Name/Title
RIPON Magazine - 1999Description
Cover of magazine is a photograph of a model of the sculpture "Genesis" and article immortalizes Shaler, by Lee Reinsch '89.
Article about Clarence Addison Shaler and pictures of his works in the RIPON Magazine, Winter 1999, Volume 32, No. 1.
Art Immortalizes Shaler
Clarence Addison Shaler was a creative genius who invented the vulcanized tire patch, an umbrella, a heating pad for people and the hot pad for food. His greatest legacy, however, might be the sculptures he left behind - both those he created after age 70, and those he purchased for the city of Waupun, Wis. Ripon College is proud to be home to two Shaler products - "Lincoln the Dreamer" and "Genesis." Here's a look at the man and his legacy.
By Lee Reinsch '89
On the Cover:
This photograph of a model of the sculpture "Genesis" hangs in the End of the Trail Candy Shoppe in Waupun, Wis., the city of statues made possible by gifts from Clarence Addison Shaler, Ripon College Class of 1880. Thanks to shoppe owner Steve Guth for loaning us the photo. "Genesis
Extended Description: Cover of magazine is a photograph of a model of the sculpture "Genesis" and article immortalizes Shaler, by Lee Reinsch '89.
Article about Clarence Addison Shaler and pictures of his works in the RIPON Magazine, Winter 1999, Volume 32, No. 1.
Art Immortalizes Shaler
Clarence Addison Shaler was a creative genius who invented the vulcanized tire patch, an umbrella, a heating pad for people and the hot pad for food. His greatest legacy, however, might be the sculptures he left behind - both those he created after age 70, and those he purchased for the city of Waupun, Wis. Ripon College is proud to be home to two Shaler products - "Lincoln the Dreamer" and "Genesis." Here's a look at the man and his legacy.
By Lee Reinsch '89
On the Cover:
This photograph of a model of the sculpture "Genesis" hangs in the End of the Trail Candy Shoppe in Waupun, Wis., the city of statues made possible by gifts from Clarence Addison Shaler, Ripon College Class of 1880. Thanks to shoppe owner Steve Guth for loaning us the photo. "Genesis" is one of two Shaler sculptures to adorn the Ripon College campus.
Clarence Addison Shaler was a wealthy industrialist and inventor who created the automobile vulcanized tire patch in his factory in Waupun, Wis.
While that invention made him millions in the early 20th century, he also invented a detachable shell for an umbrella, an adjustable set of golf clubs, electric pads to help ease the pain of sore muscles and hot pads to help keep food warm.
What he is most well known for today, however, is for a dozen or so sculptures he created in the last 11 years of his life, long after he'd retired a multi-millionaire.
One of three dozen Ripon College Benefactors, Shaler's primary legacy is one he created with his hands. While not the most famous of his sculptures, Ripon's "Genesis" and "Lincoln the Dreamer" are part of a wealth of sculpting by the late-in-life artist.
One alumnus has succeeded in making his presence at Ripon College last some 120 years since he left the College and 138 years after he was born.
Thousands of students have walked by Clarence Addison Shaler's gifts to the school: the compelling bronze sculpture "Genesis" and the stately "Lincoln the Dreamer." He made nearby Waupun, Wis., into "the City of Sculptures." And thousands of Ripon College women have lived in the wing of the Tri-Dorms named in his honor.
Who was the man behind the statues and Shaler Hall? Many know him as merely a rich man and a sculptor, but there's more to this ingenious alumnus.
Clarence Shaler didn't start sculpting until age 70. He spent most of his life earning his millions as an inventor, manufacturer and businessman. In his last 11 years, he produced more art than many artists do in a lifetime.
