Bok Tower Gardens > News > The Life and Legacy of Edward W. Bok

The Life and Legacy of Edward W. Bok

Category : News   January 7, 2010

“Here was a little Dutch boy unceremoniously set down in America unable to make himself understood or even to know what persons were saying; his education was extremely limited, practically negligible; and yet, by some curious decree of fate, he was destined to write, for a period of years, to the largest body of readers ever addressed by an American editor-the circulation of the magazine he edited running into figures previously unheard of in periodical literature. He made no pretense to style or even to composition: his grammar was faulty, as it was natural it should be, in a language not his own. His roots never went deep, for the intellectual soil had not been favorable to their growth;-yet, it must be confessed, he achieved.”
from “The Americanization of Edward Bok,” his Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography

LAKE WALES, Fla. – The beginnings of Bok Tower Gardens date back to 1863 and the birth of Edward William Bok in Den Helder, Netherlands. Bok came to the United States with his family at the age of six, not knowing the language, customs or culture. However, Bok’s outgoing personality and enterprising spirit helped him become a model for successful adaptation to a new country and modern times. He overcame numerous challenges to become an outspoken thought leader who helped shape the ideas, values and priorities of the emerging American middle class. In many ways, Bok acted as a mediator between the Victorian world and a modern society. His life story epitomizes the history of immigration, the influence of journalism on society, social and environmental advocacy, as well as the American Dream.

The epitome of an entrepreneur, the young Edward Bok attended Brooklyn Public Schools and discovered early on that he could earn money by identifying a need then fulfilling it with an earnest spirit and hard work. Bok created his first job opportunity by telling a baker, who was displaying freshly baked items in his storefront window, that his goods would look even more appetizing if the store’s windows were clean. The baker paid Bok fifty cents a week to clean the windows. Soon thereafter, Bok demonstrated his customer service skills and was hired to wait on customers inside.

Bok’s enterprising spirit eventually led to his spending days working as an office boy with the Western Union Telegraph Company and continuing his education at a night school. Simultaneously, he held several jobs to help support his family.

Although Bok had mastered a schoolboy’s English, he realized that seven years of public school education were hardly a basis on which to build the work of a lifetime. So, he became absorbed with a hunger for self-education. He wanted to know how these prominent men had become successful and what they had in common.

As an office boy at Western Union, Bok came into contact with some of the foremost men of the time, including William Vanderbilt and his associates as well as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. Bok went to the library and read about them. After a considerable amount of traveling back and forth to the library to read Appleton’s Encyclopædia biographies of famous men, Bok began to save his money by not eating lunch and by walking instead of riding to and from work, so that he could buy his own set. Bok was inspired to learn that many of these now-famous men not only had limited educational experiences similar to his own, but also very modest beginnings.

In 1882, Bok took a job with Henry Holt & Company publishers, and two years later became associated with Charles Scribners’ Sons Publishers, eventually becoming advertising manager. Bok’s outgoing nature coupled with his work in the publishing business allowed the young man access to many of the top thought leaders and writers of his time, including President Rutherford B. Hayes. Bok’s thirst for biographical knowledge and his wonderfully inquisitive nature sparked within him a desire to seek out famous people, talk with them to discover if what he had read was true and eventually to collect their autographs. His famous autograph collection is now in the Library of Congress.

When Bok was only 16 and had never been away from home, he decided that he wanted to meet some of the greatest writers of that time. So he saved his money and embarked on a pilgrimage to Boston to meet the men he so admired, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Phillips Brooks and Robert Louis Stevenson. Bok met these men along with several other famous people who all graciously took time to open their homes and meet with the young boy and to share their hearts and personal stories with him. This was the beginning of Bok’s lifelong quest of learning about people.

