Everett Dean Martin

In 1907, he married Esther W. Kirk of Jacksonville, Illinois. They had three children: Mary, Margaret, and Elizabeth. From 1906 to 1908, Martin was pastor of the First Congregational Church (The First Church of Lombard) of Lombard, Illinois. From 1908 to 1911, Martin was pastor of the People's Church in Dixon, Illinois. Martin was a featured columnist for the Des Moines Register during the years 1914–1915. In 1915, his successful life took a radical shift in course. He divorced his wife of eight years and left the professional ministry. He moved to New York and began writing for the New York Globe. Over the next 20 years, Martin developed into a successful writer and forged a national reputation as a charismatic public lecturer, often attracting a crowd of a thousand or more at the People's Institute, a major center for adult education in New York City. Martin's second marriage in 1915 to Persis Eastman Rowell also ended in divorce, they had one son, Everett Eastman Martin. == Commentary on the early 20th century ==

In The Behavior of Crowds (1920), his first nationally reviewed book, he posed what he saw as the dilemma of the modern age: a technological information revolution that made it possible, in the absence of an adequate educational system, to influence ignorant men and women with propaganda and half-truths. Unscrupulous demagogues, corrupt politicians, manipulative advertisers, and revolutionary ideologues found ready-made audiences when they appealed to the baser (a subconscious urge, behavior, or intuition directed by primeval, animalistic, self-serving, and/or ignoble motivations) instincts. In March 1928, John Dewey responded to a request from Marie Mattingly Meloney, editor of the New York Herald-Tribune Sunday Magazine, and offered his recommendations on recently published texts on education. Dewey wrote, "I think the best educational books of recent publication are…Martin, The Meaning of a Liberal Education. This was not the first time Dewey recommended Everett Dean Martin's book. In 1927, the editors of the Journal of the National Education Association approached Dewey and asked, "What book have you recently found especially worthwhile? Something that you have read easily, eagerly, and with profit, either in the field of education or out of it." Dewey identified two books; one of them was Martin's The Meaning of a Liberal Education. == Appointments ==

From 1919 to 1922, Martin served as chairman of The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Cartwright went on to say in his eulogy for Martin, published in the Journal of Adult Education, that: ". . . Thousands who had heard him lecture in all parts of the United States, more thousands who had read his numerous books and articles on philosophical and psychological subjects, and the large audience which for years listened to his notable Friday night addresses and discussions in the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York, all attested to the challenging qualities of his mind and heart." In 1934 Martin was asked to direct the Department of Social Philosophy at the Cooper Union in New York through a $15,000 per year grant from the Carnegie Corporation through his long-time friend Frederick Paul Keppel. Martin remained in this position until 1936 when he accepted an opportunity to move to California and direct an experimental program in teaching at Claremont Colleges. Martin was a professor of social psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, California, from 1936 up until his death in 1941. == Death ==

Martin died on May 10, 1941, of a heart attack in Claremont, California at the age of 60. == Selected works ==

• The Behavior of Crowds (1920) • The Mob Mind Vs. Civil Liberty (1920) • The Mystery of Religion (1924) • Psychology: What it has to Teach You about Yourself and Your World (1924) • The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926) • Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays, The Forum, pp. 142-150, March 1929 (1929) • Liberty (1930) • The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass (1932) • Civilizing Ourselves: Intellectual Maturity in the Modern World (1932) • Psychology and Its Use (1933) • Farewell to Revolution (1935) • Philosophical Background of Current Economic and Social Problems (1938) • Some Principles of Political Behavior (1939) • A Philosophical Analysis of the Present World Conflict (1940) ==See also==