He spent only a fraction of his life creating the art that has immortalized him. Born near Ripon on May 29, 1860, in the Township of Mackford in Green Lake County, Shaler lived on a farm. There, his mind was free to wander like the energetic deer that bound through Wisconsin fields. And wander it did. His creative thoughts rarely stopped, even when his physically weak body did. A childhood accident resulted in a broken leg, which eventually impacted his spine. The curvature caused him lifelong trouble, seeing him in and out of doctors' offices throughout his life.
Maybe it was his chronic pain that made young Shaler dream of ways to make life easier and more entertaining. He once built two treadmills powered by barn cats. One treadmill operated a miniature threshing machine; another, his mother's butter churn. He designed kites of all styles, which he took for test runs on the land near his family homestead.
The fresh air of Green Lake County kept Clarence and his twin sister, Clara, outdoors. Every spring, the members of the nearby Union Baptist Church held an annual mass baptism in a lake near their house, and the Shaler twins liked to have fun with it. "...During the following week, every cat was dunked in the horse-watering trough and made into a hard-shelled Baptist," writes biographer Fred L. Holmes in "Badger Saints and Sinners." One obstinate cat jumped through a glass window to avoid the religious conversion.
Shaler and his family moved to Ripon when he was 13. His father, Ansel Shaler, had taught school for two years before farming and later served as superintendent of schools in Ripon. His mother, Sally, had been married before and had two other children, Henry and Helen.
From 1874-78, the Shaler twins attended first the Ripon college preparatory school - the Ripon Lyceum from 1874-77 - and then Ripon College in general studies.
Clara died in early 1878, before the twins' 18th birthday. Her death affected Shaler deeply. He left school and returned to his parents' farm, even though he wasn't fit for farm work. To make matters worse, three years later, his father died. Young Shaler was left with the dubious legacy of a 500-acre farm.
While he continued to take classes at the College until 1880, he spent six of the most miserable years of his life trying to eek a living off the family farm. Despite fertile soil, the farm failed. Taking advantage of his ignorance in farm matters, envious neighbors sold him bad seed at outrageous prices.
Shaler's love of art began early and had many years to incubate. At age 22 and in Chicago for a doctor's appointment, he met a young man working on a sculpture. The artist, Lorado Taft, would become world-renowned. Taft introduced Shaler to sculpture, and the two became lifelong friends. Shaler also had a long-term correspondence with artist James Earle Fraser, whom he first met at the 1915 Panama-Pacific World's Fair in San Francisco.
Shaler and some business partners invested money in a flax mill in Waupun, but that, too, failed, leaving the mill in disuse. The partners discussed uses for the building and Shaler suggested putting an umbrella factory inside. Shaler had invented a detachable shell for the umbrella, with pockets into which the umbrella's spokes fit snugly. First Shaler & Hartgerink Umbrella Co. took up residence in the old mill, and then it became the Shaler Umbrella Co. The umbrella invention caught on in popularity and was sold in dry goods stores, bringing a healthy living.
In 1895, Shaler married Blanche Bancroft. Now an adult, Shaler's creative mind was still thinking up ways to make life easier and better. His firm, the C.A. Shaler Co., of Waupun, manufactured electric pads for sore muscles and electric hotpads for food warming. He invented an adjustable set of golf clubs which were used to determine the appropriate length of clubs which were then custom made for the individual. The golf clubs won him favor at the Rock River Country Club in Waupun which he helped found.
Shaler epitomizes the forward-thinking minds of the early 1900s era. It's not surprising, then, that he'd be drawn to the automobile when it hit the market. Shaler was among the first people in Wisconsin to buy an automobile.
One can only imagine what a popular gadabout Shaler must have been, driving down bricked city streets and whizzing through the countryside's unpaved roads. But one of his close friends, a Waupun attorney, protested the invasion of cars to Waupun's streets and tried to get an ordinance passed to prohibit them.
In those days, tires were far from perfect, and roads were created for horses, not cars. The sounds of tire punctures interrupted a sunny afternoon road trip like semi-colons in a multi-clause sentence. Peeved at flat tires, Shaler pondered how to fix them. He experimented with a discarded electric flatiron and a rheostat from an old dynamo and came up with a remedy: the vulcanized tire patch.
