RALPH HARMAN BOOTH

(1873-1931)

#8 of ten siblings and #4 of five boys, survived a severe case of scarlet fever as a child and almost died, weakening his heart which left him susceptible to heart attacks later in life. Ralph was born at home in Toronto at a house on the corner of River and Bell Streets on September 29, 1873. The Henry Wood Booth Family later moved to St. Thomas, Ontario in 1876, and then in April, 1881, to Detroit where Ralph’s mother had relatives. Most of Ralph’s schooling occurred in Detroit. Ralph was naturalized as a U S citizen in 1897.

Educated through eighth grade in Detroit public school.
Ralph’s newspaper career started with delivering and distributing Evening News and the Tribune in Windsor as a teenager. After a short time working at the First National Bank as a cashier, Ralph was next hired as a cashier at the (Detroit) Tribune and later promoted to Business Manager focusing on circulation.

NOTE: The (Detroit) Tribune was the successor newspaper of the (morning) Advertiser and Tribune, which was the initial newspaper purchased by James E. Scripps and Wm. Brearley.

Ralph’s early newspaper career was based on his employment and advancement by James Scripps.

After his promotion at age of 21 to Business Manager of the Tribune, within a year, Ralph is asked to relocate to Chicago in 1895 on two assignments;

1. to become Secretary and Business Manager of the Chicago Journal which was owned by James E. Scripps and his brother George G. Booth with George as Publisher, and
2. to head up a national and regional sales office for display advertising for the Scripps newspapers which included large dailies in Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Buffalo, and Chicago. Ralph worked in Chicago for the next twelve years. During this time he was tapped by James Scripps to represent the Scripps newspapers on the Board of Directors of the Associated Press in New York City and rose to become a Vice President of the AP.

In 1896 Ralph Booth applied for U S citizenship. He was naturalized in Chicago on June 22, 1897.

Because the Chicago newspaper market was one of the most competitive, cut-throat markets in the country, the Chicago Journal lost money. To reduce the losses James Scripps replaced George with Ralph as Publisher of the Chicago Journal. Ralph had some success in reversing the losses at the Journal and thereby earned stock in the newspaper. Mr. Scripps sold the Journal in 1905. The sale provided Ralph with the seed funds for his subsequent purchases of stock in the Michigan newspapers in Saginaw, Flint, and Jackson.

Note: The Scripps decision to sell the Chicago Journal was prompted by the entry into Chicago newspaper market of the Hearst newspapers with their aggressive price cutting promotion strategy.

Ralph courted and married (Myrtle) Mary Batterman (1879-1951) in Chicago in 1906.

In the book THE CRANBROOK FAMILY IN AMERICA on page 132 it states:
“… whereupon (following the sale of the Chicago Journal) he (Ralph) returned to Detroit to assume the presidency of the Detroit Tribune.” This is the book’s reason for Ralph relocating back to Detroit from Chicago. While it is true that James Scripps asked Ralph to return to Detroit following the sale of the Chicago Journal, a reassignment to head the morning (Detroit) Tribune was a small part of the story. The real reason was James Scripps desire to purchase the Detroit Free Press, the city’s oldest daily newspaper and dominant morning paper, and then merge it with the (Detroit) Tribune. This grand plan which would have given Ralph a significant role in the newspaper industry was dashed when the Scripps agreement to purchase the Free Press from it’s owners the Quinby family, was “stolen” from the Scripps interests by a very last minute topping offer from the Republican family of Senator James McMillan and their fellow Republican oligarchs, who were determined that this important paper not fall into the hands of the independent Scripps newspaper syndicate which had been very critical of the Michigan Republican oligarchy which heretofore controlled the state.

NOTE: The Detroit Free Press, which operated from the McMillan owned Transportation Building (a/k/a The Free press Building), remained under the control of the Senator James McMillan family until the newspaper was sold to Knight Newspapers in 1940.

James E. Scripps died on May 28, 1906.

