Edwin Franden Dakin

Edwin Franden Dakin (1898 - 1976) was an American advertising executive and author.

Edwin Franden Dakin
Born1898
Hannibal, MO
DiedMarch 26, 1976
Covington, LA
NationalityAmerican
OccupationAdvertising executive, author

Career

Dakin worked for a New York advertising company and was associate editor of the magazine Commerce and Finance (1922-1926). He also edited the magazine Plane Talk. Although most of his career was spent in advertising, he is best known for his two books Mrs. Eddy: The Biography of a Virginal Mind, a critical biography of Mary Baker Eddy, and Cycles: The Science of Prediction.[1][2]

Mary Baker Eddy biography

Dakin's 1929 Mary Baker Eddy biography, written at least partially with his mother,[n 1] has been extremely popular with critics of Eddy,[1] and was the first biography to accuse Eddy of addiction to morphine.[3] The primary source for the book was a cache of documents owned by John Dittemore.[4] H. L. Mencken commented that Dakin "has been at pains to unearth the precise facts and he sets them forth carefully and pleasantly. The Christian Science press-agents, of course, will damn him as a slanderer, but that fact is unimportant. He has made a valuable contribution to American history."[5] Ernest Sutherland Bates, literary editor of The Dictionary of American Biography and fellow Eddy critic, called the book "impartial and scholarly"[6] and praised its "judicious" examination of sources.[7] Psychiatrist Karl Menninger described the book as "remarkable".[8]

Feminist biographer Gillian Gill writes that Dakin's biography is "notable for its lyrical inventiveness and factual inexactitude" and says she "would warn any reader of this book to check any statement of 'fact' offered by Dakin." She continues:

Even if we agree with Dakin's point in the foreword of the book that it wrongs [Eddy] to represent her as a cardboard figurine of a saint, it is equally wrong to picture her as he does- as a drugged, hysterical, nymphomaniac, paranoiac old harridan. Even more important, having portrayed the young Mary Baker Eddy as a rather stupid, uneducated, vain creature, Dakin is forced to account for her undoubted success... [with] especially lame transitions[ such as]: 'Suddenly released from the necessity of turning her gaze away from a bitter and ugly world into her own dream life, she grew overnight into an able and dominant personality.' When one is faced by passages such as this, it is sobering to consider that many critics of Christian Science have confidently declared that the greatest biography of Mary Baker Eddy was written by Edwin Dakin and that it is tragic that, thanks to the Church's efforts, few people have had the chance to read it![1]

Many Christian Scientists complained that the biography was biased against Eddy.[9] According to the publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, some threatened to boycott stores that displayed the book for sale and church officials tried to censor the book.[10] Gill says that once "the free speech issue had been raised, the book got further free publicity, which engendered superb advertising copy and a succession of different editions at different prices."[1] The republished book included a pamphlet that documented the attempted suppression, The Blight that Failed.[11][12] William J. Whalen has noted that the Christian Science attempts of censorship "backfired and turned the book into a best seller".[13] Gill notes it went "through three printings in as many weeks" and that "the alleged campaign by the Church's Committee on Publication to destroy Dakin's book was ... probably the single most important factor in assuring its long-term success."[1]

The biography may have inspired other biographies in turn, John Dittemore was "perhaps embarrassed by its wealth of factual errors" and became "determined to write his own biography."[1] Lyman Pierson Powell, another Eddy biographer, was encouraged by his son, who met Dakin, to write a "more accurate" biography than Dakin's.[1]

Cycles: The Science of Prediction

In 1947, Dakin along with Edward R. Dewey, published the book Cycles: The Science of Prediction which argued the United States economy was driven by four cycles of different length.[14] Robert Gale Woolbert wrote that they "adduce interesting second-hand statistics to the effect that cyclical tendencies have been observed in industrial, biological and solar phenomena."[15] Milton Friedman dismissed their theory as pseudoscience saying:

[Cycles: The Science of Prediction] is not a scientific book: the evidence underlying the stated conclusions is not presented in full; data graphed are not identified so that someone else could reproduce them; the techniques employed are nowhere described in detail. [...] Its closest analogue is the modern high-power advertisement—here of book length and designed to sell an esoteric and supposedly scientific product. Like most modern advertising, the book seeks to sell its product by making exaggerated claims for it [...], showing it in association with other valued objects which really don't have anything to do with it [...], keeping discreetly silent about its defeats or mentioning them in only the vaguest form [...], and citing authorities who think highly of the product.[16]

Publications

Notes
  1. Gillian Gill notes there is evidence that Dakin's mother wrote much more of the book than Dakin acknowledges in his dedication at the start of the book, where he cites her "enthusiastic collaboration." An interview with his mother in the Pharos-Tribune even goes so far as to name her as the actual author.[1]

References
  1. Gillian Gill, Mary Baker Eddy, Perseus Books, 1998, 576-579.
  2. Edwin Franden Dakin, 77, A Writer and Publicity Man. The New York Times.
  3. Bruccoli, Matthew J; Baughman, Judith S. (2002). The Last Romantic: A Poet Among Publishers : The Oral Autobiography of John Hall Wheelock. University of South Carolina Press. pp. 98-99. ISBN 978-1570034633
  4. Timeline: Biographies of Mary Baker Eddy
  5. Mencken, H. L. (1929). Mrs. Eddy: The Biography of Virginal Mind by Edwin Franden Dakin. The American Mercury. pp. 379-381
  6. Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 3. C. Scribner's Sons, 1936. p. 14
  7. Bates, Ernest Sutherland. (September 7, 1929). A Virginal Mind. The Saturday Review. pp. 103-104
  8. Menninger, Karl. (1927). The Human Mind. Garden City Publishing Company. p. 84
  9. Towne, Orwell Bradley. (November 9, 1929). Mrs Eddy. The Saturday Review. p. 370
  10. Cleaton, Irene; Cleaton Allen. (1970). Books & Battles: American Literature, 1920-1930. Cooper Square Publishers. pp. 81-83
  11. McCoy, Ralph Edward. (1968). Freedom of the Press: An Annotated Bibliography. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 1993
  12. Boyer, Paul. (2002). Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0299175849
  13. Whalen, William Joseph. (1963). Faiths for the Few: A Study of Minority Religions. Bruce Publishing Company. p. 62
  14. Gayer, Arthur D. (1947). "Cyclical Patterns for Business; CYCLES: THE SCIENCE OF PREDICTION. By Edward R. Dewey and Edwin F. Dakin. 255 pp. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $3". New York Times.
  15. Robert Gale Woolbert , Cycles: the Science of Prediction, January 1948
  16. Friedman, Milton; Max Sasuly (March 1948). "Review of Cycles: The Science of Prediction". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 43 (241): 139–145. doi:10.2307/2280077. hdl:2027/uc1.b3376231. JSTOR 2280077.
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