George Francis "Frank" Stephens

George Francis Stephens, sculptor, and Co-Founder of Arden, Delaware.

Known as "Frank Stephens", born in Rahway, New Jersey, Dec. 28th, 1859, died in Gilpin Point (near Denton), Md., June 16th, 1935, son of Henry Lewis Stephens and of Charlotte Ann Wevil.

Frank first married on June 14th, 1884, to Caroline Eakins (1865 to 1889) daughter of Benjamin Eakins and of Caroline Cowperthwaite. They had three children, Margaret (Peg) Eakins Stephens (later married name Aumack), (1886 to 1916), Donald Stephens (1887 to 1971) and Roger Stephens (1889 to 1955). Caroline was a sister of the noted painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), whose career was destroyed on February 9th, 1886, when Frank Stephens accused him (Eakins) of bestiality and incest (with a different sister) [The Revenge of Thomas Eakins by Sydney D. Kirkpatrick, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006] .

Frank's second Marriage was to Elenor Getty on November 29th, 1905. They had no children. [http://www.wargs.com/family/0014.html]

Frank was a teacher at the Spring Gardens Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Drexel Academy, and was a member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club as well as the Art Club of Philadelphia.

Many of Frank's large bronze sculptures dot the Philadelphia cityscape.

In 1900, Frank Stephens, a sculptor, Will Price, an architect, two Philadelphians at the time, and Joseph Fels, a wealthy soap manufacturer (Fels Naptha etc...), purchased convert|162|acre|km2 of land in North Wilmington, Del., and called it Arden. The community there was to be run communally under the single-tax theories of Henry George (1839-1897) and implementing the Arts and Crafts principles of William Morris (1834-1896).

Frank and Will dreamed of founding a community where they could bring their economic and social ideals to life. They believed in both Henry George’s Single Tax philosophy and William Morris’s Arts and Crafts principles. The Single Tax movement, popular in the U.S. in the 1890s, believed that the best way to raise government money was by a single tax on land only. The tax would be the same whether the land was improved or not. William Morris, an Englishman, rebelled against modern cities and industry. He advocated a return to craft production, good design, and village life.

Stephens and Price first came to Delaware in 1895-1896 during the single-tax campaign to win political control of the state. The Single-Taxers hoped that by gaining control of a small political entity they could put their principles into action and show that they could really work. The campaign failed—many of the activists were jailed—but Price and Stephens did not give up their dream. [ [http://jnjreid.com/cdb/stephens.html Collecting Delaware Books - Arden's Frank Stephens ] ]

In 1900, they purchased the Derrickson farm in northern New Castle County. Price designed a town plan that preserved communal open space and encouraged people to mingle with their neighbors. Stephens and Price adopted "You are welcome hither" as the community motto because they wanted Arden, Delaware to be a place open to people of all economic levels and political views, a new departure in an era when restrictions were the norm. Price never lived in Arden—he was more deeply involved in Rose Valley, another idealistic community nearby in Pennsylvania—but Frank Stephens did. Frank's enthusiasm, leadership, and ideas guided Arden from a dream to reality. His son Donald also played a vital role in the community.

From an article by Bill Frank, Delaware Journalist (Wilmington News Journal):"The Single Tax theory is deeply discussed in George's classic, Progress and Poverty. In the latter years of the last century, a group of Philadelphia Single Taxers, as his devout followers, invaded Delaware, attired in U.S. Army uniforms, without guns but armed with tracts explaining the advantages of the Single Tax to communities and individuals. They took over street corners in Wilmington and Dover and preached what was considered a far-left, radical tax theory. Some were arrested in Dover to speaking on street corners without a license. Refusing to pay a fine, about a dozen of them were thrust in the Dover jail, which was just what they wanted to attract attention to their cause.

They also sought in vain to persuade the Delaware General Assembly to reform the then-existing tax schedule for land and property improvements and to abolish taxes on wages.

One of the principal leaders of these Single Tax invaders from Philadelphia was a sculptor, Frank Stephens. When he realized that the Single Taxers' tactics produced no results, he decided to undertake a practical move.

With the help of Will Price, a Pennsylvania architect, he appealed to a Philadelphia millionaire and soap manufacturer, Joseph Fels, who was a devout supporter of Henry George, for a loan to purchase a convert|160|acre|km2|sing=on run-down farm north of Wilmington.

With this money and the volunteer services of Will Price, Stephens, later lovingly known at Patro, laid out and developed beginnings of present-day Arden. Stephens, an all-out Shakespeare student, chose the name Arden from the forest of Arden in "As You Like It."

The land that Stephens acquired was designated as a property not owned by anyone in particular but to be held in trust by three trustees in the public interest. Their duty was to lease acres, half acres or quarter acres to leaseholders for 99 years at a time, and to collect from these leaseholders annual land rent or what might be called land taxes.

This began in 1900. The most wonderful thing was that as Will Price designed the village, he provided for open spaces, known as village greens, and preserved the woodlands along Naamans Creek.

In about 10 years, Arden was on its way, with an outdoor theater and a community club. It attracted artists, such as Buzz Ware, philosophers and authors such as Upton Sinclair and Harry Kemp, the poet. It also attracted the nationally known "mother of American communism," Mrs. Bloor (Ella Reeves Ware), and mil-mannered Socialists and devout Democrats and a few Republicans such as Russell W. Peterson, who later became governor of Delaware, and one or two non-bomb throwing anarchists." [ [http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/frank_bill_on_arden.html Bill Frank / Arden (Delaware): From the Theory to Practice (1986) ] ]

References