He took the idea and ran with it. He patented an additive for gasoline to help the life of an engine and even a lens that was attached to an automobile headlight to increase efficiency. Shaler's gasoline additive continues to be manufactured today under the name Rislone Engine Treatment.
But Shaler is most remembered for the vulcanized tire patch, known as "the Shaler Hot Patch." He manufactured electric, steam-powered and alcohol vulcanizers. They made electric models of the vulcanizers for private garages and steam roadside models, which were alcohol-heated. Their motto was "Seal the Cut and Save the Tire."
By 1928, Shaler was a millionaire.
But millions of dollars and bankrolls don't make a whole man in Shaler's view and the creative artist inside this mechanical genius ached to express himself. At 70, in 1930, he began dabbling in sculptures. Why did this senior citizen turn to art so late in life? "He wished to be sure of a career at which he could earn his living and support his family," writes his daughter, Marian Shaler Hanisch, in her 1941 book, "Sculpture of Clarence Addison Shaler: Interpretations." "Therefore he gave the early and middle years of his life to that other side of his creative genius which expressed itself in mechanical invention. However, he loved art, and especially sculpture, from the time he was a very young man.
"He tells of his first trip to New York to buy goods for the umbrella factory. ... That he was a naive young man who knew nothing about the requirements for establishing credit for his purchases and finally obtained that credit not so much as a result of any tangible assets he possessed as of that obvious asset of his honesty. Nevertheless, though he felt this first debt ... he could not resist buying and bringing home a marble bust of a young girl, which was the first beautiful piece of sculpture that he had ever seen."
That same romantic impulse, wrote Hanisch, prompted Shaler in later life to acquire Taft's "Recording Angel," purchased to memorialize his wife, and James Earle Fraser's "The End of the Trail." Shaler presented them to the Forest Mound Cemetery and the city of Waupun, respectively. The two sculptures today, according to conservator Tony Raj er of Madison, Wis., are valued at more than $1 million each. "They are icons of American culture," Rajer says, and are one-of-a-kind sculptures.
Shaler worked in a studio at his winter home in Pasadena, Calif. He had his sculptures cast in bronze by Nelli Foundry of Los Angeles as well as a foundry in Chicago. He also utilized a foundry in Mexico, according to his grandson, Stuart Hanisch. In a little more than a decade, Shaler went on to produce numerous sculptures, including six that were placed in Waupun. Not surprisingly, Shaler made his own tools. Each tool was eventually created to give the user maximum efficiency.
In 1939, Shaler donated one of his prize sculptures to Ripon College: a statue of Abraham Lincoln, which stands near Farr Hall. The positioning of the Lincoln statue was highly debated in 1939. Should it face south? Southwest? West? Many letters went back and forth between the fifth Ripon College president, Silas Evans, architect Thomas Tallmadge of Chicago, and Shaler. The statue was finally set facing the south-west. At that time, Farr Hall and Todd Wehr weren't built, so passersby on Ransom and Seward streets had a clear view of it.
The world before the crash of 1929 was one of optimism, and Shaler "rode the wave of optimism," says Rajer who has studied Shaler's art and is in the process of restoring a second piece of Shaler sculpture from Waupun - "Dawn of Day." Shaler's first large bronze sculpture.
But the Lincoln statue was only the tail end of a string of gifts to the College. In June of 1936, he gave the College "Genesis," an original statue of a wild young woman forming herself out of rock. It stands between West Hall and Middle Hall on upper campus. The beautiful woman, with her long, flowing hair and smooth shoulders, seems to be either trapped in stone or bursting her way out of it. Marian Hanisch says in her book that the statue's name combines both the Biblical interpretation of Genesis and in the more scientific explanation "of life arising and taking form from the primordial slime."
