William Hazlett Upson Papers

William Hazlett Upson (1891-1975) was born at Glen Ridge, New Jersey on September 6, 1891, the son of William Ford and Grace (Hazlett) Upson. In 1909 he graduated from the Glen Ridge High School, worked on a cattle ranch in California for a year, and entered Cornell in 1910. Upson graduated from Cornell's agricultural course in 1914 and worked on farms in New York State and Virginia until 1916, when he enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the D Battery of the 13th Field Artillery, 4th Division as a private. In 1918, Upson took part in the Marne-Aisne, St. Mihiel, and Argonne offensives and entered Germany as part of the Army of Occupation.

After his discharge in 1919, Upson was hired by the Holt Manufacturing Company (which later became the Caterpillar Tractor Company) of Dallas, Texas, as a service mechanic. He traveled often, making deliveries, putting on demonstrations, and doing repair work. It was during a period of convalescence in 1922 that Upson wrote his first short stories. In 1924 he left his job with the Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria, Illinois, and began his career as an author. As was the case with his army experiences, his short career with Holt and Caterpillar formed Upson’s life-long interest in tractors and served as the background material for many of this stories.

W.H. Upson’s first published story was “Scared” which appeared in the November 10, 1923 issue of Collier’s. The same year he married Marjory Alexander Wright, the daughter of Professor Charles Baker Wright and Clara Wright (Alexander) of Middlebury, Vermont. The Upsons lived in Peoria, Illinois and Connecticut before settling in Middlebury, Vermont in 1928. By this time Upson had published over 30 stories and articles, most of them in the Saturday Evening Post. Between 1924 and 1967 Upson wrote more than 100 stories for the Post, many of which featured Upson’s most famous character, Alexander Botts, a tractor salesman for the Earthworm Tractor Company.

Botts first appeared in the Post’s April 16, 1927 issue. Alexander Botts was destined to become a fold hero to a generation of Americans over the next thirty years. He was described as “an indomitable (though sometimes deluded) fellow American well acquainted with the sweet uses of adversity and adept at the fine art of plucking victory from the jaws of defeat.” His experiences were typical of many people’s all over the country ; he was hired and fired, fell in love, argued about his taxes, joined the army in 1942 and crossed a picket line. William Hazlett Upson’s characters, like those of Normal Rockwell, who did over 250 cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, were drawn from real life experiences. The celebrated the ups and downs of life with a mixture of honesty, perseverance. bumbling, and laughter. Rockwell, Upson, and the Saturday Evening Post itself, reached out to Americans through a fundamental genre tradition that was extremely popular in the first half of the 20th century.

Upson’s works reached his audience in many forms. Alexander Botts was featured in the comic strip “Alexander the Great” from 1936 to 1938 and Joe E. Brown starred as Botts in the 1936 Warner Brothers movie release “Earthworm Tractors.” Army Radio, Colombia Broadcasting, The Listening Post, and Wrigley Chewing Gum broadcast radio adaptations of Upson’s stories in the 1930’s and 40’s. His stories and articles appeared in the Post, Collier’s, Esquire, The Georgia Review, The Birth Control Review, and several stories were translated in half-a-dozen foreign languages. Upson wrote several plays, including Middlebury on Parade, which was produced at Middlebury College. Double-day, Farrar and Rinehart, Pocked Books, and other companies published U[son’s “self-help” book, How To Be Right Like Me. Upson also traveled around the country making lecture appearances and gathering background material for his stories.

His business affairs were co-ordinated by several agents. Carl Brandt, whose offices were in New York City, was his principal agent, arranging story publication, fees, royalty statements, contracts, and until his death in 1957; Brandt’s firm continued as Upson’s principal agent until 1959. W. Colston Leigh, also based in New York, functioned with itineraries, contracts, publicity, and newsclippings on his writings and lecture appearances.

W. H. Upson was actively involved in civic affairs, especially in the Middlebury area. He was instrumental in bringing the birth control movement to Vermont, and was the founder and president of the Middlebury Maternal Health Council (1932-1936), the first community clearing house for birth control information in the state. He attended many of the Breadloaf Summer Writer’s Conferences, occasionally taught creative writing at Middlebury College, and featured Middlebury in the 1946 Post article, “My Favorite Small Town: Middlebury, Vermont.” Upson served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in 1956. William Hazlett and Marjory Upson had 2 children, Polly and John. They had a home in Chipman Park, Middlebury, and owned “Earthworm Manor” in Ripton, Vermont. William Hazlett Upson died on February 6, 1975.