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Page 1
Page 2Date: 1911
Title: Chicago American - December 28, 1911, Afternoon Edition (Published by the Chicago American, Chicago, Illinois)
Author: Staff Correspondent
Description: Headline: Relatives Band To Prevent Wright Arrest. SubHead: Pair on Hegira to Flee on From Love Bungalow.
Spring Green, Wis., Dec. 28. — Relatives of Frank Lloyd Wright, Oak Park architect, living in his $30,000 "love bungalow" near Hillside with Mamah Borthwick, former wife of Edwin L. Cheney of Oak Park, becoming convinced that it is impossible for the pair to remain there, were called by one of their number to meet in a fifth and, it was hoped, final conference to-day to devise means of peaceable removal.
Practically every farm for miles around is owned by some relative of Mr. Wright. Several of the most influential persons in Hillside and Spring Green are his kin. Practically all were agreed that the "spiritual hegira" must end. This, it was said, was what led Sheriff William Pengally and District Attorney S. J. Smelker of Iowa County to refuse to take any action immediately.
Will Leave, Sheriff Predicts. That Wright and the former Mrs. Cheney would leave the neighborhood, was the general opinion here to-day.
Mr. Wright was said to realize his position and to have agreed to take part in the conference. However, this might be, he retained his deflant attitude in all public statements.
Many solutions of the difficulty were pointed out. The one Sheriff W. R. Pengally 'thought would work out was for the relatives to pool together and purchase Wright's beautiful bungalow at a good round price for a Summer home for the colony and for Wright and his "art mate" to continue their hegira to New Jersey, California or some neighborhood where their presence would not be offensive.
With church organization, ladies' aid societies and other similar influential bodies stirred to the point of voting resolutions condemning Mr. Wright, the strain has reached almost a breaking point.
One woman relative of Mr. Wright's who spoke freely to-day was Mrs. Jenkins Davis, a member of the Ladies' Aid Society of the Congregational Church. She predicted that the society would pass a resolution of condemnation.
Woman Writing a Book. A part of the curious philosophy of Architect Wright is that he not only believes in the ultimate subjection of society to his own singular theories of life and love, matrimony and divorce, but he believes that Mamah Borthwick is the one woman in the world so gifted as to understand him and his views. And Mamah, the darling of the "Love Bug" bungalow is writing a book.
This time it is not to be a translation of Swedish philosophy. This time it is not to be a defense through the medium of another's personality and genius. This time, if Mr. Wright is correct in his surmise, a literary triumph is to be achieved by the woman whose little world has been blown up under her feet.
There is far more meant than the common conception in what Wright said when in talking to reporters he remarked:
"What she knows is her own. No one can take it from her. It is God given, Genius, if you will.
"What the future may bring forth no man dare try to tell. But I say to you in all seriousness that Mamah Borthwick is far removed from the ordinary vulgar conception.
"Her soul is her own. My soul is my own. We are here together because we are souls in communion, but we are not what at least a part of the world has conceived us to be.
"I am not inclined to enter deeply into a discussion of our prospects. At least we both, love the beautiful, which is truth. And we both try to live according to our ideals of truth. And that is enough for us..."
Headline at top of page 2, above six cartoons: “Suppose Architect Wright Lost Control of His “Art Mate” Temperament.”
Headline Page 2: “Mrs. Borthwick is Writing Book.” Original price One Cent.
Size: 16 X 21
Pages: Pg 1-2
S#: 0104.42.0224
Left: Article Page 1.
Right: Article Page 2.
Date: 1911
Title: Chicago American - December 28, 1911 - 10th Edition (Published by the Chicago American, Chicago, Illinois)
Author: Staff Correspondent
Description: Wright Ready To Flee From Sheriff. “Art Mates” Pack Trunks: Plan Flight. Spring Green, Wis., Dec. 28. - Formal written complaint, naming Frank Lloyd Wright, the Oak Park architect, "spiritual communionist," and not an "essential monogamist," as an offender against the statutes of Wisconsin, is on the way to Sheriff W. M. Pengally.
The Sheriff expects to arrest Wright before night. The complaint involves Mamah Bouton Borthwick, the former Mrs. Edwin H. Cheney, who made a "spiritual hegira" to Europe in the company of the architect, and who is now an occupant with Wright of the latter's "love castle" on the hills near this place.
Whether or not a warrant will issue for the woman in the case has not been revealed by Sherif Pengally.
Farmers Make Complaint. Two farmers living in this vicinity are the complainants against Wright and his self-styled "art mate.”
The complaint is said to have followed an all night meeting of residents of Wyoming Township in a lonely country school-house.
