Murphy
Murphy names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Murphy CHARLES FRANCIS, born in New York
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CHARLES FRANCIS, born in New York, in 1858. After a common school education had been secured in the New York schools, he worked for a time as a factory operative and later as a street-car driver. In 1892 he became the Democratic leader in the 18th Assembly District of New York. In the succeeding years he was Commissioner of Docks and Ferries and treasurer of the board. From 1892-1902 Murphy was a prominent leader in Tammany Hall, the Democratic organization in New York city, and in 1902 he was elected "sachem" which he has held or chief, a position continuously since that time.
Murphy JOHN FRANCIS, painter
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN FRANCIS, painter; born in Oswego, N. Y., in 1853, he moved to New York City when twenty-two years old, his art having been largely selfacquired. He made his first exhibition at the National Academy of Design in 1876, after which he devoted himself to landscapes. He was elected a member of the academy in 1887. He received the 2d Hallgarten prize in 1885 for his painting "Tints of a Vanished Past"; also 1887, the Webb prize of the Society of American Artists. "Neglected Lands" and "October" are among the best examples of his talent.
Murphy LAMBERT, tenor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LAMBERT, tenor; born in Springfield, Mass., in 1845, he studied at Harvard, and while there took singing lessons under T. L. Cushman. He then commenced singing in churches at Boston, Brookline, Fairhaven, and New York, finally joining the Metropolitan Opera in 1911. Since that time he has been heard on many platforms all over the United States.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
All three men were alive when Collier's went to press in 1921, and all three stories closed soon after. J. Francis Murphy, the tonalist landscape painter, died in New York in January 1921, probably as the volume was being printed; his quiet grey pictures went out of fashion for decades before American Tonalism was reassessed by collectors and museums in the later twentieth century. Charles Francis Murphy, described here as holding the Tammany leadership continuously since 1902, held it until he died in 1924, still the most successful boss the organisation ever had; Tammany Hall itself was broken by Fiorello La Guardia's mayoralty and the reform politics of the 1930s and had ceased to matter by the 1960s. The tenor Lambert Murphy went on to a long recording career for Victor and died in 1954; Collier's birth date of 1845 looks like a misprint, since he was a Harvard man of the 1900s and was born in 1885.
Written for this edition, 2026.