Charles Henry Parkhurst

Charles Henry Parkhurst
Charles Henry Parkhurst
	Parkhurst in 1892
Born	April 17, 1842; Framingham, Massachusetts
Died	September 8, 1933 (aged 91); Ventnor City, New Jersey
Occupation	Social reformer
Spouse(s)	Ellen Bodman (m. 1870); Eleanor Marx (m. 1927)
Parent(s)	Charles Parkhurst

Charles Henry Parkhurst (April 17, 1842 – September 8, 1933) was an American clergyman and social reformer, born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Although scholarly and reserved, he preached two sermons in 1892 in which he attacked the political corruption of New York City government. Backed by the evidence he collected, his statements led to both the exposure of Tammany Hall and to subsequent social and political reforms.

Early years

He was born on a farm on April 17, 1842 in Framingham, Massachusetts.[1] Parkhurst did not attend a formal school until he was twelve. Despite this, he showed a strong interest in education and graduated from Amherst in 1866. He became principal of the high school in Amherst in 1867. He married Ellen Bodman on November 23, 1870, she being one of his former students.[1] Parkhurst studied theology at Halle in 1869, and became a professor at the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, in 1870–1871.

After further studies in Leipzig in 1872–1873, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He was pastor of a congregational church at Lenox, Massachusetts, from 1874 until 1880, when he was called to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York City, where he served from 1880 to 1918.

Later life

Interested in municipal affairs, Parkhurst was elected president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime in 1891, and he challenged the methods of the city police department.[2] He inaugurated a campaign against the political and social corruption of Tammany Hall. The hall had begun innocently as a social club, but had drifted into politics and graft. It acquired a lock on elections in the city, and its bosses protected crime and vice in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs. Grand jury investigations were ineffective, despite the appeals of social reformers. Few in Parkhurst's congregation recognized that Tammany Hall, the police, and organized crime were interconnected.

On February 14, 1892, he challenged Tammany Hall from the pulpit. Pointing to the hall's political influence and their connection with the police, he noted that men fed upon the city while pretending to protect it saying,

While we fight iniquity, they shield and patronize it; while we try to convert criminals, they manufacture them ...
— Parkhurst on Tammany Hall corruption

When the municipal grand jury asked him for hard evidence, Parkhurst personally hired a private detective and, with his friend John Erving, went to the streets in disguise to collect proof of the corruption. From the pulpit on March 13, 1892, he preached a sermon backed with documentation and affidavits. Parkhurst's campaign led to the appointment of the Lexow Committee to investigate conditions, and to the election of a reform mayor in 1894. Although Tammany Hall did publicly clean house, it remained influential on both the political front and in organized crime until the 1950s.

Women's suffrage

Parkhurst was opposed to women voting. He wrote:

"That quality of feminine blatancy which is being at present so extensively advertised here and in England, that disposition toward self-exploitation indulged in by short-haired women and encouraged by long-haired men, is of a sort to chill and then freeze over those masculine impulses that seek restful and satisfying companionship in a member of the opposite sex."[3]

Family

His first wife, Ellen Bodman, died on May 28, 1921. He married Eleanor Marx on April 18, 1927, in Los Angeles.[1]

Death

Parkhurst died on September 8, 1933, by sleepwalking and walking off the porch roof in his Ventnor City, New Jersey, home.[1][4]

Selected works

Parkhurst was published in a number of magazines, and was the author of:

Works by or about Charles Henry Parkhurst at Internet Archive
The Forms of the Latin Verb, Illustrated by Sanscrit (Boston, 1870)
The Blind Man's Creed, and other Sermons (New York, 1883)
The Pattern in the Mount, and other Sermons (New York, 1885)
Our Fight with Tammany (New York, 1895; reprinted in 1970) google Scan
The Sunny Side of Christianity (New York, 1901)
A brief history of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and its activities (New York, 1906)
A Little Lower than the Angels (New York, 1908)
My Forty Years in New York (New York, 1923) OCLC 1495738

Quotations

"Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load."
"All great discoveries are made by men whose feelings run ahead of their thinking."

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gollark: I suppose they could very much not do that so I'll add it to my general configuration list.

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References

"Dr. Parkhurst Dies of a Fall in His Sleep". The New York Times. September 9, 1933. Retrieved 2007-06-14. Reformer, 91, a Somnambulist, Plunges From Porch Roof of New Jersey Home. Famed as Crusader In 1894 He Overthrew the Tammany Machine and Drove Croker to Europe.
Alexander K. McClure, ed. (1902). Famous American Statesmen & Orators. VI. New York: F. F. Lovell Publishing Company. p. 93.
"Perhaps a Fighting Woman Is Not So Very Pleasing," Hearst Wire, New York Evening Journal, March 9, 1909, image 10
"Charles H. Parkhurst". The New York Times. September 9, 1933. As a Massachusetts farm boy Dr. Parkhurst 'heard of New York with awe and trembling,' as he himself said. When he was called to the pastorate of a church here he must have hesitated as did the prophet Jonah when summoned to go and preach against Nineveh.