In 1884, Bok accepted the editorship of The Brooklyn Magazine (which later became Cosmopolitan). Then in 1886, he founded The Bok Syndicate Press, which in 1889 led to his becoming the editor of The Ladies’ Home Journal, the most prestigious women’s magazine of the day. As a young immigrant, Bok and his brother had given up their playtime to help their ailing mother with the cooking, cleaning and household chores that a crew of servants had taken care of in their homeland. Bok’s personal experience with “women’s work” gave him valuable insight that helped him create a monthly bible of cooking, gardening, home management and style. Under his leadership, the magazine became one of the most successful and influential publications in America and the first magazine in the world to have one million subscribers. He invented the modern advice column on love and marriage in the Journal. In addition, he elevated the publication from being simply light entertainment to being a forum for serious articles, issues and crusades. After a stellar 30-year career, Bok retired in 1919. A year later, he published The Americanization of Edward Bok, which won the Gold Medal of the Academy of Political and Social Science and the Joseph Pulitzer Prize for the best autobiography.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Bok emerged as a champion of social causes, a pioneer in the fields of prenatal education, childcare and even public sex education. He was a well-respected environmental activist who was instrumental in helping to save Niagara Falls and raising its profile as a popular national landmark. In the 1920s, Bok also was interested in preserving Florida’s Tiger Creek, a pristine blackwater stream that runs through the state’s oldest and highest landmass-the Lake Wales Ridge. Some four decades later, Bok’s son, Cary, along with help from The Nature Conservancy and numerous other groups, raised the funds to purchase and preserve the 4,000+ acres of hardwood swamps, hammocks, oak scrub, pine flatwoods, longleaf pine and wiregrass habitat that is home to many rare animals and plants.

Edward Bok was a thoughtful man who believed in promoting world peace, nature preservation and culture. To that end, he founded numerous awards and civic enterprises such as:
The Philadelphia Award of $10,000 a year to the citizen of Philadelphia who performed an act or contributed a service that advanced the best interests of the local community.
The American Peace Award which offered $100,000 for the best practicable plan by which the United States might cooperate with other nations to achieve and preserve the peace of the world.

The Harvard Advertising Awards bestowed by the Harvard University School of Business Administration for raising the standard of advertisements in American and Canadian periodicals and for the intelligent conception and execution of plans for advertising.
The Woodrow Wilson Professorship of Literature at Princeton University.

Bok also anonymously donated significant sums of money to support cultural efforts. For instance, when the Philadelphia Orchestra was facing bankruptcy in the early 1900s, Bok donated $250,000 a year for five years to help the organization get back on its feet, earn community support and develop a viable business plan.

Edward Bok’s contributions have transcended his lifetime. His family members, including his wife Mary Louise Curtis Bok, have continued to contribute to America as philanthropists, educators and socially minded leaders that continue to better the world even today.
Edward Bok’s son, Curtis Bok, served as a judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court.

Edward Bok’s son, Cary Bok, was one of the first board members of The Nature Conservancy.
Edward Bok’s grandson, Derek Bok, was a professor of law at Harvard from 1958 to 1968; served as the Dean of the Law School (1968-1971); and then was appointed President (1971-1991). He is attributed with saying: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Edward Bok’s great granddaughter (Derek Bok’s daughter), Victoria Bok, served as the director of Housing and Neighborhood Development for the city of New Haven, Connecticut and has been lauded for her groundbreaking efforts with urban revitalization in that region.

Among Edward Bok’s many outstanding contributions, some people, including his own son, believe that Bok Tower Gardens remains his greatest idea.

“..(it) is the greatest idea my father ever had, the most lasting and the most significant. All others that he had, but one (the Philadelphia Award), have ceased for one reason or another.

His Sanctuary, a pure gift to the American people without a hint that in visiting it they would in any way become a captive audience, is unique among his ideas. It was not built as a church, a theater, a school, a forum, or a platform. It was built … in dedication to the repose of the human spirit.”

Curtis Bok,
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge & son of Edward W. Bok
at Bok Tower Gardens’ 50th Anniversary

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About Bok Tower Gardens
Bok Tower Gardens, located approximately 55 miles southwest of Orlando and 60 miles east of Tampa, near Lake Wales, Florida, is open every day of the year from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., last admission at 5 p.m. The Visitor Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults and $3 for ages 5-12. Members and children under 5 are admitted free. For more information, call 863-676-1408 or visit www.boktowergardens.org.