Richard Washburn Child

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Richard Washburn Child
United States Ambassador to Italy
In office
July 28, 1921 – January 20, 1924
PresidentWarren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Preceded byRobert Underwood Johnson
Succeeded byHenry P. Fletcher
Personal details
Born(1881-08-05)August 5, 1881
Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJanuary 31, 1935(1935-01-31) (aged 53)
New York City, U.S.
EducationHarvard University
Harvard Law School

Richard Washburn Child (August 5, 1881 – January 31, 1935) was an American

Italian Fascism
, in the early 20th century.

Early life and career

Born in

Progressive Party. During World War I, he worked first as a correspondent in Europe and Russia, then for the U.S. Treasury, writing propaganda
.

In 1916 he published a book, calling for U.S. investment in Russia. After the war he became editor of

Collier's Weekly
(1919).

In 1919 and 1920, Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne successfully toured the play The Master Thief, based on a story by Child.[1]

In 1920 he wrote campaign material for Presidential candidate Warren G. Harding, who rewarded him with the ambassadorship in Italy (from May 1921 to February 1924), where among other diplomatic activities he encouraged Benito Mussolini to start his March on Rome, as he records in his memoir A Diplomat looks at Europe (1925).[dubious – discuss] He also promoted U.S. investment in Italy under Mussolini, especially from the J. P. Morgan bank. After his return to the United States, he became editor for The Saturday Evening Post and served on the National Crime Commission in 1925. In 1926 he divorced.[2]

In 1928 he became a paid propaganda writer for Benito Mussolini, whose notes he ghostwrote and serialized as

Italian Fascism until his death in 1935.[3] Child also wrote a number of crime stories and promotional tracts throughout his career. His Paymaster stories, in which his anti-hero - a criminal dubbed “the Paymaster” - regularly outwitted his opponents, including the police, and other more dangerous villains, were widely known in the first decades of the 20th century.[4][5]

Child was a critic of spiritualism and skeptical of paranormal claims. In his article The Will to Believe he dismissed the medium Eusapia Palladino as a fraud.

On January 31, 1935, Child died of pneumonia in New York City.

funeral Mass was held at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer.[8]

Publications

References

  1. ^ Staff, “‘The Master Thief’,” Riverside Daily Press, Riverside, California, Saturday evening, 13 December 1919, Volume XXXIV, Number 269, page 8.
  2. New York Times
    . August 5, 1926. Retrieved 2011-02-19.
  3. United Press
    . January 30, 1935. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
  4. ISBN 978-0-7864-3908-9
    , pages 155-156.
  5. ISBN 9780786439089
    .
  6. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2022-09-27.
  7. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2022-09-27.
  8. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2022-09-27.

Further reading

  • American National Biography. Vol. 4 (1999)
  • D'Agostino, Peter R., Rome in America. Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risoregimento to Fascism. U of North Carolina P, 2004.
  • Diggins, John P., Mussolini and Fascism: the View from America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1972.
  • Lindberg, Kathryn V., Mass Circulation versus The Masses. Covering the Modern Magazine Scene. In: National Identities- Postamerican Narratives. Ed. Donald E. Pease. Duke UP, 1994, 279-310.
  • Sinclair, Upton., Money Writes! New York: Boni, 1927, 62-68.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richard Washburn Child.
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
United States Ambassador to Italy

1921–1924 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Washburn_Child&oldid=1215595473"