Above you see presented my small collection of some of the works of journalist, historian and pioneer of the True Crime genre Herbert Asbury (1891-1963).
I'm quite sure I discovered Asbury through Luc (now Lucy) Sante's Low Life (1991), and I went to all those books for color when I wanted to paint a picture of the saloons that featured variety entertainment into the lead-up to the establishment of vaudeville. His best known is of course Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (1928) which very imperfectly adapted by Martin Scorsese into a 2002 film. Its sequel was All Around the Town: Murder, Scandal, Riot and Mayhem in Old New York (1934). He also looked at the criminal histories of other American cities in The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933), The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld (1936), and Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld (1940), the latter of which was reprinted as The Gangs of Chicago, as you see above. These delightful books are great for tone and atmosphere though should be taken cum granis salis. Asbury was a superb raconteur but a bit of fabulist, more a disseminator of lore than a dispenser of cautiously verified certitudes. I'm of the type who wouldn't have it any other way.
Asbury also wrote Ye Olde Fire Laddies, (1930) about New York's colorful and often heartily amusing firefighting culture. But mostly he was obsessed with sin and sinners as evidenced by Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America (1938) and The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (1950). Another of his early books was a 1928 biography of Carrie Nation, based on a series of articles he wrote for H.L. Mencken's American Mercury, and with that we begin to draw closer to Asbury's background and motivations. He first came to fame by writing a story about a prostitute in his hometown of Farmington, Missouri who serviced her clientele on the premises of two local churches. It caused a firestorm which not even his vaunted "Olde Fire Laddies" could extinguish, and what aspiring writer would want to, anyway?
But the title of both of Asbury's first two books provide the true key to what made him tick: Up from Methodism: A Memoir of a Man Gone to the Devil (1926) and A Methodist Saint: The Life of Bishop Asbury (1927). The titular Bishop was Francis Asbury (1745-1816), one of the principal founders of Methodism in the United States, and Herbert Asbury's great-great uncle. This earlier Asbury is the man for whom Asbury Park, New Jersey is named. He was a major figure in the Second Great Awakening, one of the earliest followers of Methodism's founder John Wesley. Asbury was handpicked by Wesley to bring his message to the American colonies. Asbury was only 22 when he came to the shores of America in 1771, initially preaching in cities like New York and Philadelphia, then Maryland and Delaware, gradually making his way to the frontier, to camp meetings in places like Kentucky and Tennessee. (He naturally kept his head down during the years of the American Revolution). Asbury was officially ordained as America's first Methodist Bishop in 1784. And during this period of Revivalism he made hundreds, then thousands of converts.
Thus Herbert Asbury came from a long line of teetotaling, "upright" religious people from whom he was clearly emancipating himself. I love the title of his first book, which seems to be referencing Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. I hadn't known about Asbury's family roots until recently but it delights me, for it follows the same historical arc I described in the early chapters in No Applause, the evolution of America from one kind of place, to quite another. It's as though Francis Asbury had dropped a shoe....and then, over a century later, Herbert Asbury dropped its mate. '
For more, please read please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.
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