Customer Reviews

The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism (Communications and Media Studies)

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If you looked at the January 1925 issue of that arbiter of domestic taste, _House and Garden_, you would have seen a photo layout of a rose garden that would have been the envy of any socialite or country club. The garden was tasteful, with fountains, a pool of water lilies, and blue spruce trees in addition to thousands of roses. Besides the obvious beauty of the garden, there was one other thing that made it unique. At one end of the garden was an old execution chamber. The garden was in the middle of the infamous prison, Sing Sing, in New York. It was the creation of a prisoner who, before he murdered his wife, was a legendary newsman who worked directly for Joseph Pulitzer, and often himself handled coverage of society murders. The term of Charles Chapin as city editor of the _New York Evening World_ was full of spectacular tabloid stories, and James McGrath Morris, himself a former journalist, has brought back Chapin's forgotten story and explained how the press worked in the early parts of the twentieth century in the astonishing book, _The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism_ (Fordham University Press). It is a story at times as lurid, melodramatic, and spectacular as any of the stories Chapin himself published.

Chapin started delivering the local paper at age fourteen. He was determined to get himself an education, and although he could not attend school, he read ravenously and well. A kindly editor selected books for the boy, classics that Chapin drew upon all his life. He was thrilled to become a reporter in Chicago, but eventually made his lasting mark in New York, where at the _Evening World_, he presided over a technological revolution. The new telephone allowed Chapin to give orders to reporters in the field, and to shape the stories. Field reporters would call in the details of a story, and the new "rewrite reporters" would write it up for the paper. As a result, Chapin gave the _World_ unrivaled immediacy in reporting New York's news. Especially fascinating is the story of how Chapin got the news about the sinking of the _Titanic_. Chapin was recognized as the best of city editors, but he was not easy to work for. He was merciless on himself, and extended this treatment to his reporters. His abilities made them tolerate working for him. He was devoted to his wife, and seems sincerely to have wanted to put her out of prospective misery when his investments failed; he had planned a murder suicide, but only killed her, and turned himself in. He was convicted of murder in 1919 and given twenty years to life. In Sing Sing, the warden took particular interest in him, which is not surprising given how different Chapin must have been from the usual criminals there. Chapin had never been a gardener, but began to cultivate a small plot; he became obsessed with his plants, solicited donations from those he knew in the business world, and commanded inmate assistants with the same fervor he had used on reporters. Ladies clubs came to take the tour of the grounds, as did celebrities like Booth Tarkington and Houdini.

Chapin thus proved to be a model prisoner, and applied for pardon, but no pardon ever came. He was involved in two mostly postal romances with women on the outside, neither of which ended well, mostly because of his lifelong inability to see or accept ambiguity; it was as if he expected a well-chosen headline to cover all the underlying details. He died a convict in 1930, and was buried, according to his wishes, with the wife he had murdered twelve years before. This story, never told before in full, is full of engrossing detail about the competitive working press of the time. Chapin's life, that of a brilliant and limited man who eventually found horticultural redemption, is almost operatic in its sweep, and makes an unforgettable story.

I first heard about this book on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. It reads likes novel, even better like a true-crime novel in that every time a chapter ends you want to read on.

For a fun read that has everything, get a copy of this book. McGrath Morris brings Chapin to life with a page-turner that reads like a novel. The author succeeds in bringing history to life as well as exploring the darker side of our emotions.

Books of the Times, The New York Times, 12/6/03
"James McGrath Morris, an author and high school teacher, has resurrected Chapin's story. . Chapin was quite a character, and Mr. Morris described him with verve and an eye for colorful detail (not to mention occasional breathlessness) that match the riproaring tabloid era he lived in."

For those who loved the novel Ragtime or Caleb Carr's potraits of New York at the turn of the 19th century, The Rose Man of Sing Sing is a real treat: a behind-the-scenes peek at murder and mayhem in the Gilded Age. The detail is extraordinary, the writing fluid and engaging, and the psychological portrait of Charles Chapin acute. A book that is very hard to put down.

