This was followed by an account of the astonishing episode “When Henry Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit”; the picturesque journey “When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway”; the triumphant tour “When General Grant Went Round the World”; the forgotten story of “When an Actress Was the Lady of the White House”; the sensational striking of the rich silver vein “When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza”; the hitherto little-known instance “When Louis Philippe Taught School in Philadelphia”; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in America, “When the King of Spain Lived on the Banks of the Schuylkill”; while the story of “When John Wesley Preached in Georgia” surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had known that the founder of their church had ever visited America.  Each month picturesque event followed graphic happening, and never was unwritten history more readily read by the young, or the memories of the older folk more catered to than in this series which won new friends for the magazine on every hand.

CHAPTER XV

ADVENTURES IN ART AND IN CIVICS

The influence of his grandfather and the injunction of his grandmother to her sons that each “should make the world a better or a more beautiful place to live in” now began to be manifest in the grandson.  Edward Bok was unconscious that it was this influence.  What directly led him to the signal piece of construction in which he engaged was the wretched architecture of small houses.  As he travelled through the United States he was appalled by it.  Where the houses were not positively ugly, they were, to him, repellently ornate.  Money was wasted on useless turrets, filigree work, or machine-made ornamentation.  Bok found out that these small householders never employed an architect, but that the houses were put up by builders from their own plans.

Bok turned to The Ladies’ Home Journal as his medium for making the small-house architecture of America better.  He realized the limitation of space, but decided to do the best he could under the circumstances.  He believed he might serve thousands of his readers if he could make it possible for them to secure, at moderate cost, plans for well-designed houses by the leading domestic architects in the country.  He consulted a number of architects, only to find them unalterably opposed to the idea.  They disliked the publicity of magazine presentation; prices differed too much in various parts of the country; and they did not care to risk the criticism of their contemporaries.  It was “cheapening” their profession!

Bok saw that he should have to blaze the way and demonstrate the futility of these arguments.  At last he persuaded one architect to co-operate with him, and in 1895 began the publication of a series of houses which could be built, approximately, for from one thousand five hundred dollars to five thousand dollars.  The idea attracted attention at once, and the architect-author was swamped with letters and inquiries regarding his plans.