Ralph and Mary Booth moved from Chicago to Detroit following their honeymoon in Egypt in late 1906. They took up residence in a large rented house at 975 East Jefferson. This historic house is located across the street from Christ Church Detroit and is known as the Thomas A. Parker House. John Lord Booth (Jack) was born in this house on June 13, 1907. Jack was baptized across the street at Christ Church Detroit.

QUESTIONS: WHAT DOES RALPH DO BETWEEN 1907 and 1911 when the family leaves for Germany for 2+ years? He has no regular employment other than occasional projects for the Detroit News. He never received a salary from the promised position of publisher of the morning Detroit Tribune. (This is further proof that the real reason for his relocation back to Detroit was the prospect and offer to become publisher of a Scripps owned Detroit Free Press into which the Scripps owned Detroit Tribune would then be merged. This never happened so the job offer expired.)

ON HIS OWN:

With the savings from his salary in Chicago and the sale of the Chicago Journal Ralph began purchasing shares in newspapers. From his personal account journals in 1905 he bought shares in the JACKSON CITIZEN PRESS. In 1906 and 1907 he bought stocks from Cameron Currie Company, a Chicago stock brokerage firm, and shares in PRESSED STEEL SANITARY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, in Windsor, Ontario. and Detroit, Michigan, makers of steel clad bathtubs and other bathroom and household items. Ralph’s investment in Pressed Steel is $3,500, a significant sum at the time. This company was owned by the Canadian branch of the Booth Family and managed by Ralph’s first Cousin Clarence H. Booth. Ralph received $5,130 in 1914 for these shares when this company was purchased by STUDEBAKER and became a key division in Studebaker’s automotive subsidiary of which Clarence Booth was made President. In 1908 Ralph bought stock in the MUSKEGON PUBLISHING COMPANY. In 1909 he bought shares in George Booth’s GRAND RAPIDS EVENING NEWS. In 1910 he bought shares in a SAGINAW newspaper, also shares in George Booth’s BAY CITY NEWS, and more shares the MUSKEGON PUBLISHING COMPANY. In 1911 Ralph continued to purchase shares in our state Michigan newspapers buying shares in FLINT and more shares in SAGINAW.

From Ralph’s journals in 1907 he drew a salary and dividends from the Jackson paper. In 1909 he began to draw a salary and dividends from Muskegon and received some dividends from the Grand Rapids Evening News. In 1910 Saginaw and Bay City paid dividends to Ralph, and dividends from the Flint newspaper were added in 1911.

The one Scripps assignment that survived the death of Ralph’s mentor, James E. Scripps, was Ralph’s position as a Vice President of the Associated Press in New York City. For this assignment Ralph continued to travel by overnight train between Detroit and New York.

In hindsight it seems clear that following his disappointment in not becoming publisher of a major metropolitan daily, Ralph developed a plan to create a chain of Michigan out state newspapers which would take advantage of his brother George’s control of newspapers in Grand Rapids and Bay City. To this end, Ralph built up his own, independent strong leadership and control positions in the daily newspapers of Jackson, Saginaw, Flint and Muskegon, in addition to owning minority shares in George’s Grand Rapids and Bay City newspapers. He also held bonds on at least one newspaper in Kalamazoo. In fact, the only Booth Newspaper market that Ralph later added to Booth Publishing in which he had no prior personal ownership was Ann Arbor.

All of these purchases and stock holdings were not sufficient in and of themselves to convince his older brother George to combine newspaper interests with his younger brother and allow Ralph to manage the combination. So, sometime in late 1910, or 1911, while negotiations with his brother to combine their newspapers were on going Ralph pushed his older brother by purchasing shares in the rival, smaller morning newspaper The Grand Rapids Herald. In Ralph’s journal in May, 1911, an entry is made that he received $625 interest on a $25,000 bond, presumably for the purchase of THE GRAND RAPIDS HERALD COMPANY. Ralph’s purchase of the smaller rival Grand Rapids newspaper in direct competition with the Grand Rapids Evening News did not please George. Rather than continue discussions for what had now become a source of major irritation to his older brother and possibly to let his older brother cool off and reconsider, Ralph decided to depart with his wife for an extended sabbatical in Europe, relocating to Berlin. Why Berlin?…. answer his wife, Mary.

