
Wallace Irwin (March 15, 1875 – February 14, 1959) was an
American writer
The Lists of American writers include:
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...
. Over the course of his long career, Irwin wrote humorous sketches, light verse, screenplays, short stories, novels, nautical lays, aphorisms, journalism, political satire, lyrics for Broadway musicals, and the libretto for an opera. His novel ''The Julius Caesar Murder Case'' (1935) represents a subgenre within detective fiction, the mystery novel set in antiquity.
Biography
A native of
Oneida, New York
Oneida () is a city in Madison County in the U.S. state of New York. It is located west of Oneida Castle (in Oneida County) and east of Wampsville. The population was 10,329 at the 2020 census, down from 11,390 in 2010. The city, like b ...
, Irwin grew up in Colorado and went to California to attend
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. As editor of two campus publications, he lampooned faculty in verse and was expelled, as he later boasted, for having a character that "savored of brimstone".
He moved to
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
and began his career as a journalist for
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...
’s ''Examiner'' and other papers. With the encouragement of
Gelett Burgess
Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. He was an important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his ico ...
, Irwin branched into poetry with ''The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum'' (1901), followed by ''Nautical Lays of a Landsman'' (1904), ''At The Sign of the Dollar'' (1905), ''Chinatown Ballads'' (1906), and ''The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor'' (1908). Between 1913 and 1935, fourteen of his novels or short stories were adapted by himself or others for film.
Irwin often wrote under a pseudonym or presented himself as the editor, translator, or sardonic discoverer of works by others. His ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr.'' purports to be his translation from a language he calls "Mango-Bornese".
Irwin’s most sustained impersonation began in 1907 with the serialization of his "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in ''
Colliers'' magazine. He wrote in a stereotypical fractured English in the persona of a thirty-five-year-old "boy" Hashimura Togo. The fourth installment of the series, entitled "Yellow Peril", featured Irwin posed in yellow face make-up for a portrait photograph of Togo. The photo fooled readers for months, whereupon ''Colliers'' produced twin photos, Irwin as Togo and Irwin "before he was Japanned".
[Uzawa, Yoshiko. "’Will White Man and Yellow Man Ever Mix?’: Wallace Irwin, Hashimura Togo, and the Japanese Immigrant in America." ''The Japanese Journal of American Studies''. No. 17 (2006). 201-2.] Irwin’s racial clichés brought him to the heights of success, including praise from
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...
who found Togo a delightful creation and the ''
New York Globe
''The New York Globe'', also called ''The New York Evening Globe'', was a daily New York City newspaper published from 1904 to 1923, when it was bought and merged into ''The New York Sun''. It is not related to a New York City-based Saturday fami ...
'' which hailed the book as "the greatest joke in America".
Irwin went on to write three more Togo books, and in 1917 Hollywood followed with the silent film comedy ''Hashimura Togo''.
The Togo fad was built upon Irwin’s creation of a Japanese caricature at a time when many Americans admired Japan for its recent victory in the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
, 1904–05. However, after
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, American opinion shifted as the United States and Japan competed for military and economic advantage in Asia. Irwin’s approach likewise turned, resulting in ''Seed of the Sun'' with its dire warning that Japanese immigrants represented both the "nefarious alliance of Asiatics and speculative capital"
[Kim, Daniel. "Racial Forms, National Fictions." ''Novel''. 39:2 (2006). 277.] and their emperor’s plan for them to "marry Euro-American women in order to promote their race".
[Christopher, Renny. "U.S. Wars in Asia and the Representation of Asians."(Chapter 3, The Vietnam War. U. Mass. Press, 1995.) 128-9.]
Success as a humorist allowed Irwin to devote himself to what he considered his serious work, novels and articles with social and political purpose,
["The Irwin Brothers." ''Time.'' October 8, 1923.] writing that is now largely forgotten except when cited by historians as representative of widespread pre-World War II
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
.
[Vials, Chris. "Review of America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945." '']Journal of Asian American Studies
The ''Journal of Asian American Studies'' is a triannual academic journal established in 1998 and is the official publication of the Association for Asian American Studies. The journal publishes scholarly articles exploring theoretical development ...
''. 8:2 (2005). 228-9.
Irwin was married twice. In 1901 he married Grace Adelaide Luce. Over a year after her death, in January 1916 he married Laetitia McDonald.
Wallace and Laetitia had two children. Donald (1917–1991) was a journalist for the ''
New York Herald Tribune
The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...
'' and the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', and served as an aide to
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich "Rocky" Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was the 41st vice president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He was also the 49th governor of New York, serving from 1959 to 197 ...
during the Eisenhower administration. Wallace Jr. (1919–2010) was a speechwriter for several U.S. congressmen and the future President
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
during Bush's time as
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
[Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 17, 2010]
Wallace Irwin died in
Southern Pines, North Carolina
Southern Pines is a town in Moore County, North Carolina, Moore County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 15,545 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 12,334 in 2010 United States census, 2010.
History
Founde ...
. That same year, 1959, his personal papers, including manuscripts to novels and poems, correspondence, freelance journalism, and an unpublished autobiography, were donated to the Bancroft Library at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
.
References
External links
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*
*
Guide to the Wallace Irwin Papersat
The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...
*
At the Stevenson Fountain sonnet for
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, Wallace
1875 births
1959 deaths
Novelists from Colorado
Stanford University alumni
American humorists
American lyricists
20th-century American novelists
American male screenwriters
American male journalists
American male short story writers
People from Oneida, New York
20th-century American poets
American male poets
American male novelists
Songwriters from New York (state)
20th-century American short story writers
Journalists from New York (state)
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from New York (state)
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from New York (state)
Screenwriters from Colorado
20th-century American screenwriters