She writes: "Every idea and ideal which now govern mankind were once nothing until realized in a monstrous and thrilling birth in the mind of some genius, breaking through the inertia and nothingness of matter as this woman's head and arm burst through the encompassing, hampering rock, instinct with challenge and purpose. So meaning comes out of nothingness. The artist, the philosopher and the poet are all midwives to its birth. Nietzsche has said, 'Unless you have chaos within, you cannot give birth to a dancing star.'"
Along with the gift of "Genesis," Shaler financed the restructuring of the stone embankment between the parking lot behind Middle Hall and the plot of land where the sculpture was placed. Some six months after gifting "Genesis" to the College, while visiting with President Evans, Shaler handed over a check for $25,000. In October of 1937, he signed another check to the College, this one for $10,000, to be used for scholarships.
In 1939, the Tri-Dorms residence facility was dedicated, with one three-story wing named in Shaler's honor, in recognition of another $25,000 gift he made to the College.
Shaler never sold any of his sculptures. He said the payment he received was the happiness he experienced when creating them.
Arthur Stuart Hanisch of Madison, Shaler's last remaining grandchild and the son of Marian Shaler Hanisch, remembers visiting Grandpa Shaler in the summers. "In his studio, it was amazing to see the various stages of sculpture - from the maquette-sized models in clay on a small scale to the full-sized plasters - and the process by which molds were made of big statues in white plaster and cast in bronze," he says. Stuart Hanisch was nine when his grandfather died.
More than 50 years after Shaler's death, the sculpture "The Citadel" was given to Waupun by the University of Southern California which had initially displayed the piece "on loan" from Shaler and later had woodsheded it for years.
The years Clarence Shaler knew in his prime were golden ones - the Gilded Age, Rajer says. But in the last years before he died, the world around Shaler had grown quite dark. Hitler had created a death machine in Nazi Germany, and Shaler saw society spinning out of control. The last piece Shaler sculpted, "The Citadel," is believed by many to be Shaler's most powerful piece. Family members say the sculpture represents the fall of civilization at the hands of Nazis in Germany at the time of Shaler's death. It's believed that "The Citadel" reflects the artist's feelings about the rise to power of Nazi Germany during World War II. "I think it will become the most important sculpture in the collection," says Waupun historian Jim Laird. "It reflects the barbarism of the time and of a civilization dying out." Shaler saw what was happening in the world and put it into bronze. "This is his masterpiece," says Rajer.
COPY FROM CLARENCE ADDISON SHALER BENEFACTOR PLAQUE
After graduating from Ripon College preparatory school in 1877, Mr. Shaler attended the College in select studies. He went on to become a significant donor to the College in the 1930s by contributing to the construction and furnishings of Shaler Hall in Tri-Dorms and endowing the Clarence A. Shaler Scholarship. In addition, Mr. Shaler created and donated the "Genesis" and "Lincoln the Dreamer" statues that are displayed on the college grounds. Mr. Shaler received an honorary master's degree from Ripon College in 1936.
This plaque at one time was near the "Lincoln The Dreamer" on the upper campus at Ripon. The inscription reads "Represents the man Lincoln as he was at the outset of his public career. His character, formed by his early hardships in the wilderness, partakes of the strength of the oak, tempered by the warmth of his human sympathies. He is leaving that early environment in pursuit of an unknown destiny, untouched yet by tragedy, betrayal, and disillusionment. A man at the noon of his powers which his high resolve has already dedicated to the good of his country and of mankind."
"This is Clarence Shaler the artist, Clarence Shaler the humanitarian, Clarence Shaler the thinker. Here at the end (of his life), he produces this incredible piece. "The Citadel," says Rajer, is intended to serve as a warning. "It is really about Shaler's fear that Facism, in the form of Nazism, might destroy the liberty and civilization that epitomized America," Rajer says.
