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Robins

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

ELIZABETH (MRS. GEORGE RICHMOND PARKES), an American actress and writer, bor in Louisville, Ky. She was educated in Zanesville, Ohio, but the larger part of her life was spent in England. She attained success on the stage in the interpretation of Ibsen's plays. She was best known, however, as a novelist. Her books include "Below the Salt" (1896); "The Open Question" (1898); "The Magnetic North" (1904); "The Convert" (1907); "My Little Sister" 1912; "Way Stations" (1913). She lectured widely on the woman suffrage movement. economist and writer, born on Staten the University of Pennsylvania in 1891, Island, N. Y., in 1873. He was educated and studied law at Ge George Washington University. He was engaged for several years in social work in Chicago and was a member of the Chicago Board of Education, from 1906 to 1909. He served also as social service expert for the Men and Religion Forward Movement, in 1911-12. He became identified with the Progressive party and served as chairman of the State Central Committee. In 1914 he was candidate for that party, and was temporary and permanent chairman of the Progressive National Convention in 1916. During the World War he was engaged in Y. M. C. A. work and Red Cross work in France. In 1917 he headed the expedition for the American Red Cross to Russia. On his return to the United States he presented an elaborate report on conditions in Russia, which occasioned much discussion on account of its alleged leaning toward the Soviet movement.

What Has Changed in the Last Century

Collier's caught both Robinses in 1921 with decades still to run. Elizabeth Robins, praised here for "the interpretation of Ibsen's plays," is remembered today less for her novels than for creating Hedda Gabler on the English stage in 1891 and for her suffrage drama "Votes for Women" (1907); she kept writing into the 1920s and died in Sussex in 1952. Raymond Robins, whose Red Cross report on Bolshevik Russia "occasioned much discussion," went on to campaign for Prohibition and, in September 1932, vanished on his way to see President Hoover, turning up weeks later in North Carolina living under another name with apparent amnesia; he died in 1954. The garbled run-together text here, in which Raymond's entry begins mid-sentence, is an artifact of the 1921 printing.

Written for this edition, 2026.