"Morris, a former journalist, a historian and teacher, has done fine work recovering the melodramatic story from a variety of contemporary sources. . . Morris foreshadows Chapin's tragedy skillfully in the first chapter, then drops back and sticks to chronology. He keeps the narrative crisp with telling bits from the journals of the day and Chapin's own writing. . .
James McGrath Morris has done journalism -- and armchair psychiatry -- a fine service by rescuing this melodramatic tale."

Library Journal
Charles E. Chapin, the notorious editor-tyrant of Joseph Pulitzer's New York Evening World during America's Gilded Age, made headlines himself after murdering his wife of 39 years. This extensively researched biography by Morris (Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars) reads like a true-crime page-turner, bringing to life Chapin's tragic story, from his childhood to his days spent cultivating a beautiful rose garden in Sing Sing prison to the last moments of his life. Morris lends the story depth by including colorful depictions of everyday New York life circa the early 1900s, intriguing descriptions of the corrupt practices of editors and reporters, and vivid accounts of major events like the Titanic disaster, a story that Chapin's paper scooped from its competitors. An engrossing read, this is suitable for all libraries.-Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Although this book produced an interesting biography of the "Rose Man", it also was an excellent history of the development of newpaper journalism from the use of the telegraph, through the advent of the telephone and, finally the radio. There was also an excellent review of the intense competition between publishers, particularly Pulitzer and Hearst. Some areas read like a mystery story, describing the race each newspaper entered to get the story out to the public first.

Author James Morris has done his research well on his subject, newspaperman Charles Chapin. Chapin was a stern taskmaster with his employees in running the New York World. Chapin probably picked up on this attitude from an early editor named Fred Hall of the Chicago Tribune. Some called Hall a "slave driver" who was, as Chapin related, "a demon for hard work and a slave to his profession and intolerant toward shirkers." Author Morris follows Chapin's career through the years in detail. An interesting anecdote is related when Chapin was firing a reporter because he was, as Chapin said, "too sentimental for your own good." The reorter shot back at Chapin with, "True for you, Chapin! But when I die, there'll be a hell of a lot of people who will come to the funeral." Chapin winced at the verbal retort and turned white and spent considerable time contemplating the remark. Later in life when Chapin was in debt he felt it necessary to kill his wife to spare her of any future difficulties. Chapin felt he would receive the electric chair for his dastardly dark deed. Having been sentenced to Sing Sing prison he found himself the editor of the prison newspaper. It is finally on page 302 that we get to what the title of the book is all about, namely Chapin and his flower gardens on the prison grounds. I found the book to be interesting, but more time could have been spent on what the title of the book leads us to believe it is about.

The book is very well researched, and it does give you a history of journalism in NY at the last turn of the century. However, I found it really lacking in suspense. It was easy to put the book down! In fact, I read up to p. 150 a year ago, and decided to have another go at it recently. The author failed to detail the actual relationship between Mr. Chapin and his wife. Besides the fact that they went on a lot of vacations together, what was their emotional life like together? What were her hopes and dreams? How did she spend her days? Why didn't they have any children? Was she intelligent, funny, warm, outgoing, etc.? Did they fight often; what were her hobbies? Also, when it comes to the actual killing of Mrs. Chapin, it was actually very boring. I thought this would be the climax of the book. For example, Ann Rule would have attempted to bring some drama into this scene, and would have given more details of the actual room in which it took place, and would have gotten into the emotional aspect of this crime. It was a very dry and dull account of what I thought would be a page-turner of true crime. I mean, for God's sake, the man killed his wife! The writer seems like an historian but does seem to have taken all the life out of this true-life story. A sharper editor would have made him condense the newsroom stuff and moved it along at a faster pace. All in all, he's a good writer, but it lacked drama and suspense. Recommended only for history buffs as a history of yellow journalism in NY.