Berlin Sabbatical: 2 ½ years… location: Adlon Hotel on Unter den Linden Str., Berlin.
1} Introduced to Professor Wilhelm von Bode, founding Director of the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and through Bode introduced to Bode’s assistant Wilhelm Valentiner
2} Sabbatical ends when George G Booth finally accepts Ralph’s proposal to merge their newspaper interests under Ralph’s operational management . Ralph returns to Detroit in late 1913. (I base this date on entries in Ralph’s cash journals which indicate that he obtained his first automobile in December 1913 and hired a chauffeur to drive and maintain this car).

In 1914 upon Ralph and Mary Booth return to the States, they rented rooms at the CHARLEVOIX HOTEL until November 1915. Thereafter Ralph and Mary rented a spacious suite of rooms in the GARDEN COURT APARTMENTS in the wing overlooking the River and Parke-Davis. The Garden Court still stands in Detroit at 2900 East Jefferson Avenue at the corner of East Jefferson Avenue and Joseph Campau Street. This was their residence until the completion of their house at 315 Washington Road in Grosse Pointe in 1921. It is from this apartment residence that Jack Booth attends Detroit University School and his sister Virginia attends the Liggett School in the Detroit neighborhood known as Indian Village.

Ralph’s cash journal indicate that he owned real estate in Grosse Pointe in addition to the property on Washington Road and several lots at the rear of the Washington Road property on Roosevelt Place. He considered building his residence in two different locations. His first choice was land and a residence near or adjacent to his brother George’s Cranbrook estate on Lone Pine Road in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This location would have placed the family near to the George Booth’s and Ralph’s parents Henry and Clara Booth, who lived with Ralph’s older brother Charles Martel Booth in the old Morris farmhouse on the Cranbrook property and very close to his Cousin Clarence H. Booth. When this house was nearly ready for occupancy, rags and paint cans inside the house combusted causing a fire, which destroyed the house. This accident, which Ralph believed was an omen, was the reason that Ralph decided to locate his new residence on the other side of town in Grosse Pointe. After his decision to build in Grosse Pointe, Ralph purchased several acres of lake front property in Grosse Pointe Shores at 635 Lake Shore Road. (Later this property was sold to Emory Clark, President and Chairman of the Board of the FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF DETROIT, who built a new beautiful and imposing brick Georgian mansion designed by Robert O. Derrick. In the 1960’s this mansion and estate was purchased by Benson Ford, and subsequently inherited by his daughter Lynn Alandt). At the time this property was owned by a widow who lived in a large arts and crafts stucco house facing the lake. However, after the sale the widow having extreme seller’s remorse played on Ralph’s sympathies to agree to unwind the sale. Thereafter, construction commenced at 315 Washington Road in 1920 with completion a year later, and the Family moved in.

During construction Ralph traveled to Europe with Mary on his first art buying trip for the new planned Detroit Institute of Arts. During this trip Ralph purchased paneled rooms, fireplace surrounds, architectural stone doorways and many other items of architectural salvage to fit into his new residence. Many of these house fittings were purchased from Roberson’s Ltd. of Knightsbridge in London, England. Later Ralph was offered and accepted a position on the Board of Directors of this firm, which had become the major dealer in period architectural salvage in London. This firm’s reputation was such that Duveen Brothers in the late 1920’s seriously entertained the offer of a merger of the two firms to further entrench their combined positions as the leading purveyor of period European furnishings the newly wealthy. Many of the architectural elements that are literally strewn around the Cranbrook Educational campus, Christ Church Cranbrook, Cranbrook House, Ralph Booth’s House at 315 Washington Road in Grosse Pointe, and the Detroit Institute of Arts (especially the galleries surrounding the Kresge Court) are believed to have been purchased by Ralph Booth from Roberson’s. Ralph was also responsible as a Director of Roberson’s for introducing Edsel and Eleanor Ford to this firm for the furnishing of several period paneled rooms in their primary residence, “Gaukler Point”, Grosse Pointe, now known as The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House at 1100 Lake Shore Road in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.