Sheriff Pengally was urged to arrest the couple without a formal complaint for violation of the state law, but this he refused to do.
Architect Wright declared at noon to-day that if an arrest is made it will be merely an incident in the organized campaign of vilification.
The belief grows stronger that plans for flight have been matured at the "love bug" bungalow. Two trunks are packed in the main hall and a fast ___ is standing harnessed in the barn.
Six guards are patrolling the hills about the house and any rig approaching from the direction of Dodgeville can be seen miles away. Visitors from Spring Green are intercepted by the Wright guards half a mile from the bungalow.
Plan to Escape...
Page 2:
Wright “Love Castle” An Arsenal, But He Says He’ll Not Fight.
First Photograph Published in Chicago of Architect Wright’s “Love Castle.” Caption: From a photograph taken by a Chicago American staff photographer, of the now famous bungalow on the banks of the Wisconsin River near Spring Green, Wis...
Size: 16.25 x 21.
Pages: Pg 1-2
S#: 0104.48.0624.
Left: Page 2
Right: Sub Head: First Photograph Published in Chicago of Architect Wright’s “Love Castle.”
Caption: From a photograph taken by a Chicago American staff photographer, of the now famous bungalow on the banks of the Wisconsin River near Spring Green, Wis.
Above: Page 1.
Right: Page 2.Date: 1911
Title: Chicago American - December 30, 1911 - One O’Clock Edition (Published by the Chicago American, Chicago, Illinois)
Author: Staff Correspondent; Wright, Frank Lloyd; Borthwick, Mamah Bouton
Description: Page 1: Wright and ‘Art Mate’ Wright Story. Wife and Cheney Scorn Wright’s Quitclaim Deed. Day’s Developments of Wright-Cheney Affair.
Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Bouton Borthwick Cheney, former wife of Edwin Cheney, Chicago attorney. Issue signed statement to Chicago Evening American of how they come to be housed under one roof in "Love Castle" near Hillside, Wis.
Wright, Reiterates Intention to go to Oak Park to-morrow and ask his wife and Edwin Cheney to sign a statement explaining his predicament.
Mrs. Wright and Edwin Cheney say they will sign no statement at the behest of Wright.
Wright Offers to Marry Mrs. Borthwick if his wife will divorce him.
Wright Accuses His Wife of causing all his troubles by refusing to divorce him after she had promised to do so.
Oak Park Congregational church drops Mrs. Borthwick (Mrs. Cheney) from the roll of membership...
Page 1: 2) "It Is All My Wife's Fault," Complains
Architect Wright. Spring Green, Wis., Dec. 30. - A plea that Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright get a divorce at once and a condemnation of the wife for not having freed him according to her alleged promise so that he could marry Mamah Bouton Borthwick, his "art mate"' in "Love Castle," was voiced by the Oak Park architect when he gave the Evening American correspondent the signed statement of himself and the woman, relating their reasons for living under one roof.
The signed statement is an amazing document. Equally surprising is Mr. Wright's turning upon his wife, after the traditional fashion of Adam, who said: "The woman gave me of the tree, and l did eat."
"It is through the obstinacy of Mrs. Wright, and that only, that the present embarrassing condition exists. Mrs. Wright...
Page 2: 3) Wright and Woman Analyze Love, In Remarkable Story. Spring Green, Wis, Dec. 30. -
Here is the most extraordinary human document issued in the last decade. It is the analysis of a love affair by the lovers themselves, and it defies every convention ever devised by man for the protection of the home.
Frank Lloyd Wright and the former Mrs. Edwin H. Cheney, are, living in ŕ bungalow perched amid the Wisconsin hills as man and wife.
Both admit the irregularity of the procedure, but both laugh in the jace of criticism and each is willing to explain how and why it all happened.
Their explanation is contained. in this final statement of their association.
If Wright is arrested charged with a statutory offense he will defend him. self according to the law. He believes that the law is transcended by the morality of the situation involved... Their own story follows:
By Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Bouton Borthwick. The man is tired, The woman is tired. We are living the life that truth dictates. Our desire is to harm nobody. Our hope is that we may benefit humanity. But it is impossible to escape' responsibility in a certain sense to the public demand for an explanation. Very well, this is the explanation.
Here are four people, a wife and a man and a husband and a woman, who had each according to his or her ability assumed earlier in life the responsibilities of marriage and had begot or given birth to children.
Then the thing happened to them that has happened to men and women since time began – the inevitable.