"It may tell us something of his mood at the time of his death. It was provocative and wasn't intended to pacify people. It was intended to provoke thought," Rajer says. "They (the University of Southern California) weren't interested in it, and it's really too bad. Hopefully it will be appreciated in Waupun," Rajer adds.
The sculpture "Who Sows Believes in God," took a lengthy route to Waupun. The statue of a peasant girl standing with a hoe and seedbag at her side spent more than 30 years in a basement at the University of Wisconsin - Madison after a professor labeled it "inferior art." For another 15 years, the statue sat in a remote spot at University Farms near Arlington, Wis. Waupun historians saw the value of the sculpture, created in 1939, which was placed near the Waupun Memorial Hospital and dedicated in August of 1995.
Shaler also wrote and published poetry and prose and painted pictures. He also completed numerous other sculptural works, most of which never made it past the maquette stage, according to Stuart Hanisch. Shaler made maquettes in bronze as well as plaster, he says. Shaler also completed a bas-relief of geese in flight that hangs at the Waupun Public Library.
Shaler died in 1941 when he grew dizzy while sunning himself at his Pasadena apartment. He fell six stories to his death. Part of his fortune was used to award scholarships for Waupun residents.
Shaler credited his longevity to his recreations of hunting, golfing and sculpture. He proved that it's never too late to explore one's talent. A statement attributed to him upon the dedication of "The Morning of Life," at his twin sister's grave, sums it up. "Death is more beautiful than life, for the dead are forever young."
Conservator:Shaler Sculptures in Need of Restoration
Clarence Shaler's ingenuity forms a 10-point constellation from Ripon to Waupun. In the last decade of his life, Shaler monumentalized himself in the sculptures he created and commissioned.
But little is known of some sculptures that are either missing or were never finished. Below is a listing of Shaler's sculptures, both those well known and those lost for the ages. Part of the problem with tracing the sculptures, art conservator Tony Rajer says, is that Shaler often had multiple names for his works.
•"Dawn of Day" (Also known as "Waubun," a Native American word for "dawn of day") "Like this Indian maiden who is casting off the old garments ... who will ever look forward to the dawn of a new day ... I hope the people of Waupun will look into the dawn of a new day of greater prosperity and happiness," Shaler said in his dedication speech. "Dawn of Day" was dedicated in 1931 and placed outside city hall in Waupun. It has been at the center of a number of discussions about pornography and is undergoing a $9,000 conservation in Madison by art conservator Tony Rajer and Associates.
•"Diogenes" - Cast in bronze and made in the maquette size, only a few feet tall, had been located at 940 Hill-crest Place in Pasadena, at the home of Shaler's daughter, Marian, until her death, according to Stuart Hanisch. "It disappeared when my mother died," Stuart says.
•"Doe and Fawn" - The pair of deer are Shaler's simple tribute to the pastoral setting of Rock River Country Club, which he helped found. "Doe and Fawn" was created around 1932 in Shaler's Pasadena studio and originally called "Group of Deer."
•"Genesis" - Created in 1934 and dedicated in 1936 at Ripon College, "Genesis" depicts a woman forging her life from hewn rock. "So meaning comes out of nothingness. The artist, the philosopher and the poet are all midwives to its birth."
•"The Morning Of Life" - Created in 1936, the sculpture features a simple young girl who lived close to nature. It is placed on the grave of the sculptor's twin sister at Mackford Union Cemetery in Mackford Prairie in Green Lake County. Shaler said at the dedication of the statue that "death is more beautiful than life, for the dead are ever young."
•"Abraham Lincoln" (Also known as "Lincoln the Dreamer.") This statue shows a young Lincoln in the "morning" of his life, standing near a sturdy tree. It was dedicated in 1939 at Ripon College where it stands today.
•"My Mexico" - This bust of a woman draped in a shawl, is in Stuart Hanisch's possession.
