Friday, October 14, 2016

The Battle Hen of the Republic

Illustration of Cobb by Tony Sarg from The Battle Hen of the Republic.

The Saturday Evening Post ran an article on this day (October 14, 1916) by Irwin S. Cobb on sage grouse, which he titled (both bird and article) The Battle Hen of the Republic.  That issue featured the following content:

Cover by Norman Rockwell, illustrating a family watching a Charlie Chaplin film

The Battle Hen of the Republic by Irvin S. Cobb, illustrations by Tony Sarg.
The Water Cure by Ring W. Lardner, illustrations by M. L. Blumenthal
The Political Panorama by Samuel G. Blythe illustrations byWill Hammell
The Man Who Tried to Be It, part two, by Cameron Mackenzie, illustrations by Charles D. Marshall
Our Most Human Industry: Cinderella Silver Comes Back for Her Slipper by James H. Collins.
The Great American Game by Frank Goewey Jones
Human Nature at the Front by Ian Hay.
Piccadilly Jim, part five, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, illstrations by May Wilson Preston
A Circuit Rider’s Widow, part seven, by Corra Harris, illustrations by Walter H. Everett
Digging Up the Future, by William H. Hamby, illustrations by Gayle P. Hoskins
Honestly If Possible by Sinclair Lewis, illustrations by Henry Raleigh
Simple Curves in Business by Fred C. Kelly.
Lemon Blossoms by Frank Condon.

Wish I could find the article.

Cobb was a writer from Kentucky who had been writing in New York since 1904.  Starting in 1911 he wrote for a time for The Saturday Evening Post, with World War One being his original focus with that journal.  This article was obviously not on the Great War.  His article on the all black 369th Infantry Regiment (15th New York) was widely circulated at the time and reprinted in the black press.  He wrote fiction as well as contemporary articles and was a well read writer at the time, writing until his death in 1944.

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