As soon as their situation became apparent to them there was the usual struggle with conscience, the usual concession to duty, but not the usual clandestine relation furtively continued to save the face of the situation for the public-not the usual, suits and countersuits and quarrels and vilifications or shirking of responsibility.
On the contrary, as soon as the situation developed its inevitable character, a frank avowal to those whose lives were to be affected by a readjustment to meet the new conditions, was made....
Includes one photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright. Original price One Cent.
Size: 16 x 21
Pages: Pg 1-2
S#: 0104.49.0724
Date: 1912
Title: Chicago American - January 2, 1912, Afternoon Edition (Published by the Chicago American, Chicago, Illinois)
Author: Anonymous
Description: Cheney to Wed Sister Of Wright “Art Mate?”
Cheney to Wed Wife’s Sister, Oak Park Hears.
Attorney Edwin H. Cheney will marry Miss Elizabeth Borthwick, sister of the wife who fled to Wisconsin with Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, was a report which startled friends of the Cheneys and Wrights in Oak Park and Chicago today. At the same time it was announced from Hillside, Wis., where Wright and the former Mrs. Cheney are drawing plans for homes and writing books together as "art mates," that Wright had not abandoned his plan to come to Chicago and ask for the signatures of his wife and Mr. Cheney to his explanation of why the two families were broken up.
Mr. Cheney said flatly he would not sign any statement for Mr. Wright. Mrs. Wright, receiving newspapermen for the first time in many days, said she would not cross a bridge until she came to it. Miss Elizabeth Borthwick, who, rumor said, was to marry the man her sister left, has been caring for his sister's children ever since the latter's flight to the realms of pure art, far from mundane affairs.
Both Mr. Cheney and his sister-in-law denied without denying the rumor, and laughed while they denied- that is, they called the report absurd and stated they had never heard of It, but when confronted with a flat question laughed again and refused to discuss a story “so utterly foolish."
Sends Mamah to School. Miss Borthwick Is the older sister of Mamah Bouton Borthwick (Cheney), authoress and “art mate” who is seeking the ultimate and esthetic in life at Wright's bungalow in Spring Green.
She came Into the life of the Cheney's shortly after her sister married the Oak Park lawyer. She has for years been a teacher in the Irving School and for five years saved her earnings to send her sister Mamah to the University of Michigan, where she gained the education to write her essays on sex, marriage and divorce and -other subjects akin to her strange career.
A third sister died leaving a little girl now twelve years old. Lizzie Borthwick adopted this child and when Mamah Cheney deserted her husband and children to tour Europe with her architect companion Miss Borthwick took up the new burden and became a mother to Cheney's babies.
Takes Up Sister's Duties. Every duty which the younger sister shirked Miss Borthwick took upon herself. When Mamah Cheney was searching the astral and the aesthetic for things in tune with her temperament, Miss Borthwick was smoothing out all the family differences and being fairy godmother to the household.
Herself intellectually the equal of her erratic sister, Miss Borthwick has sacrificed her own opportunity to marry and have a home, to travel, write and paint and become all the things at which Mamah Borthwick sought.
Mamah Borthwick was recently divorced by her husband and asked that she be given her former name, saying that the name Cheney suggested “all the things that are unpleasant in memory” while the name Borthwick was "associated with all things which are pleasant to my reveries."
Mothers the Children. Now, it is heard, Miss Borthwick will assume that name which has been associated with all her sacrifices to take upon herself the last and greatest burden of the sister who fled...
Original cover price one cent.
Size: 16 x 21
Pages: Pg 1-2
S#: 0114.40.0423
DETROIT FREE PRESS Date: 1912
Title: Detroit Free Press - February 4, 1912 (Published by The Detroit Free Press, Detroit)
Author: New York Herald Co.
Description: Single page printed in color, from the Detroit Free Press, written by New York Herald Co. Now It's The "Spiritual Hegira." Extraordinary Wright-Cheney Case, in Which the Principles Defied Public Opinion in Defense of a "Principal." "Forms are not sacred. The spirit alone is. There is one thing of greater importance than the home of yesterday, and that is the home of to-morrow." Thus is epitomized the philosophy of life of Frank Lloyd Wright, of Chicago. In perfect accord with his views, he says, is Mamah Bouton Borthwick, formerly Mrs. Edwin H Cheney. Includes a portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright, Edwin H Cheney, Mamah Bouton Borthwick and a view of Frank Lloyd Wright's Bungalow in Wisconsin.
