Alice Tisdale Hobart

Background

Alice Tisdale Hobart was born on January 28, 1882 in Lockport, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Edwin Henry Nourse, a music teacher, and Harriet Augusta Beaman. She grew up near Chicago.

Education

Hobart attended high school in Downer's Grove, and later entered Northwestern University briefly and taught elementary school for one year. From 1904 to 1907 she studied at the University of Chicago, where she became interested in writing in her freshman English class. She was unable to complete a degree.

Career

In 1908, Hobart visited an older sister who was teaching in Hangchow, China. She stayed there two years and then traveled throughout Russia and Europe before returning to Hangchow to teach. She remained in China, living in frontier villages in Manchuria and Mongolia as well as in larger cities until 1927, when political unrest forced them to leave the country. Her home in Nanking was attacked, and most of her possessions were lost. After a brief period in France, Germany, and New York City, she settled in Virginia near Washington.

Hobart began writing in 1917. Her first books, based on her life and experiences in China, included Pioneering Where the World Is Old: Leaves from a Manchurian Note-Book (1917), By the City of the Long Sand: A Tale of New China (1926), Within the Walls of Nanking (1928), and her first novel, Pidgin Cargo (1929), reissued in 1934 as River Supreme. Material for these early books had been previously published as travel essays in the Atlantic Monthly.

Hobart's most popular novel, Oil for the Lamps of China (1933), was the story of an idealistic oil-company engineer and his wife living in China. The story juxtaposes the power of the corporation with the young couple's idealism. The book also contrasts American ideas of efficiency with China's Confucian philosophy of individual responsibility. In Yang and Yin (1936), Hobart presented a picture of Chinese civilization and culture as seen through the eyes of an American doctor; it is regarded as her most philosophical work. Their Own Country (1940), a sequel to Oil for the Lamps of China, followed the American couple's return to the United States during the Great Depression. It is a realistic examination of American business in conflict with individual morality.

In 1935, Hobart and her husband moved to California, first living in Berkeley, later on a ranch, and finally in Oakland. There she wrote The Cup and the Sword (1942), which chronicles three generations of a French immigrant family of winegrowers. The Cleft Rock (1948) is also centered around a powerful family, focusing on the conflict between large and small farmers in California and the exploitation of water rights for irrigation. The Peacock Sheds His Tail (1945), set in Mexico, where the Hobarts lived in 1942 and 1943, traces the tragic decline of a Spanish-Mexican landholding family under the impact of the revolution and ensuing reforms.

Hobart's most controversial novel, The Serpent-Wreathed Staff (1951), about a family of doctors, arose out of her lifelong association with the medical profession because of her chronic back condition. In it, she advocated prepaid preventive group health care and attacked conservative elements in medicine. Her later work included Venture into Darkness (1955) and her autobiography, Gusty's Child (1959). Her last novel, The Innocent Dreamers (1963), examines an interracial marriage in China.

Achievements

• Hobart's novels reflect her commitment to improving the quality of life for ordinary people. While criticized for overly serious handling of some themes and issues, Hobart gained a reputation for skillful storytelling and a genuine concern for humanity. Ten of her novels became best-sellers. Her books sold more than 4 million copies and were translated into a dozen languages. Many of her articles and stories were published in leading magazines and periodicals, including Century, Harper's, American Geographic, National Geographic, and Asia.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Yang and yin;: A novel of an American doctor in China,

    (This NovelYang and Yin deals with western and easter thou...)

  • The innocent dreamers

    (Very Good paperback book October, 1963Popular Library # M...)

  • Their Own Country

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Serpent-Wreathed Staff

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Gusty's Child

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Venture Into Darkness

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Cup and the Sword

    (1942 first edition novel)

  • River Supreme

    (1929)

  • The peacock sheds his tail, by Alice Tisdale Hobart.
  • The cleft rock

Views

Quotations: Summarizing her work, Hobart said, "I'm enormously interested in democracy, in the breaking up of tradition wherever it is. I've felt that a society that crystallizes is in danger. "

Membership

Hobart worked for the Young Women's Christian Association.

Personality

Hobart suffered from spinal meningitis aggravated by a fall during childhood and never fully recovered.

She was optimistic about the future.

Connections

On June 29, 1914, Hobart married Earle Tisdale Hobart, a businessman with Standard Oil, in Tientsin; they had no children.

Father:

Edwin Henry Nourse

Mother:

Harriet Augusta (Beaman) Nourse

Spouse:

Earle Tisdale Hobart

References

• Gusty's Child: The Strange, Beautiful and True Story of Her Life
• The work of Alice Tisdale Hobart,