See MOVING ROOMS, THE TRADE IN ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE by John Harris, 2007, Yale University Press, published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. John Harris was the Curator Emeritus of the Drawing Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

NOTE: Roberson’s LTD. during the great depression went out of business, but much of it’s remaining stock was purchased by Thomas Crowther and Son of Fulham, UK, thereby taking Roberson’s place as London’s leading supplier of period rooms and architectural salvage. Many of the later large estates in Grosse Pointe, including houses owned or built by Henry Ford II, Benson Ford, and William Clay Ford, were fitted with period paneled rooms from T. Crowther and Sons, the successor company during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Booth Publishing Company formed and announced mid-October 1914:
Chairman: George G Booth (largest stock holder …40%)
President: Ralph H. Booth (second largest stock holder ….25%)
First Vice President: EDMUND W. BOOTH {Publisher of the Grand Rapids News (later Press)}
Treasurer: CLARENCE H. BOOTH, (first) Cousin Clarence

The first offices of Booth Publishing Company were located in the 23 story Dime Bank Building, designed by Daniel Burnham of Chicago, it opened in 1912 at 645 Griswold Street at the corner of West Fort Street. The building was renovated in 2002 and renamed the Chrysler House. Ralph Booth’s office was located here in 1915.
The corporate offices of Booth Publishing relocated to the 26 story Buhl Building at the corner of Griswold and West Congress when that building opened in 1925. The office at 2500 Buhl Building occupied the west and south facing wings of the building and were elaborately decorated. Ralph Booth’s personal office was fitted with exquisite oak linen fold paneling and a false limestone fireplace with the Booth family of England’s three boar coat of arms carved in a special panel above the fireplace. The office suite also included offices for George Booth and Ralph H. Bastien, who was the corporate Secretary and succeeded Ralph Booth upon his death as President of Booth Publishing. The fine art collection of Booth Newspapers, later donated to various Booth Newspaper cities, was displayed in these headquarters. In Ralph’s office were also displayed items from his personal art collection including a large Greco-roman white marble partial sculpture of a nude male torso, later donated to the Detroit Institute of Art.

NOTE: Ralph Booth’s personal office in the Buhl Building, which was located in the wing facing south toward Canada, complete with all of its oak paneling, fireplace and wrought iron wall sconces was later rented by the estate of Anna Thompson Dodge and remained in place at least until the 1980’s.

DETROIT MUSEUM of ART
George Booth in 1914 resigned as member of the Executive Committee of the Detroit Museum of Art, and Ralph Booth was appointed as his brother and the “family’s” successor representative on the Executive Committee as Vice President under Dexter Mason Ferry as President (In 1918, D. M. Ferry resigned, and Ralph Booth succeeded him as President of the DMA).
Ralph Booth was the last President of the DMA, a position he retained until the assets of the DMA were formally transferred to the DIA in 1927.

DETROIT ATHELETIC CLUB, 1915: Ralph Booth was first head of the Art Committee in charge of selecting and purchasing art for the club, and worked with ALBERT KAHN, the architect of the new club building.… This was Ralph’s and Albert’s first collaboration on a civic project.