Size: 17.5 x 22.25
Pages: Pp 6
S#: 0114.24.0218
Date: August 16, 1914
The Detroit Tribune - August 16, 1914 (Detail)
Publication: The Detroit Tribune (Published daily)
Author: Anonymous
Description: 1) Spring Green, Wis., Aug. 15. - "Negro Fires "Love Bungalow." Slays Architect's Soul Mate and Cuts Down Eight Others. Puts Torch to Wisconsin Cottage of Frank Lloyd Wright, of Chicago, and Kills Six and Injures Three as They Crawl Out of Window."ť Accounts in graphic detail the death of Mrs. Mamah Bouton Borthwick, her two children Martha and John, four others and two seriously injured. (Complete Article)
Pages: Pp 1-2
Description: 2) Chicago, Aug. 15. - "Frank Lloyd Wright was in his office when he received a long distance telephone message informing him of the tragedy. He was prostrated and declined to discuss it. Later he left for Spring green.-ť Brief history of Wright and Cheney. (Complete Article to come)
Size: Original cover price 5 cents. 17.5 x 23.25.
Pages: Pp 2
S#: 0124.08.0607
Date: 1915
Title: Detroit Free Press - November 28, 1915 (Published daily by The Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan)
Author: Van Duzer, Winifred
Description: Wright's Seduction. Full page article, page one. The Love Letters of the New "Companion" of "Love Bungalow. Taliesin is open again. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, artist, eccentric, philosopher, romancer and seeker after the absolute, so christened his bizarre and beautiful country home on the Wisconsin River near Spring Green, Wis., after Taliesin, son of St. Henwig, chief of the bards in the time of King Arthur... Their life together has already been marred by Mrs. Nellie Breen, a discharged servant, who stole Mrs. Noel's letters to Wright and sold them to a newspaper. To destroy the liason for the benefit of Wright's children, she said, Mrs. Breen sent federal investigators on the affair, hoping to base prosecution on violation of the Mann act... Beloved: If I could take you into the mysteries of this glorious day you would lose all your sorrow -- it would fall from you like and unworthy garment. Twice three days I have spoken to no one, yet I have danced and quivered and vibrated like a ray of light. Again I feel like a rainbow, as in those first days of wooing. Today has been so wonderful that I seem to hold the whole universe in my breast. I have worked hard yet I dream of my work -- no, not dreamed -- realized the majesty of my own being in its perfection and reality. Later I robed myself in white and walked through the park. Oh, the summer sea! The blue night! The scent of herbs and grass and leaves! The bitter smell of all the flowers. That restless throng. I think my face must have looked like the Christ as I pass through them unseeing no longer for the dim distance -- for the unknown. No restless yearning -- no need of companionship! Oh, dear Frank, I would take your burden if I could - would dissolve it in this love that is more than peace...
Size: 17.25 x 22.5
Pages: Pp 1
S#: 0128.56.1118
Left: Mrs. Maud Miriam Noel
Right: Frank Lloyd Wright
Taliesin, Spring Green
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER Date: October 5, 1989 Publication: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Author: Hackett, Regina
Description: "Frank Lloyd Wright "In the Realm of Ideas" puts Bellevue Art Museum in the realm of major art exhibitions.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT 'IN THE REALM OF IDEAS' PUTS BELLEVUE ART MUSEUM IN THE REALM OF MAJOR ART EXHIBITIONS
By Regina Hackett
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 5, 1989What is living architecture? Betty Boop knew. When she sang, buildings swayed and danced. Frank Lloyd Wright knew, too. The quintessential American architect coined the term early in the century to describe his own exalted aspirations. Seeing little distinction between the built and the natural environment, Wright's idea of an architect's role wasn't too far from God's, the only builder to whom he regularly deferred. He once told a group of architects in Santa Barbara that the only good architecture in the entire city was the trees. (Continue)
Pages: Pp C1 C3
ST#: 1989.27.1089
SEATTLE TIMES Date: 1978
Title: Seattle Times Pictorial - August 20, 1978
Author: Mills, Dale Douglas
Description: Pacific Northwest Living. Article on Brandes House in Issaquah, Washington.
Size:
Pages: Pp 36-43
ST#: 1978.13.0303Date: 2000
Title: Seattle Times - January 16, 2000
Author: Church, Foster
Description: On the Wright Road. A Frank Lloyd Wright Architectural Fan Trip. (Two Copies.)
Size:
Pages: Pp K 1-3
ST#: 2000.19.1000, 2000.20.1000
SEATTLE WEEKLY Date: October 4, 1989 Title: Seattle Weekly
Author: Staten, Peter
Description: "Master plans. Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas." Bellevue Art Museum October 9 through January 7
Size:
Pages: Pp 37-38
ST#: 1989.28.1089
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