I am grateful to many individuals and institutions for help in writing this book. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provided crucial support, including fellowships and grants from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the Pogue Research Fund, the University Research Council, the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of History. A fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation sped the work’s completion.
I would also like to thank the following librarians for their assistance and for permission to quote from and to reproduce unpublished materials in special collections: Annette Fern and Jason Radalin at the Harvard Theatre Collection; Wallace Finley Dailey at the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library; Joan F. Higbee at the Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress; Melissa Miller and Esther L. Mes at the Theatre Arts Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin; Matthew Carpenter at the Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin; Rita Belda at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; Josephine Matthews at the Image Library, The National Archives, Public Record Office, U.K.; Therese Babineau at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley; Scott S. Taylor at Georgetown University Library; and George McWhorter and Linda Buie at the Edgar Rice Burroughs Memorial
Collection, University of Louisville. I am also especially grateful to Danton Burroughs for his kind permission to quote from manuscripts and to reproduce photographs owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
In conducting research for this book, I benefited from the help of David Avitabile, Matthew Brown, Eric Combest, Jason Dash, Joshua Guthman, Daniel Jolley, Emily Kelley, Michael Kramer, Ethan Kytle, Thomas Newsome, Michael Sistrom, Jill Snider, Shirley Taylor, and Adam Tuchinsky. A host of friends and colleagues also provided encouragement, criticism, and hospitality. Let me thank especially Gavin Campbell, Charles Capper, Michael Claxton, James W. Cook, Jr., the late Robert Crunden, Ann Fabian, Leon Fink, Alison Isenberg, Michael Kammen, Susan Levine, David Lubin, Jennifer Ritterhouse, Daniel Rodgers, Joan Shelley Rubin, Bill Stott, Alan Trachtenberg, and Keith Wailoo. Kent Plemmons gave valuable technical advice on computer hardware and software.
Although I have recorded specific scholarly debts in the endnotes, I wish to acknowledge my three principal subjects’ major biographers: David L. Chapman, the late Irwin Porges, and Kenneth Silverman.
Hill and Wang, with which I have worked for a quarter century, remains my ideal publisher. Arthur W. Wang cheered my first stumbling efforts, and Elisabeth Sifton’s brilliance and enthusiasm kept me going. Nina Ball-Pesut provided assistance with unfailing grace. Ingrid Sterner’s copyediting was impeccable.
Peter Filene, a pioneer in the history of masculinity, has been an incomparable friend, giving encouragement, advice, and insight every step of the way.
And my family has been superb. My brother and sister-in-law, Jim and Betty Kasson, generously supplied computer equipment at critical moments. My children, Peter and Laura, sustained me with their love and sharpened my prose with their suggestions. My wife, Joy, has been indispensable to the project—as she has been to my life.