publisher

From the Wikipedia: Robert Collier (April 19, 1885 – 1950) was an author of self help, and New Thought metaphysical books in the 20th century. Collier was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 19, 1885. He was the nephew of Peter Fenelon Collier, founder of Collier's Weekly. He was involved in writing, editing, and research for most of his life. His book, The Secret of the Ages, sold over 300,000 copies during his life. Collier wrote about the practical psychology of abundance, desire, faith, visualization, confident action, and becoming your best. Robert Collier Publications, Inc., still exists through the efforts of his widow and now his children and grandchildren and now even his great grandchildren. Collier's Books have recently been brought back to prominence from being referenced in the popular metaphysical movie The Secret. Moreover, Robert Collier's books have been popular with self help and New thought. After overcoming an illness he became facinated with the power of the mind and how to use it to create success in every area.

It would still profit a person to read any of his fine books!

What a wonderful portrait. I love the pensive stance.

Looks like they put handwritten headlines above the entrance. The statue sat across from City Hall in front of the Tribure Building at Nassau and Spruce Streets. This statue was eventually moved to City Hall Park and is there today. www.nycgovparks.org/parks/cityhallpark/highlights/13314 A view from City Hall of the Tribune Building (an architecturaly important building), now demolished, in 1966: lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ny/ny0400/ny0435/photos/11992... Wikipedia says the building was demolished in 1955, but that's obviously incorrect, based on the LOC photo which is clearly from the mid-60's. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Tribune_Building Other sources correctly state that it was demolished in 1966 to make way for a Pace College building. www.nytimes.com/1988/05/15/realestate/in-the-new-york-reg...

Statue here is not the one in City Hall Park; it's the one in Greely Square Park. http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/greeleysquarepark/highlights/13313

better link: www.nycgovparks.org/parks/greeleysquarepark/highlights/13313 Interestingly enough, the NY Parks site is misleading. There are two similar Greeley statues. For some reason they accurately describe the one pictured above as in City Hall Park, but they picture it on the Greeley Park page of their site. On the City Hall Park page, they accurately describe the statue there (pictured above in the Bain photo) but they mistakenly picture the Greeley Square statue. www.nycgovparks.org/parks/cityhallpark/highlights/13314 The most obvious difference is that Greeley has a newspaper spread out on his right thigh in the City Hall Park statue, and has a book hanging down in his right hand in the Greeley Square one. maps.google.com/maps?q=greeley+square,+new+york&ll=40...

Then there's the question of why this photo is in the June, 1915 news stream. On June 13, 1915, the N.Y. Times published a story about the building's owners wanting to rent the corner space to a drugstore, and needed to move the statue to do so. It's a wry, tongue in cheek story, which notes that after the shoeshine stand was installed to the left of Greeley, it looked like he was waiting in line for a shine. The statue moved across the street into the park eventually, but the place was not determined when the article was written. It was suggested, though, that, the statue (in the famous words of Greeley) "go west ,young man", and it did. select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10D13FF3D551273... Also dating the picture are the news headlines above the statue. It looks like they had someone up there on a wooden platform painting them for the passersby. These headlines, about the Wilson diplomatic note that caused his Secretary of State to resign, the turmoil in Mexico, and the Italian offensive on Trento (Trent) are all stories in the Tribune's edition of June 11, 1915: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1915-06-11/ed-...

artolog-- Thank you for tracking down the additional details about the Greeley statues and for alerting us to the mix up in the photos on the NYC parks website. Good work on locating the stories in the news headlines in the June 11, 1915 edition of the Tribune too. I wonder how often they updated the headlines? We will add some more details when we update the description.

on board the Mauretania!

LOC: Bain caption is is Ralph Pulitzer and Wife.

Nice ..

artolog, Thanks for the heads up on the mismatch between the two captions provided by Bain. (One comes from the caption cards and one from the negative or negative sleeve - and they often don't agree!) We will expand the title to add Mr. Pulitzer's wife and more details, such as her name and their location. Incidentally, this should be his first wife, Frederica Vanderbilt Webb, as he didn't marry his second wife until 1928 and this photo is earlier.