•"He Who Sows Believes in God" (Also known as "Who Sows Believes in God") by Shaler, depicts a peasant girl with hoe and seedbag at her side, gazing off into the distance. Historians in
Waupun realized its value and brought it to Waupun, where it was placed near Waupun Memorial Hospital and dedicated in 1995. The statue was created in 1939.
•"The Pioneers" (also known as "The Family") by Shaler, completed in time for the 100th birthday of the city of Waupun. It features a man and woman with a young child, looking out over the land. It was placed in Wilcox Park along Highway 26 in Waupun in 1940. "The Pioneers" is the fifth and final sculpture given to Waupun by Shaler. He died 14 months later.
•"The Citadel" - Created in 1940, this piece is the most recent addition to Waupun's bronze gallery. Family members say Shaler may have been commenting on the horrific events of Nazi Germany during World War II, sculpting the devil to symbolize the Nazi Party and the humble woman the German people. In 1994, Stuart Hanisch, grandson of Shaler, brought the statue to Waupun from the University of Southern California, to whom it had originally been given. "The Citadel" is located outside the Waupun Historical Society building. "The Citadel" was the last sculpture Shaler made before he died. He was working on the patina for this before his death, according to art conservator Tony Rajer.
•"The Unfolding Flower" - In maquette size, the sculpture is in the possession of Stuart Hanisch. A photo of it appears in Marian Shaler Hanisch's book, "The Sculpture of Clarence Addison Shaler: Interpretations." Stuart Hanisch says he hasn't been able to locate the sculpture, if there is a life-size version, but believes that the smaller model he has is the one that actually is in the photographs.
The whereabouts of other works depicted in Hanisch's book, such as "The Choir Boy," "The Vision," "The Broken Bowl" and "My Son," are unknown. Stuart Hanisch saw the clay model of this sculpture in his grandfather's studio but is not aware if "My Son" was ever cast.
The whereabouts of "By the Roadway of Life," also depicted in Hanisch's book, is also a mystery. "I've never seen it," Stuart says. "I don't know that it ever existed beyond the maquette."
Rajer says most of the statues in the Shaler collection need serious refurbishing. "Dawn of Day," now being restored, has been the victim of heavy vandalism. The statue's feather and ponytail have been broken off and stolen many times, Rajer says. Both pieces will be re-cast and welded on tightly. Improper moving of the statue many years ago, and the addition of support poles in the woman's legs, has resulted in what Rajer calls "exploding."
"It's so corroded inside the statue that her ankles are exploding," Rajer says. She has been decked out in clothing and spray painted in inappropriate places many times over the years, he says. Also, the statue, "Morning of Life," in Mackford Union Prairie Cemetery, has been shot with BB gun pellets.
These are just a few of the damages done to the statues which Rajer says he hopes to restore one per year.
In addition to his own sculpture, Shaler gave Waupun two pieces created by well-known sculptors.
•"End of the Trail" - This historic piece sculpted by James E. Fraser depicts an Indian looking over the Pacific Ocean upon reaching the end of the trail. In June of 1929, the twice-life size
sculpture was installed near a dam on the Rock River in a spot Shaler had selected. "The End of the Trail" is probably the most well-known statue in the Waupun collection. Shaler was moved by the sculpture when he first saw a copy of it made of plaster and painted to look like bronze because Fraser couldn't afford to have it bronzed. Shaler and Fraser began a long-term correspondence and friendship, which resulted in Shaler commissioning the statue in bronze. "End of the Trail" was restored in 1997 at a cost of $25,000.
•"Recording Angel" - Shaler ordered this angel from his friend, sculptor Lorado Taft, in honor of his late wife. "Recording Angel" was presented as a gift to Waupun in 1923 and stands in Forest Mound Cemetery near the site of the "End of the Trail" sculpture. The sculpture was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and, according to Rajer, would bring $1 million. Shaler is also buried near the sculpture.Acquisition
Accession
2015.0001Source or Donor
Dahl ResidenceAcquisition Method
Donation
