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The Best of Clarence Day, including God and My Father; Life with Father, Life with Mother, This Simian World, and Selections from Thoughts without Words
Clarence Shepard Day was a popular and prolific illustrator, stockbroker, and author whose greatest success was his autobiographical Life with Father. He created a tradition in American humor writing that drew on the work of Mark Twain and, in turn, developed further in the writings of such luminaries as James Thurber, Robert Benchley, and Frank Gilbreth.
Background
Clarence Shepard Jr. Day was born on the 18th of November, 1874, in New York City, New York, United States. He was the eldest son of Clarence Shepard Day, a successful stockbroker, and Lavinia Stockwell Day, a native of Painesville, Ohio. His grandfather was Benjamin Henry Day, a printer and journalist who founded the New York Sun.
Education
Clarence Day was educated at Columbia Grammar School in Manhattan (now Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School) and later, St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, before attending Yale University. In 1896, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from it.
After graduating, Day lived in New York City and worked in his father's brokerage house. In his spare hours he socialized with fellow Yale alumni and volunteered as a canvasser for the Citizens Union, a civic association which opposed Tammany Hall in the 1897 mayoral election.
In the spring of 1898 Day left Wall Street and joined the U. S. Navy, then mobilizing its forces for the Spanish-American War. He served as paymaster aboard the Nahant, a Civil War-era monitor that stayed close to New York harbor throughout the conflict.
During his military service, Day suffered the first symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease marked by inflammation of the joints, stiffness and severe pain. He spent much of the next decade travelling in the western United States, hoping that a dry climate, together with the medical treatments he took at spas visited along the way, would cure him.
Day read widely and corresponded with friends and family including his sister-in-law Wilhelmine Johnson Day; his cousin Julia Stockwell; the poet Alice Duer Miller; and Yale sociologist Albert G. Keller. Many of his letters and postcards were illustrated with humorous sketches done in the same casual style as the drawings and cartoons he would later publish in magazines, newspapers and books. Day's physical condition steadily worsened, and he eventually chose to settle permanently in New York City, where he treated his illness primarily with massage and bed rest. For many years he lived in the home of his parents on East 68th Street, but later moved into his own Manhattan apartment.
During the early 1900s, Clarence Day was active in the alumni affairs of Yale University. He was for several years the owner of the Yale Alumni Weekly and worked as an adviser to the magazine's editor, Edwin Oviatt. In 1908, he helped his brother George, who was about to begin a long career as Treasurer of Yale, to establish the Yale University Press. Clarence Day also served several terms as Secretary of his graduating class. In this position, he corresponded with 1896 alumni and compiled several editions of a Class Book that reported on their activities. The short biographical portraits of his classmates that he wrote for the 1915 edition, known as The '96 Half-way Book, were widely admired. Day's extensive correspondence and literary work on behalf of his alma mater gave him a great deal of satisfaction, and also led him to discover his vocation as an author.
During the early 1910s, Clarence Shepard began to compose short poems and stories and to draw cartoons that he submitted to popular magazines and newspapers. The Metropolitan Magazine and Harper's Weekly were among the first to print his work. In addition, several of his cartoons and verses in support of voting rights for women appeared in pro-suffrage publications.
By the end of the decade, Clarence Day was an established literary professional with numerous publication credits and a regular column in the mass-circulation Metropolitan Magazine. His first book, This Simian World, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1920. This was followed by The Crow’s Nest in 1921 and Thoughts Without Words in 1928. But Day achieved his greatest popularity in the 1930s with the publication of a series of comic memoirs of family life centered on the character of Father, based on Clarence Day, Sr. A first volume on the subject, God and My Father, appeared in 1932 and was followed by several stories in The New Yorker. These were collected and published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. as Life With Father (1935).
In addition to his literary work, Clarence Day devoted much time to business and family affairs. He owned and managed a large stock portfolio, and over the years ran several businesses in collaboration with his brother Julian. He also oversaw the financial affairs of his brother Harold.
Quotations:
"We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways".
"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again".
"The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments, we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time".
"Babies are unreasonable; they expect far too much of existence. Each new generation that comes takes one look at the world and thinks wildly, "Is this all they've done to it?" and bursts into tears".
"Elephants suffer from too much patience. Their exhibitions of it may seem superb-such power and such restraint, combined, are noble-but a quality carried to excess defeats itself".
Membership
Clarence Day was a member of the New York Stock Exchange.
New York Stock Exchange
,
United States
1897
Personality
Clarence Shepard Day was a highly charismatic and inquisitive, sophisticated conversationalist.
Connections
Clarence Day was married to Katherine Briggs Dodge. They had a daughter, Wilhelmine (Wendy) Veevers-Carter.