341 Fifth Avenue
New York
November 4th, 1909.
Miss Jane Addams,Hull House
Chicago, Ill.
My dear Miss Addams:
Mr. Phillips, Mr. Baker and I have just had a confab over your manuscript. It has been the first day that we have all been together since the office finished reading the manuscript.
As you know, I have been greatly pleased with the way that everybody has been impressed by the book. You know how I felt about it -- that it was a big and important thing, and one which I wanted to see above all things in the magazine. Everybody about the office that has read the book feels as I do. The only regret is that you do not feel like going on in the vein of the first four or five chapters, and making a story which we could run for a year. Mr. Phillips is much disappointed that you do not see your way to do this, but I have told him that I did not think you would be willing to reconsider it. If we could persuade you to do it, of coarse we should be most happy.
But taking the manuscript as it stands and carrying out the plan of publication this spring, there is, of course, no difficulty in getting four to six articles which would be exactly the thing for us. Everybody agrees on the first two practically. Mr. Baker and Mr. Phillips feel that the material for the second should be so condensed as to include the founding of Hull House. This would mean, of course, passing over your European experiences very briefly; but, of course, it would be quite possible to generalize there without going in detail into what you did abroad.
As to the other chapters, we all agree on the Problems of Poverty and the chapter on Oppositions. Mr. Phillips is much impressed with your understanding and feeling of the immigrant, and thinks that the chapter on the Museum and the Arts, together with some of the material scattered through other chapters should be collected into one chapter which he suggests should be called "The Wonder of the Immigrant." What do you think of this?
Of course the first chapter could be put into type almost immediately. I find that Mr. Phillips in [page 2] my absence has had conference with Mr. Brett, who told him that he would prefer not to publish the book in the spring, and that he meant to write you to this effect. I have no doubt you have received Mr. Brett's letter. I believe he thinks it would follow too closely on the present book, also that the spring is a bad time for a book of this kind to appear. We could not, in any case, get an article in before February, and we should have to hurry for that. Our January number is out of our hands, and February far advanced. If you do not publish until fall, we should really rather begin in March and run throughthe summer. Will you not let us know what understanding you come to with Macmillan, so that we can fix the date of publication as soon as possible?
I hope you are feeling well now that you are back in Chicago, and that the winter's work is opening finely. Please remember me to all my friends at Hull House, and believe me,
Affectionately yours,
Ida M. Tarbell [signed]
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