NOTE: ALBERT KAHN’s friendship and working relationship with the Booth family. Albert Kahn was the architect of the following Booth family commissions:
Designs and builds a carriage house for George G Booth’s residence on
Trumbull Avenue in Detroit. This was Albert Kahn’s first architectural commission after leaving his association with Mason and Rice.
2. Designs Cranbrook House, its service buildings, water tower, and tower cottage, (1908)
3. Designed the Detroit News Building (1915)
Designed virtually all of the Booth Newspapers buildings, both plant and offices
Conclusion: The Booths were perhaps Albert Kahn’s first big client. The families were close friends and colleagues which is why Ralph Booth and Albert Kahn worked so well together on both the DAC (1915) and DIA (1919-1927) projects. Albert Kahn only ceased to be the Booth family architect when his ever increasing assignments for Henry Ford forced him to reduce his client list.
Note: The New York art collector Lydia Kahn Winston-Malbin, daughter of Albert Kahn, once told John L Booth II that she fondly remembered playing with Henry Scripps Booth as children in her parent’s drawing room while her father and George Booth discussed plans.

In many ways the collaboration of Ralph Booth and Albert Kahn on the building and furnishing of the Detroit Athletic Club in 1915, was the precursor of their collaboration on the Arts Commission for the building and furnishing of the Detroit Institute of Arts from 1919 to 1927. Indeed, Ralph’s first choice for his Detroit Arts Commission was Albert Kahn. Ralph asked Albert Kahn if he would accept the assignment of architect for the new museum building. When Albert Kahn declined the assignment stating that he thought it might lead to a conflict of interest as a voting commissioner, it was Albert Kahn who recommended Paul Cret for the DIA assignment, citing his admiration for the Palladian design of Cret’s Pan-American Building Union Building in Washington, D.C. , 1910, as a favorite design and possibly suitable design for the new Detroit Institute of Arts. On Kahn’s recommendation Ralph Booth interviewed Paul Cret in the architect’s office with his young son Jack in attendance and hired him as architect for the new museum building after the interview and lunch. The DIA’s front entrance on Woodward is largely derived from the Cret design for the front elevation of the Pan-American Union Building.
NOTE: Because Albert Kahn so admired the Cret Pan-American Union Building, Kahn used this design in his own practice, adapting it for the design of the William Clements Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

CITY OF DETROIT 1918 CHARTER: This new city charter passed by the voters completely revised city governance. It did away with ward and alderman process for electing a city council which then voted to elect a Mayor and substituting a directly elected city-wide Common Council and a separate, directly elected Mayor. The new charter also included a provision for a new City of Detroit Arts Commission whose brief was to construct a new museum to house a city owned collection made up of newly acquired art and the transfer of the heretofore privately owned collection of the Detroit Museum of Art to this new city owned, public museum. Ralph Booth was appointed by the mayor President of the Arts Commission and charged with the responsibility of choosing four arts commissioners, raising the funds to finance and constructing a new museum on Woodward Avenue facing the Public Library, acquiring a collection of fine and decorative arts worthy of a major new public museum, hiring a professional staff appropriate for a major public museum, and finally transferring the collection of the DMA to the new museum and incorporating it with the new museum acquisitions. The scope of this assignment was huge. This civic responsibility, which Ralph willingly assumed and for which he lobbied city government, wore him down physically and probably shortened his life.

1919-1920

1. Ralph Booth worked to secure funding for the construction of the DIA. Initially, the city only committed to enough funding to construct the foundation of the new museum, leaving Ralph to convince and promise the contractors Bryant Detwiller that sufficient additional public and private monies would be raised to complete the building. Of course, it helped that his wife Mary and Mrs. Detwiller had become best friends.
2. He and Mary began work on the construction of 315 Washington Road
   Note: a large two-story wing was later planned, and architectural blueprints drafted for a major addition to 315 Washington Road. The plans which are now in the Cranbrook Archives indicate a two-story art gallery running the length of the wing which was to be connected at right angles to the east end of the main house, off the former music room, the running along the terrace almost to Roosevelt Place at the rear of the property. Had this addition been constructed it would have added at least 50% more additional square footage to a house which in 2022 even without the wing is the largest surviving residence in the City of Grosse Pointe. There are several obvious reasons for why this addition was never built. One reason is timing, because the date on the plans is 1928! Ralph Booth lost a significant amount of money in the stock market, banking and real estate crash of 1929. Other reasons are his decision to accept the Danish ambassadorship in 1930 and his early death in June 1931.
3. Ralph purchased paneling for his house in1920, and paneling and architectural elements for the DIA and others from Roberson’s LTD. in Knightsbridge

