George Ade (February 9, 1866 – May 16, 1944) was an American writer, syndicated newspaper columnist, librettist, and playwright who gained national notoriety at the turn of the 20th century with his "Stories of the Streets and of the Town", a column that used street language and slang to describe daily life in Chicago, and a column of his fables in slang, which were humorous stories that featured vernacular speech and the liberal use of capitalization in his characters' dialog.
Ade's fables in slang gained him wealth and fame as an American humorist, as well as earning him the nickname of the "Aesop of Indiana". His notable early books include Artie (1896); Pink Marsh (1897); Fables in Slang (1900), the first in a series of books; and In Babel (1903), a collection of his short stories. His first stage work produced for the Broadway stage was the operetta The Sultan of Sulu, for which he wrote the libretto in 1901. The Sho-Gun and his best-known plays, The County Chairman and The College Widow, were simultaneously appearing on Broadway in 1904. Ade also wrote scripts and had some of his fables and plays adapted into motion pictures.
During the first quarter of the 20th century, Ade, along with Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nicholson, and James Whitcomb Riley helped to create a Golden Age of literature in Indiana.
The Purdue University graduate from rural Newton County, Indiana, began his career in journalism as a newspaper reporter in Lafayette, Indiana, before moving to Chicago, Illinois, to work for the Chicago Daily News. In addition to writing, Ade enjoyed traveling, golf, and entertaining at Hazelden, his estate home near Brook, Indiana. Ade was also a member of Purdue University's board of trustees from 1909 to 1916, a longtime member of the Purdue Alumni Association, a supporter of Sigma Chi (his college fraternity), and a former president of the Mark Twain Association of America. In addition, he donated funds for construction of Purdue's Memorial Gymnasium, its Memorial Union Building, and with David Edward Ross, contributed land and funding for construction of Purdue's Ross–Ade Stadium, named in their honor in 1924.
George Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, on February 9, 1866, to farmer and bank cashier John and Adaline Wardell (Bush) Ade. George was the second youngest of the family's seven children (four boys and three girls). George's father served as the Newton County, Indiana, recorder, and was also a banker in Kentland; his mother was a homemaker. George enjoyed reading from an early age, but he disliked manual labor and was not interested in becoming a farmer. Although he graduated from Kentland High School in 1881, his mother did not think he was ready for college. As a result, Ade remained in high school for another year before enrolling at Purdue University in 1883 on scholarship.
Ade studied science at Purdue, but his grades began to falter after his first year when he became more active in the college's social life. Ade also developed an interest in the theater and became a regular at the Grand Opera House in Lafayette, Indiana. In addition, he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. Ade also met and began a lifelong friendship with cartoonist and Sigma Chi fraternity brother John T. McCutcheon. Ade graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue in 1887. He briefly thought about becoming a lawyer, but abandoned the idea to pursue a career in journalism.
Ade did not begin his writing career in college. In 1887, after graduating from Purdue University, he worked in Lafayette, Indiana, as a reporter and telegraph editor for the Lafayette Morning News and then the Lafayette Call. After the newspaper discontinued publication, Ade earned a meager paycheck writing testimonials for a patent-medicine company. By 1890 he had moved to Chicago, Illinois, and resumed his career as a newspaper reporter, joining John T. McCutcheon, his college friend and Sigma Chi fraternity brother, at the Chicago Daily News (which later became the Chicago Morning News and the Chicago Record), where McCutcheon worked as an illustrator.
Ade's first assignment was writing a daily weather story for the Morning News. He also covered some major news events, including the explosion of the steamer Tioga on the Chicago River; the heavyweight championship boxing match between John L. Sullivan and James J. Corbett in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1892, Corbett–Sullivan fight – 1892; and the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair) in 1893.
While working for the Chicago Record, Ade developed his talent for turning local human-interest stories into humorous satire, which became his trademark. Beginning in 1893, Ade was put in charge of the daily column, "Stories of the Streets and of the Town," which frequently included McCutcheon's illustrations. Through Ade's use of street language and slang, the column described daily life in Chicago and introduced some of his early literary characters, which included Artie, an office boy; Doc Horne, a "gentlemanly liar"; and Pink Marsh, an African American shoeshine boy who worked in a barbershop. Collections of Ade's columns were subsequently published as books, such as Artie (1896), Pink Marsh (1897), and Doc' Horne (1899), which also helped to increase the popularity of his column. Ade's newspaper columns also included dialog and short plays containing his humorous observations of everyday life.
Ade first introduced his fables in slang in the Chicago Record in 1897. "The Fable of Sister Mae, Who Did As Well As Could Be Expected" appeared on September 17, 1897; the second one, "A Fable in Slang," appeared a year later; others followed in a weekly column. These humorous stories, complete with morals, featured vernacular speech and Ade's idiosyncratic capitalization of the characters' dialog. Ade left the Chicago Record in 1899 to work on nationallysyndicated newspaper column of his fables in slang. Fables in Slang (1900), the first in a series of book of Ade's fables, was popular with the public and for nearly twenty years more collections of his fables were compiled into additional books, ending with Hand-Made Fables (1920). Ade's fables also appeared in periodicals, the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company produced them as motion-picture shorts, and Art Helfant also turned them into comic strips.
Playwright, librettist, and author
After Ade's newspaper columns went into syndication in 1900, he began writing plays. His first stage work produced for Broadway was the musical The Night of the Fourth which premiered on January 21, 1901, at the Victoria Theatre. Ade wrote the book to this musical with Max Hoffmann as composer and J. Sherrie Mathews as lyricist. It was a critical flop and closed after fourteen performances.
Ade's next show on Broadway was The Sultan of Sulu; an operetta with music by Alfred G. Wathall for which Ade was the librettist. The opera's plot was about the American military's efforts to assimilate natives of the Philippines into American culture. It premiered at Wallack's Theatre on December 29, 1902, in a production produced by opera impresario Henry W. Savage. A popular success, it ran for 200 performances at that theatre; closing on Jun 13, 1903. It then embarked on a national tour which included a return engagement to Broadway in November 1903, this time at the Grand Opera House. The composer Nathaniel D. Mann contributed one song to the operetta, "My Sulu Lulu Loo".
His other works for Broadway include Peggy from Paris (1903), a musical comedy; The County Chairman (1903), a piece about small-town politics; The Sho-Gun (1904), a musical set in Korea; and The College Widow (1904), a comedy about college life and American collegiate football.
Not all of Ade's theatrical productions were successes, such as The Bad Samaritan (1905), but three of his plays (The College Widow, The Sho-Gun, and The County Chairman) were simultaneously appearing on Broadway in 1904. The best known and among the most successful of Ade's Broadway plays are The County Chairman and The College Widow, which were also adapted into motion pictures. Ade's final Broadway play before he retired from playwriting was The Old Town, produced in 1910.