Bruns, Roger 1941–

(Roger A. Bruns)

PERSONAL:

Born September 17, 1941, in Columbus, OH; son of John Donald and Margaret Elsie Bruns; married Carrie Elizabeth Ware (in photographic research), 1965; children: Margaret Elizabeth, Sharon Jane. Education: University of Arizona, B.A., 1965, M.A., 1967.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Reston, VA. Agent—Martha Millard, 293 Greenwood Ave., Florham Park, NJ 07932. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

National Archives, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Washington, DC, archivist, 1967-69, supervisory archivist, 1969-77, director of publications program, 1977-88, acting executive director, 1988, deputy executive director, beginning 1989; currently retired. Consultant to universities, archives, and editorial projects.

MEMBER:

Association for Documentary Editing (president, 2006).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Distinguished Service Award, Association for Documentary Editing, 1994.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) Congress Investigates: A Documented History, five volumes, Chelsea House/Bowker (New York, NY), 1975.

(Editor) Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Anti-slavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1787, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1977.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) Knights of the Road: A Hobo History, Methuen (New York, NY), 1980.

(With George Vogt) Your Government Inaction; or, In God We'd Better Trust (humor), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1980.

The Damndest Radical: The Life and World of Dr. Ben Reitman, Chicago's Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse Physician, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1986.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns; with Haldon Richardson) Bermuda, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1986.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) Preacher: Billy Sunday and Big-time American Evangelism, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) The Bandit Kings: From Jesse James to Pretty Boy Floyd, Crown (New York, NY), 1995.

Almost History: Close Calls, Plan B's, and Twists of Fate in American History, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2000.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) Desert Honkytonk: The Story of Tombstone's Bird Cage Theatre, Fulcrum (Golden, CO), 2000.

Icons of Latino America: Latino Contributions to American Culture, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2008.

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including American History Illustrated, Chicago History, Smithsonian, Washington Post, and Journal of Negro History.

FOR YOUNG READERS

Thomas Jefferson, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1986.

Abraham Lincoln, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1986.

George Washington, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1987.

Julius Caesar, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1987. (Under name Roger A. Bruns) John Wesley Powell: Explorer of the Grand Canyon, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1997.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) Jesse James: Legendary Outlaw, Enslow (Berkeley Heights, NJ), 1998.

(Under name Roger A. Bruns) Billy the Kid: Outlaw of the Wild West, Enslow (Berkeley Heights, NJ), 2000.

Billy Graham: A Biography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2004.

Cesar Chavez: A Biography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2005.

Jesse Jackson: A Biography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2005.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Biography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Roger Bruns has crafted biographies of prominent men, among them presidents and statesmen; however, his profiles of lesser-known figures have earned him critical recognition. In fact, hoboes are the subjects of two of Bruns's books. The first of these is Knights of the Road: A Hobo History. In this book, Bruns differentiates among the often synonymously used terms "hobo," "tramp," and "bum." A hobo, Bruns explains, was a migratory worker, a tramp was a migratory nonworker, and a bum was a nonmigratory nonworker. The hobo lifestyle gained popularity near the end of the Civil War, when railroads began stretching across the country. In search of jobs, these migrants hopped aboard trains and eventually, Bruns writes, were responsible for much of the arduous labor involved in establishing the West.

Not all of the men who rode the rails were merely in search of an honest living, however. Many unseemly characters were attracted to the trains. Some hoboes were criminals, drunks, or otherwise troubled men who were running from their problems. The unsavory element associated with hoboes became a source of fear for the citizens of towns along the tracks, and they enforced strict vagrancy laws. Thus, a hobo was often in poor company on the train—and unwelcome off of it.

Death was an ever-present threat to the hobo. Bruns notes that Interstate Commerce Commission records list 47,000 deaths attributed to train-hopping in a ten-year period ending in 1908. Some hoboes died while boarding or jumping off, while others froze to death in refrigerated boxcars or fell off while riding atop the trains. The hobo way of life became less popular with the availability of automobiles in the 1920s, and a booming economy after World War II secured the end of the hobo era.

Knights of the Road describes the inner workings of the hobo subculture, explains the attraction of life on the tracks, and highlights the efforts of various religious and political groups who tried to reform the migrants. In a Los Angeles Times review of Bruns's book, Robert W. Glasgow wrote, "Roger A. Bruns, in a rather short history for such a huge subject, makes a serious effort to untangle fact from fiction and has, on the whole, made a real contribution to the history of [a] huge under-class that flourished for three-quarters of a century." Newsweek reviewer Ray Anello also admired Bruns's work, observing, "Knights of the Road is an engrossing tribute to these men on the move, a work of sympathy and realism. Bruns was never a hobo but he writes intimately about his subject."

