heating systems. His sister Angelica was born in 1908 and his father died of
lobar pneumonia
Lobar pneumonia is a form of pneumonia characterized by inflammatory exudate within the intra-alveolar space resulting in consolidation that affects a large and continuous area of the lobe of a lung.
It is one of three anatomic classifications ...
in 1909.
His paternal grandparents were Francis Sarason Gibbs and Eliza Gay (née Hosmer) Gibbs and his maternal grandparents were Edward Alexander Duer and Sarah Anna (née Vanderpoel) Duer. He was a descendant of mineralogist
George Gibbs and the great-nephew of the chemist
Oliver Wolcott Gibbs
Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (February 21, 1822 – December 9, 1908) was an American chemist. He is known for performing the first electrogravimetric analyses, namely the reductions of copper and nickel ions to their respective metals.
Biograp ...
with whom he shared all three names. The younger Gibbs, however, disdained the "Oliver" and never used it.
Through his maternal grandfather, he was a descendant of
William Duer, a member of the
Continental Congress and signer of the United States
Articles of Confederation,
and through his maternal grandmother, he was a direct descendant of U.S. President
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren ( ; nl, Maarten van Buren; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he ...
.
[Reitwiesner, William Addams. ''Ancestry of George W. Bush'' http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html Accessed April 25, 2015.] He was also a direct descendant of
Oliver Wolcott
Oliver Wolcott Sr. (November 20, 1726 December 1, 1797) was an American Founding Father and politician. He was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Connecticut, and t ...
Sr., signer of the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
, and
Secretary of the Treasury
The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
under
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
and
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
. He also descended from the
Livingston family
The Livingston family of New York is a prominent family that migrated from Scotland to the Dutch Republic, and then to the Province of New York in the 17th century. Descended from the 4th Lord Livingston, its members included signers of the Unit ...
and the
Schuyler family.
After the death of his father and his mother's alcoholism, Gibbs and his sister were sent to live with his uncle and aunt, John Van Buren and Aline Duer. He attended various schools, including
Horace Mann School
, motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails
, address = 231 West 246th Street
, city = The Bronx
, state = New York
, zipcode = 10471
, countr ...
,
Riverdale Country Day School
Riverdale Country School is a co-educational, independent, college-preparatory day school in New York City serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. It is located on two campuses covering more than in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, ...
,
The Hill School
The Hill School (commonly known as The Hill) is a coeducational preparatory boarding school located on a campus in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about northwest of Philadelphia. The Hill is part of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO). ...
in
Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and the
Roxbury School. but he rebelled and was kicked out of nearly all of them.
Career
After failing his school exams, Gibbs began a series of dead-end jobs including working as a timekeeper, a chauffeur, a draftsman, and four years on the freight crew of the
Long Island Railroad, which his uncle was affiliated with.
Realizing he was unhappy and unfulfilled in his work, his cousin,
Alice Duer Miller
Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 – August 22, 1942) was an American writer whose poetry actively influenced political opinion. Her feminist verses influenced political opinion during the American suffrage movement, and her verse novel ''The W ...
, set him up working as an editor for their cousin through marriage,
Lloyd Carpenter Griscom. Griscom made Gibbs the associate editor of the ''East Norwich Enterprise'' and, eventually, reporter and editor for the ''North Hempstead Record'', both Long Island newspapers. Gibbs succeeded and eventually went to ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' in 1927 as a copy reader. Ten years later, when
E. B. White
Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including ''Stuart Little'' (1945), ''Charlotte's Web'' (1952), and '' The Trumpet of the Swan'' ...
temporarily left the magazine, he took over the ''Talk of the Town'' section.
Although not a regular member of the
Algonquin Round Table,
Gibbs was closely associated with many of its leading names, inheriting the job of theatre critic at ''The New Yorker'' from
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at ''The Harvard Lampoon'' while attending Harvard University, thro ...
in 1938.
Because his years at the magazine largely overlapped with those of the better-known
Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio ...
, many people have confused them or assumed they were related. In fact, Gibbs was a cousin of
Alice Duer Miller
Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 – August 22, 1942) was an American writer whose poetry actively influenced political opinion. Her feminist verses influenced political opinion during the American suffrage movement, and her verse novel ''The W ...
– yet another member of the Algonquin set – but he was not a relative of Woollcott's.
On numerous occasions, in print and in person, Gibbs expressed an intense dislike for Woollcott as both an author and as a person. In a letter to
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected ...
, in fact, Gibbs wrote that he thought Woollcott was "one of the most dreadful writers who ever existed." Thomas Kunkel asserts in his biography of ''New Yorker'' founder
Harold Ross
Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' magazine in 1925 with his wife Jane Grant, and was its editor-in-chief until his death.
Early life
Born in a prospector' ...
, ''Genius in Disguise'', that a profile of Alexander Woollcott written by Gibbs sparked the disassociation of Woollcott and the magazine.
For many years, Gibbs was also the editor and publisher of ''The Fire Islander'' a weekly newspaper on Fire Island, where he had a vacation home.