1921-1928
Ralph spends every summer in Europe purchasing the DIA “permanent” collection.
NOTE: Virtually all of the major art acquisitions from 1920 to 1927 that became known as the City (Permanent) Collection and which thereby became city assets were purchased and paid for by Ralph Harman Booth personally. The procedure was for Ralph Booth to visit and consult with major European art dealers during his summers in Europe. Ralph was allocated several hundred thousand dollars each year by Detroit City Council for the purchase of art for the new museum, but these funds were for reimbursing his personal purchases if and only if the Arts Commission approved the acquisition. In addition, Ralph’s annual purchases routinely exceeded the commission’s public funding for acquisitions. To supplement the specific art acquisition funds, Ralph tried to include as many acquisitions as possible as fixtures for the new building and therefore part of the construction cost. For the remaining funds Ralph solicited his friends and family.

Indeed the Scripps/Booth Clan figures prominently as donors of art purchased by Ralph and subsequently for reimbursement to Ralph. In addition, some of Ralph’s purchases were resold to George G. Booth for inclusion in the growing Cranbrook art collection which was later displayed in the Cranbrook Art Museum until much of it was sold in the 1970’s to supplement the endowment of the Cranbrook schools. The story that Ralph Booth’s art advisor and first director of the Detroit Institute of Arts Wilhelm R. Valentiner was the person responsible for assembling the DIA’s permanent collection from 1920 to 1927 is at best…fiction. Valentiner never had the personal funds or access to the public funds necessary to make anything other than very small purchases. As Prof. Bode’s former chief assistant at the Kaiser Freidrich Museum and the man whom Professor Bode literally assigned to Ralph Booth and Detroit while Ralph was visiting Berlin in 1920, Valentiner’s assignment was really to make the dealer introductions for Ralph Booth and possibly to advise him on his purchase of old master, northern European and Italian renaissance art, in addition to promoting Valentiner’s own special interest in contemporary German expressionist art. So in summary, the DIA permanent collection acquired in the 1920’s is really a dealer curated collection purchased by Ralph Booth with the consent of his art commissioners and Valentiner voting as a commission to accept Ralph’s annual purchases for reimbursement up to the amount voted by city council. To make this point, one of Ralph’s most famous acquisitions at public auction in New York in early 1922, the Van Gogh self portrait “Man in a Straw Hat”, was hotly debated for some time by the arts commissioners when it came up for an acquisition vote and nearly turned down. Had the arts commission vote gone the other way, the picture would have remained in Ralph’s personal art collection and been returned to his home in Grosse Pointe from whence it came.

OBSERVATION …FAST FORWARD: Role of DIA collection as city asset bargaining chip with creditors to secure agreement of city creditors to the bankruptcy settlement. Detroit filed for bankruptcy on July 18, 2013. The City exited bankruptcy on Dec. 10, 2014.

