THE INVENTIVE LIFE OF GEORGE H. McFADDEN

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The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden
Richard Carreño
Camino Books, Inc.
9781680980608              $35.00 Hardcover
https://www.caminobooks.com/ 

Richard Carreño’s biography of Philadelphia art collector John H.

 McFadden, John McFadden and his Age, provided a wealth of information

 applicable to art history in general and Philadelphia history in particular. 

McFadden himself provides the introduction to Carreño’s latest foray into

 biographical history, The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden. This book 

serves as a fitting companion volume, examining John’s Uncle George’s life

 of intrigue, mystery, adventure, and Philadelphia connections. 

This is not to say that either book should be limited to Pennsylvania readers

 and collections—not by a long shot. Indeed, especially in The Inventive Life

 of George H. McFadden, the value lies in Carreño’s ability to present contrasts

 in intellectual drive, psychological melancholy and isolation, closet homosexuality,

 and life contributions in such a manner that invites attention and inspection 

by audiences immersed in life stories and intellectual pursuits alike … not just

 Pennsylvanians or art students. 

George H. McFadden stood out from the proper Philadelphian in many ways. 

His different relationships and personas in disparate cultural groups, his shifting 

approach to “finding ancient things” that led him to sailing and travel experiences 

(and, ultimately, to a mysterious death), and his literary prowess all come to

 light in a revealing examination of a Renaissance Man whose intellectual pursuits

 were anything but ordinary. 

THE INVENTIVE LIFE OF GEORGE McFADDEN

FEAR AND LOATHING

Experiencing a buttoned-up, early 20th century childhood in Philadelphia, a hot-house of professional rivalries in  pre-war Cyprus, and the deadly uncertainties of WW II spy craft in the Middle East, George H. McFadden navigated a life that was always on the line.

The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden by Richard Carreño traces McFadden’s rocky journey from  an awkward beginning as the gay scion of wealth and prominence; to Cyprus as a famed University of Pennsylvania archaeologist of ancient Greek treasures; from war-time Germany to France, Greece, and, lastly, from Egypt where he faced down the Nazi war machine as an American spy. McFadden also found time in his abbreviated, multi-faceted life for work as an accomplished poet, a pioneering translator of Homer, and as a scholar of ancient Greece and German literature.

Liverpool Learned Society Praises New Book on Local Art Collector John H. McFadden

John H. McFadden and His Age: Cotton and Culture in Philadelphia

Richard Carreño 304pp.19 black and white illustrations. Camino Books, Philadelphia, 2021. Available from Amazon £18.69 hardback. ISBN: 978-1680980394.

I consider myself a reasonably well-read amateur Liverpool historian but confess that, until recently, I had never heard of John H McFadden. And, I suspect, neither had any of my fellow local history friends. This despite the fact that he and brother George headed up the biggest firm of cotton dealers not just in Liverpool during the late Victorian and early Edwardian era when the city was indisputably “King Cotton”, but on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Like John Howard McFadden’s life itself, this is a book of two halves covering his early and later years in Philadelphia and his two decades or so in Liverpool when he was at the height of his cotton dealing powers. In spite of his business success and the great wealth that went with it, McFadden largely lived his life under the radar. So, it is thanks to Carreño that he has managed to tease out so much of the detail of his life. Aside from dealing in cotton futures, McFadden had three main passions, and the money to indulge them: medical research (of which Liverpool was a major beneficiary), polar exploration (and in particular Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton) and assembling an outstanding private collection of 18th and 19th century British paintings by the great masters, including one by Liverpool horse painter George Stubbs. 

PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE RAVES!

SERIOUS McFADDEN BIO

ALSO ROLLICKING FUN READ

Take it from Sandy Hingston at Philadelphia Magazine and you, too, might spend a couple of reading days rollicking with Richard Carreno's bio of John H. McFadden, the Philadelphia 19th century millionaire, art collector, and founder of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Click below:

This Collector You’ve Never Heard Of Helped Spark the Creation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The PJ depends on reader support. Please help us by contributing financially or by contributing editorial content via PhiladelphiaJunto@ymail.com. Empowered by WritersClearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor Copyright MMXXI. All Rights Reserved.

'JOHN H. McFADDEN AND HIS AGE: COTTON AND CULTURE IN PHILADELPHIA' NOW AVAILABLE AT BARNES & NOBLE

More info? Click Here

Read Excerpt Here:

Preface: Beau Ideal

In a city where Benjamin Franklin’s legacy permeates the institutional landscape, it is easy to believe that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is another of Philadelphia’s ancient and legendary cultural institutions. Many of them indeed date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, begun in 1814. And Franklin was in fact associated with two public institutions: the Library Company (1731) and the American Philosophical Society (1743). In contrast, the Philadelphia Museum is a mere youngblood, less than a century from its opening in 1928 as the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. That is, if we are considering it as it is today: the majestic Greek Revival colossus atop Fairmount Hill. 

But the museum’s roots run much deeper, to the late nineteenth century, in its first incarnation in 1877 as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. By this measure, it is actually older than the iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art (1880) in New York. John H. McFadden and His Age The Pennsylvania Museum of Art was born in a time of tumultuous municipal transition, which tore and remade the fabric of virtually all of Philadelphia’s institutions, from political to cultural, from commercial to societal.