Personal life
Gibbs was married three times. His first marriage was on July 24, 1926, to Helen Marguerite Galpin, the daughter of William Galpin (an English butler who worked for
Mortimer Schiff).
His second wife was Elizabeth Ada Crawford, whom he married in August 1929, a Detroit native who worked as a writer in ''The New Yorkers promotion department.
Less than a year after their marriage, Elizabeth committed suicide by plunging to her death from the window of their apartment on the seventeenth floor of 45 Prospect Place in
Tudor City
Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the southern edge of Turtle Bay on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, near Turtle Bay's border with Murray Hill. It lies on a low cliff, which is east of Second Avenue between 40th and ...
, New York on March 31, 1930.
After Elizabeth's death, he began a nearly three-year relationship with writer
Nancy Hale
Nancy Hale (May 6, 1908 – September 24, 1988) was an American novelist and short-story writer. She received the O. Henry Award, a Benjamin Franklin magazine award, and the Henry H. Bellaman Foundation Award for fiction.
Early life and educatio ...
, who was then married to Taylor Scott Hardin. Hale refused to leave Hardin for Gibbs (although she did eventually divorce Hardin and married
Charles Wertenbaker
Charles Christian Wertenbaker. (11 February 1901 – 8 January 1955) was an American journalist for ''Time,'' and author.
Career
Wertenbaker was born in 1901, the son of American football coach Bill Wertenbaker.
Wertenbaker worked for Time publ ...
and, later,
Fredson Bowers
Fredson Thayer Bowers (April 25, 1905 – April 11, 1991) was an American Bibliography, bibliographer and scholar of Textual criticism, textual editing.
Life
Bowers was a graduate of Brown University and Harvard University (Ph.D.). He taught at ...
).
He then met his third, and final, wife, whom he married in 1933; Elinor Mead Sherwin (1903–1963), daughter of architect Harold Sherwin of the
Sherwin-Williams
Sherwin-Williams Company is an American Cleveland, Ohio–based company in the paint and coating manufacturing industry. The company primarily engages in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of paints, coatings, floorcoverings, and related p ...
paint family.
Together, they were the parents of two children:
* Wolcott Gibbs Jr. (b. 1935), known as "Tony," who married Elizabeth Villa in 1958. He has written extensively about yachting and was an editor at ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' for several years in the 1980s.
* Janet Gibbs, who married James Ward.
An alcoholic and heavy smoker, he died of a heart attack while reading proofs of his upcoming book, ''More in Sorrow'', on August 16, 1958, at his home on
Ocean Beach,
Fire Island
Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York.
Occasionally, the name is used to refer collectively to not only the central island, but also Lo ...
.
He was buried at
Ferncliff Cemetery
Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum is located at 280 Secor Road in the hamlet of Hartsdale, town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, United States, about north of Midtown Manhattan. It was founded in 1902, and is non-sectarian. Fernc ...
in
Hartsdale, New York
Hartsdale is a hamlet located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 5,293 at the 2010 census. It is a suburb of New York City.
History
Hartsdale, a CDP/hamlet/post-office in the town of Green ...
. His widow died on July 30, 1963, of burns she received in a fire at her New York home, 352
East 50th Street.
Legacy
On October 11, 2011, Bloomsbury USA released the anthology "Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs of The New Yorker" (), with a foreword by
P.J. O'Rourke.
Bibliography
Articles
*
*
*
*
*
*
[Reviews The ]Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of th ...
's production of " As You Like It" at the Cort Theatre
The James Earl Jones Theatre, originally the Cort Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 138 West 48th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. It was built in ...
; Samuel A. Taylor's "The Happy Time" at the Plymouth Theatre; William Berney and Howard Richardson's "Design for a Stained Glass Window" at the Mansfield Theatre.
Fiction
*
*
References
Further reading
*
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected ...
, ''The Years With Ross'', 1959
*
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill (October 4, 1914 – December 27, 1997) was an American journalist. He wrote for ''The New Yorker'' for more than 60 years. Gill also contributed film criticism for ''Film Comment'', wrote about design and architecture for Architectu ...
, ''
Here at The New Yorker
''Here at The New Yorker'' is a 1975 best-selling book by American writer Brendan Gill, writer and drama critic for ''The New Yorker'' magazine.
The book
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of ''The New Yorker'', Gill's book i ...
'', 1975
*Thomas Kunkel, ''Genius in Disguise:
Harold Ross
Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' magazine in 1925 with his wife Jane Grant, and was its editor-in-chief until his death.
Early life
Born in a prospector' ...
and The New Yorker'', 1994
"Whirlwind Gibbs"by
Thomas Vinciguerra, ''The Weekly Standard''.
*''The Gibbs Family of Rhode Island'', by George Gibbs V, NY 1933
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbs, Wolcott
1902 births
1958 deaths
American literary critics
American print editors
The New Yorker people
The New Yorker critics
Livingston family
Schuyler family
20th-century American writers
The Hill School alumni
Riverdale Country School alumni
Horace Mann School alumni
Cheshire Academy alumni
Van Buren family