The Varieties of Forteanism
Miriam Allen de Ford (1888-1975) noted that Charles Fort “leveled at the scientists and in large part hit the literary folk.” That is certainly true of his career in San Francisco, as de Ford would know. She was one of Fort’s early fans, having come across his Book of the Damned at the Oakland public library in 1921. “My husband and I sat up all night, reading the book aloud to each other, unable to put it down.” Both de Ford, and her husband Maynard Shipley (1872-1934), were struggling writers and struggling socialists (they left the part the following year because of its rightward drift). Shipley, the more philosophical of the two—undereducated, he nonetheless labored for years writing a criminology text—was also a monist, which certainly would have endeared him to Fort. The three struck up a long-distance friendship. In 1922, de Ford traveled to Chico, California, to investigate stones mysteriously falling from the sky, even seeing on herself. That report made New Lands. (A clipping she sent Fort was included in Wild Talents.) Shipley gave Fort’s Lo! a glowing review in the New York Times, the first positive notice he got from the Grey Lady. The correspondence lasted until Fort’s death, but his influence on de Ford continued long past that, through the travails of Irene Fellows and beyond.
Fort’s influence on the San Francisco literary scene would also continue, although not immediately. Bay Area writers of the 1930s evinced no interest in his heretical texts; it wasn’t until the mid-1940s that his writings took off. Around that time there coalesced a literary movement which came to be known as the San Francisco Renaissance, and among its members were a number of Fortean devotees, such as Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) and Philip Lamantia (1927-2005). One of the early fruits of this movement, the magazine Circle, was named, in part, to evoke famous line from Fort’s third book: “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” In 1948, about fifty people came together to form a chapter of the Fortean Society. Many of the writers who took Fort to heart were of a different style, pulp authors, to generalize broadly but not incorrectly, tellers of science fiction and mystery tales. (De Ford would later become connected to some of this group.) Fort was also popular among journalists, especially in Oakland. The Tribune made relatively frequent note of him. And The San Francisco Chronicle found reason to mention him both in its coverage of Irene Fellows’s odd rain and its coverage of the book world.
It would be too much to say that all of these people were Forteans in the sense that Thayer meant that word. Indeed, there was a range of reactions to Thayer’s bomb-throwing magazine. Henry Miller (1891-1980), already infamous for his dirty books, joined and hawked his paintings in the pages of Doubt. George Leite (1920-1985), editor or Circle, swapped issues of his magazine for Doubt. Journalist Joseph Henry Jackson (1894-1955) seemed to think of Thayer’s organization in terms similar to Time—as a home for literary rebels. Others, though, were more in agreement with Martin Gardner, even if they never read In the Name of Science. The pulp author E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) belonged to the society long enough to contribute an article on the dishonesty of translators, but soon turned away from its dogmatism. Robert Barbour Johnson (1907?-1987)), another pulp author, declaimed Thayer’s perversion of Forteanism to a local science fiction fan club, a harangue that was printed and reprinted over the decades and helped solidify opposition to Thayer’s version of Forteanism. To put the matter another way, there was a variety of Forteanisms in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially in the immediate post-War years, and these did not parallel the literary classes—high art, pulp fiction, journalism—but cut across them. In fact, some of Fort’s fans, such as de Ford, understood him in several different ways. Using a very unFortean procedure, it is possible to classify these varieties—not as parts of a single, underlying unity, but into six, sometimes mutually exclusive, categories. Fort’s works were understood as scientific supplements, keys to a mystical understanding of the world, as ironic play, as surrealist poetry, and, as unanalyzably weird.
Miriam Allen de Ford (1888-1975) noted that Charles Fort “leveled at the scientists and in large part hit the literary folk.” That is certainly true of his career in San Francisco, as de Ford would know. She was one of Fort’s early fans, having come across his Book of the Damned at the Oakland public library in 1921. “My husband and I sat up all night, reading the book aloud to each other, unable to put it down.” Both de Ford, and her husband Maynard Shipley (1872-1934), were struggling writers and struggling socialists (they left the part the following year because of its rightward drift). Shipley, the more philosophical of the two—undereducated, he nonetheless labored for years writing a criminology text—was also a monist, which certainly would have endeared him to Fort. The three struck up a long-distance friendship. In 1922, de Ford traveled to Chico, California, to investigate stones mysteriously falling from the sky, even seeing on herself. That report made New Lands. (A clipping she sent Fort was included in Wild Talents.) Shipley gave Fort’s Lo! a glowing review in the New York Times, the first positive notice he got from the Grey Lady. The correspondence lasted until Fort’s death, but his influence on de Ford continued long past that, through the travails of Irene Fellows and beyond.
Fort’s influence on the San Francisco literary scene would also continue, although not immediately. Bay Area writers of the 1930s evinced no interest in his heretical texts; it wasn’t until the mid-1940s that his writings took off. Around that time there coalesced a literary movement which came to be known as the San Francisco Renaissance, and among its members were a number of Fortean devotees, such as Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) and Philip Lamantia (1927-2005). One of the early fruits of this movement, the magazine Circle, was named, in part, to evoke famous line from Fort’s third book: “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” In 1948, about fifty people came together to form a chapter of the Fortean Society. Many of the writers who took Fort to heart were of a different style, pulp authors, to generalize broadly but not incorrectly, tellers of science fiction and mystery tales. (De Ford would later become connected to some of this group.) Fort was also popular among journalists, especially in Oakland. The Tribune made relatively frequent note of him. And The San Francisco Chronicle found reason to mention him both in its coverage of Irene Fellows’s odd rain and its coverage of the book world.
It would be too much to say that all of these people were Forteans in the sense that Thayer meant that word. Indeed, there was a range of reactions to Thayer’s bomb-throwing magazine. Henry Miller (1891-1980), already infamous for his dirty books, joined and hawked his paintings in the pages of Doubt. George Leite (1920-1985), editor or Circle, swapped issues of his magazine for Doubt. Journalist Joseph Henry Jackson (1894-1955) seemed to think of Thayer’s organization in terms similar to Time—as a home for literary rebels. Others, though, were more in agreement with Martin Gardner, even if they never read In the Name of Science. The pulp author E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) belonged to the society long enough to contribute an article on the dishonesty of translators, but soon turned away from its dogmatism. Robert Barbour Johnson (1907?-1987)), another pulp author, declaimed Thayer’s perversion of Forteanism to a local science fiction fan club, a harangue that was printed and reprinted over the decades and helped solidify opposition to Thayer’s version of Forteanism. To put the matter another way, there was a variety of Forteanisms in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially in the immediate post-War years, and these did not parallel the literary classes—high art, pulp fiction, journalism—but cut across them. In fact, some of Fort’s fans, such as de Ford, understood him in several different ways. Using a very unFortean procedure, it is possible to classify these varieties—not as parts of a single, underlying unity, but into six, sometimes mutually exclusive, categories. Fort’s works were understood as scientific supplements, keys to a mystical understanding of the world, as ironic play, as surrealist poetry, and, as unanalyzably weird.