Grand Bargain $820M: A critical component of Detroit’s plan to exit bankruptcy in December 2014 was coined the “Grand Bargain”. Its goals were to prohibit the sale of artwork from the city-owned Detroit Institute of Arts (D.I.A.) to pay off the city’s massive debt, to preserve city pensions, and to satisfy creditors. See….. Detroit’s Grand Bargain, Philanthropy as a Catalyst for a Brighter Future”, A Case Study of The Irene Hirano Inouye Philanthropic Leadership Fund, by James M. Ferris, June 2017:
To summarize, U.S. Chief District Judge Gerald Rosen, who was appointed to mediate creditors’ claims by Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes proposed to a series of major Michigan Charitable Foundations: principally Kellogg, Kresge, Skillman, and the Community Foundation of South East Michigan, plus The Ford Foundation in NYC together raise enough money by leveraging the value of the city owned art collection at the DIA to satisfy creditors claims. In the end it was the discounted value of the DIA art collection which was heavily weighted by the current market value of the artwork purchased by Ralph Booth for the city which really saved the day for the city bankruptcy. The threat of potentially having to liquidate the DIA’s art collection was the catalyst for raising $370M from the Foundations with the largest amount provided by the Ford Foundation. This amount was matched by The State of Michigan $350M and with the DIA membership and donors providing $100M making up the total cash settlement to creditors of $820M. Once the creditor committee accepted this offer, the City of Detroit was able to exit Bankruptcy Court.

Following the resignation in 1922 of Senator Truman Newberry from the U S Senate in settlement of charges and litigation brought by Henry Ford, his opponent in the 1918 election for allegedly violating the campaign financing laws, Ralph Booth was asked by Michigan Governor Groesbeck to accept the partial term appointment of Senator for Michigan. Ralph officially declined the offer of a U. S. Senatorship in a letter to the Governor. The refusal letter was published in the Detroit newspapers on Nov. 27,1922. Thereafter, this offer of U. S. Senatorship for Michigan was next made to James Couzens, former Treasurer of Ford Motor Company, and accepted.

THE DETROIT NEWS, November 27,1922
RALPH H. BOOTH PUTS ASIDE SENATORSHIP
“Ralph H. Booth, president of the Detroit Art Commission, and head of Booth Publishing Co., who had been offered appointment by Gov. Alex J. Groesbeck to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate (following Senator Truman Newberry’s resignation), yesterday sent the following letter to the Governor declining the place.”
Nov. 27,1922
To Gov. Alex J. Groesbeck, Lansing, Mich.:
My Dear Gov. Groesbeck: the high importance attaching to the appointment of a United States Senator at this time makes me deeply appreciative of the consideration given to me in this connection.
Since our conference of last Saturday, I have given to this subject most careful and, I believe, patriotic consideration. Each of us who feel the high responsibility of citizenship should have an important duty to perform, and the deep consideration of my friends and associates with myself has resulted in the belief that I should continue to serve through the intimate direction of the eight newspapers published by the company of which I am president. Indeed, I feel a pride in the thought that in this highly important time in the history of our country newspapers which are conscientiously independent have an almost unlimited opportunity for service.
Another thing which may not be broadly understood, but to which I attach some importance, gives the service I am endeavoring to render to the City of Detroit in the capacity of president of the Arts Commission, for I sincerely believe that only through the development of the finer things in our midst can we reach true greatness, and in a large measure it is in these finer things, music, literature, and the fine arts, that make for a better and more contented type of citizenship.
May I, therefore, request you to permit me to withdraw my name from your further thought in determining to whom shall go the high honor of representing Michigan in the Senate of the United States.
Please accept my deep appreciation of your distinguished consideration.
Respectfully and sincerely yours,
RALPH H. BOOTH

1926-1930
This period requires more study, but it is my belief that this is the period in which Ralph expressed interest to Cousin Clarence in partnering with Clarence Booth in a series of real estate development projects which culminate in Clarence’s grand Riverside Drive project which was never realized and finally abandon during the 1930’s. This project involved the redevelopment of the shoreline of the Detroit River from the area known as Grayhaven to the mouth of the Fox Creek on the border of Grosse Pointe Park and the City of Detroit. The center piece and landmark of this development was to be huge 30 to 40 story luxury apartment tower overlooking an expansive private marina to be constructed on the shore of the Detroit River roughly a mile west of windmill point, to be known as 9600 Riverside Drive Detroit. The entire development ran along a new drive, never constructed, to be called Riverside Drive, and extended inland, back to a street parallel to the river renamed Scripps St., which does exist.

