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6. Turning Point (1913–1915)
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D 6 Turning Point [ 1913–1915 ] Dr. J. William White, chairman of physical culture (that is, athletics) at the University of Pennsylvania, was an inveterate social creature who was not afraid to push the boundaries of social convention. White was known for what his friend and biographer Agnes Repplier called his “unaccommodating spirit” and his love of a uniform—two penchants that collided in 1880 when White, who was surgeon of the First City Troop, showed up at a Troop dinner in full troop regalia , rather than the surgeon’s customary white trousers and blue frock coat. An objection to Dr. White’s uniform by a “brash trooper” led to a challenge and a duel with pistols. Most accounts place the duel on the Maryland-Delaware border, and some embellish the story with a caterer and champagne.1 White claimed to have shot into the air, while his adversary claimed to have shot and missed. In any case, White won the battle, if not the duel: From that date on, he wore the “full regalia ” of the First City Troop as he had wished.2 White’s wedding in 1888 to Lettie Disston similarly caused a sensation in Philadelphia because the bride had divorced Henry Disston, a prominent member of Philadelphia society, at a time when divorce was considered scandalous.3 Yet White’s own status as a Philadelphia icon was ensured when his friend Thomas Eakins portrayed him performing surgery in the famous 1889 painting The Agnew Clinic (Figure 6.1). ■ Figure 6.1 Dr. William White, third from left, shown performing surgery in the Thomas Eakins painting The Agnew Clinic. White lived at 1810 Rittenhouse Square and was the driving force in raising the money to transform the Square into its present design. (Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.) Turning Point [1913–1915] [ 95 The Whites entertained numerous celebrities in what Henry James referred to as “the cosy little house on Rittenhouse Square”—specifically, 1810 South Rittenhouse Square.4 When James visited Philadelphia in January 1904 to lecture on Balzac, White was James’s host at the Rittenhouse Club, and from that time the two men became good friends. John Singer Sargent was another close friend who spent a month with the Whites in 1903 while painting Mrs. White’s portrait. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited White, his enthusiastic host took him to a Penn-Princeton football game. When Theodore Roosevelt visited Philadelphia in 1913, he did so as White’s guest. Like many wealthy Americans after 1890, the Whites developed the practice of touring across Europe, staying at rambling hotels such the Grand Hotel Victoria on the shore of Lake Como, where the Whites stayed in the summer of 1909. Their companions there included his close Philadelphia friend and colleague Dr. Edward Martin. In August they were joined by Martin’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Martin; her invalid husband, Willis; and their daughters. This was a fortuitous meeting, if in an unlikely locale, of two people who were ideally suited to take on the task of improving Rittenhouse Square. White had recently retired from surgery and had just been appointed to the Fairmount Park Commission. His character, energy, ability, and resolution made him a “valuable . . . colleague and dauntless . . . opponent,” as Agnes Repplier put it.5 Elizabeth Martin, for her part, was a well-connected member of Philadelphia’s Price family and an organizer of many social and cultural events.6 She was, says her biographer, a unique personality and ardent soul, who fought for others’ welfare without pausing to measure her own imperfections or handicaps or fatigues; only seeing her chance to go to the rescue and to annex any who could help in that rescue. A leader, not so much born as disciplined because of circumstances, into giving of herself, and so showing others how to give with her.7 The Perfect Square [ 96 At some point in the course of their sojourn at the Grand Hotel Victoria, Bill White and Elizabeth Martin found themselves comparing the beautiful urban parks of Europe to what Repplier called “the dear familiar shabbiness” of their own Rittenhouse Square.8 In contrast to the well-manicured beauty of European parks, they lamented, many of Rittenhouse Square’s trees had died and others had been topped off. No new planting had been done in years, and “concrete dominated everything.” Then and there, William White and Elizabeth Martin resolved to form an organization to improve Rittenhouse Square...