Bruns's second volume with a hobo hero is The Damndest Radical: The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago's Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse Physician. Known as King of the Hoboes, Reitman took his first hobo excursion at the age of twelve. Driven by wanderlust, he spent many years hoboing throughout the United States and Europe. Later he became a flamboyant and important historical figure in Chicago. With his lover, anarchist Emma Goldman, Reitman was a spokesman for the Industrial Workers of the World movement; he worked as a doctor specializing in venereal diseases and tending to the medical needs of Al Capone's paramours; and he organized a hobo union called the Brotherhood Welfare Association.

Bruns's book about Reitman impressed critics such as Jack Conroy, who wrote in Chicago Tribune Books, "This spirited biography of a celebrated agitator, social reformer and whorehouse physician keeps a neat balance between humor and seriousness—yes, and pathos." Patrick Clinton, in his New York Times Book Review assessment of The Damndest Radical, noted that writing a biography of the complex Reitman was a difficult task. "Predictably enough," Clinton opined, "Mr. Bruns fails to find a satisfying sense of order in this crazy quilt.… Still, his book is a welcome introduction to a fascinating and little-known side of native radicalism and to an amusing, moving and uniquely American soul."

An itinerant of a different sort is the subject of another of Bruns's biographies. Preacher: Billy Sunday and Big-time American Evangelism tells the life story of traveling evangelist Billy Sunday. The son of a poor Iowa farmer, Sunday became a successful professional baseball player with the Chicago White Stockings, but he abandoned his career in baseball when he became devoted to Jesus during a Chicago crusade. For forty years, Sunday, who died in 1935, traveled throughout the United States preaching the Gospel, challenging evolutionist Clarence Darrow, denouncing alcohol and dancing, and espousing his anticommunist views. Sunday employed extravagant theatrics to attract followers, hiring circus giants as ushers and sliding across the platform as if he were approaching home plate. Considered a forerunner of the modern televangelist, Sunday found his style of evangelism to be effective—and also very lucrative. Despite his methods, however, it is said that Sunday was genuinely interested in the souls of those who flocked to his meetings.

Bruns's portrait of Sunday was warmly received by critics, among them Frank Wilson, who wrote in New York Times Book Review, "The author's tub-thumping, slightly repetitious style is, on the whole, altogether ap- propriate.… [Bruns] is unfailingly sympathetic to his subject. It would be hard not to be, for Sunday was obviously a decent, sincere man."

In his position with the National Archives, Bruns had access to many important government documents, as well as the official White House records of former presidents. Almost History: Close Calls, Plan B's, and Twists of Fate in America's Past is a collection of primary source material that reveals possible—and plausible—alternatives to the events of modern American history. Included are speeches that were never delivered, from one that John Glenn wrote in case his space capsule landed in rural New Guinea or Australia to the remarks John F. Kennedy was planning to make in Dallas the morning he was assassinated. The book contains a memorandum that warns President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the attack on Pearl Harbor and another that details President Jimmy Carter's response to the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. It also includes a letter from an eleven-year-old girl who implored Abraham Lincoln to grow a beard and an account of an 1859 meeting between abolitionist orator Frederick Douglass and John Brown, during which the latter urged the former to help initiate a slave rebellion. "Conspiracy buffs in particular will enjoy Almost History," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. A Kirkus Reviews contributor similarly found the book "enlightening," calling it "agreeable ammunition for those who love to fire the ‘What if?’ question at history."

Bruns is also the author of numerous biographies for young readers. In this vein he seems to be particularly fond of writing about outlaws—Jesse James, Pretty Boy Floyd—and adventurers, such as explorer John Wesley Powell. A Horn Book correspondent commended Jesse James: Legendary Outlaw as "accessible" to reluctant readers.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2000, review of Almost History: Close Calls, Plan B's, and Twists of Fate in American History, p. 1158.

Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1980, Robert W. Glasgow, review of Knights of the Road: A Hobo History.

Newsweek, January 19, 1981, Ray Anello, review of Knights of the Road, p. 84.

New York Times, October 11, 1980, Anatole Broyard, review of Knights of the Road.

New York Times Book Review, February 1, 1987, Patrick Clinton, review of The Damndest Radical: The Life and World of Dr. Ben Reitman, Chicago's Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse Physician, p. 11; June 28, 1992, Frank Wilson, review of Preacher: Billy Sunday and Bigtime American Evangelism, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, March 16, 1992, review of Preacher, p. 70; August 14, 2000, review of Almost History, p. 344.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), November 30, 1986, review of The Damndest Radical, p. 6.

Washington Post Book World, March 29, 1987, review of The Damndest Radical, pp. 4-5; June 28, 1992, review of Preacher, p. 13.