Bender, Albert M. (Albert Maurice), 1866-1941

Prominent 19th Century poet and social activist. Born Charles

Albert Maurice Bender was a book and art collector, philanthropist, and civic leader of San Francisco.

Art collector and patron; San Francisco, Calif.

George Sterling (1869-1926), American poet, came to San Francisco in 1890 to work for his uncle in real estate. A promising young poet, he met and was befriended by Jack London, Joaquin Miller, Mary Austin, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Ambrose Bierce, who became his mentor. In 1905, Sterling and his wife moved to Carmel, where he became one of the integral figures in the bohemian colony of artist and writers there until 1913. His diaries on life in Carmel in that period are in the Bancroft Library.

Charles Warren Stoddard (1853-1909), American poet and travel writer, came to San Francisco in 1855 with his family. He published his first poem in 1861 and his first collection of poetry in 1867 in an edition edited by Bret Harte. Stoddard, a convert to Catholicism, subsequently taught English and literature at Catholic universities and traveled extensively. His books on the South Seas and Hawaii etablished his literary reputation as much if not more than his poetry. He returned to California in 1905 to write a series of articles on the missions. He soon settled in Monterey for the duration of his life.

John Henry Nash (1871-1947), American painter and bibliophile, b. Woodbridge, Canada. After learning the printer's trade, he emigrated to the United States in 1894. He eventually became professor of typography at the Univ. of Oregon. Nash published finely crafted editions of several works, including the The Divine Comedy (1929) and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. He was famous for his collection of books with handmade bindings. Nash's press was located at various times in Carmel, Livermore, and San Francisco, California.

Biography

Albert Maurice Bender was a book and art collector, philanthropist, and civic leader of San Francisco.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

George Sterling was born in Sag Harbor, N.Y. on December 1, 1869. He was educated on the East Coast and attended St. Charles College in Maryland. In 1896 he married Carrie Rand of Oakland, California, and from 1898 to 1908 he was private secretary to Frank C. Havens of that city.

Sterling's first volume of poems, “ Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems, was published in 1903. After that time, there were nine other volumes and a number of separate poems published. From 1908 to 1915, Sterling was one of the leaders of the artist colony at Carmel, California. He died on November 18, 1926, by his own hands.

Biographical Note

Albert M. Bender was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1866 and died in San Francisco, California in 1941. He came to San Francisco when he was sixteen and started out as an errand boy in the insurance business. Bender was an insurance broker by profession, a patron of the arts, and trustee of Mills College. He was so widely known and respected that a letter addressed simply "Saint Albert of San Francisco" once reached him through the U.S. Mail. He had friends of distinguished reputation throughout California and indeed throughout the world.

In AMB: Some aspects of his life and times begun in playful mood for his entertainment on his 75th birthday and now completed for his sorrowing friends as a token of remembrance and affection (The Grabhorn Press, 1941, p. 6-8), Oscar Lewis writes: "This brings up the matter of AMB's correspondence. He probably gets more letters from a greater variety of people and on a wider variety of subjects than anybody else in the country. Visitors to his office frequently have trouble finding him at all, so high are the accumulations of correspondence on his desk, his table, the tops of his bookcases and filing cabinets and, not infrequently, on all the chairs. The overflow he stuffs into his pockets, which are, consequently, always bulging. AMB professes to find this avalanche of mail a sore trial, but one observes that whenever the postman brings in a new batch his eyes light up and he can't open it fast enough. The new letters are tossed on top of those that came in the last mail, and they are covered up in turn when the next arrive.... His letters are not only read and lost; they are also answered, and not with perfunctory notes. His replies probably average about a page and a half each, single-spaced. All this refers to his normal correspondence. Around Christmas time the flow both of incoming and outgoing mail much increases. AMB's orders for Christmas cards are said to run into the thousands."