MINISTER TO DENMARK May 1930-June 1931:
President Herbert Hoover appointed Ralph Booth (United States) Minister to Denmark in May 1930, and Ralph accepted.
Ralph and family arrived in Copenhagen in late June or July, 1930.
Ralph was not well when he accepted the appointment, suffering from the effects of two previous heart attacks and possibly suffering from congestive heart failure. He apparently was frequently short of breath and energy.
Ralph’s health deteriorated through the Fall of 1930, and in January 1931, he was admitted to a clinic in Germany where he remained while his wife Mary and daughter Virginia traveled to London for the honor of Virginia being presented at the Court of St. James to their majesties.
In Spring 1931, Ralph attended the weddings in Copenhagen at the English Church of both daughter Virginia to William Dickerman Vogel on March 4th, 1931, and son John Lord Booth to Winifred May Wessel (Booth) on April 25th, 1931. Because the weddings were for the two children of the U S Minister to Denmark, the King and Queen of Denmark attended.
In May or June 1931, Ralph was hospitalized and died on June 20, 1931, in Badgastein, Salzburg, Austria, from pneumonia while undergoing treatment for his heart condition.

NOTE: Ralph’s life span (58 years) and health were compromised by scarlet fever at an early age. His older brother Edmund, who also contracted scarlet fever at the same time as Ralph and was similarly compromised, had a similarly short life (61 years) and died four years prior to Ralph. It is my belief that Ralph’s love of mountain climbing and hiking were activities he chose to strengthen his heart and lungs.

Ralph Booth’s Art Mentors and Advisers:

Ralph Booth first purchase of an artwork was a Whistler etching, which he purchased as a teenager, as a birthday gift for his mother. In Ralph’s business or “cash journals” which he started keeping after relocating to Chicago, there are numerous entries for the years from 1897 to 1906 and beyond for the purchase of etchings, prints, pictures and sculpture for himself, many of which he subsequently sold for a profit. Thus, for ten years before moving back to Detroit Ralph was trading in artwork and learning the art market. Ralph also dabbled in the gemstone market, buying and selling or trading small diamonds with savings from his newspaper salary. From an early age he demonstrated an interest in learning about the art market, including purchasing at auction at Anderson Art Company as early as 1899. In December, 1915, Ralph gifts “The Mountain Man “by Frederick Remington to the Detroit Athletic Club, for which he pays $300. On his own Ralph purchases several sculptures by Paul Troubetzkoy directly from the sculptor in 1916.

In my opinion the two men who mentored and most influenced Ralph Booth in his collecting of art both for public institutions and for himself and members of the Scripps/Booth Clan were:
#1 PROFESSOR WILHELM VON BODE (1845-1929) Ralph meets Bode during his residency in Berlin from 1911 -1913, and
#2 RENÉ GIMPEL (1881-1945) Ralph is introduced to René Gimpel of Paris probably by the art dealer Howard Young and/or, possibly, Jacques Seligman around 1920.

Ralph’s first art dealer association is with the PAUL REINHARDT of the Henry Reinhardt Galleries in NYC as early as May 1900. From this gallery Ralph purchased pictures for himself and for the DAC, such as the Landsdowne portrait of George Washington in the lobby of The Detroit Athletic Club, attributed to Gilbert Stuart (This picture is an incomplete version of the famous Landsdowne portrait of which Gilbert Stuart painted several copies. The picture was later completed possibly by Gilbert Stuart’s daughter). NOTE: The Henry Reinhardt and Son gallery on Fifth Avenue sold pictures sent to them primarily by Parisian art galleries on consignment for sale to Americans.
Note: Paul Reinhardt was the agent bidder on behalf of Ralph Booth at the Kelekian public auction at Anderson Galleries of pictures for this dealer’s stock inventory in January 1922. The auction items included the Van Gogh self-portrait, “Man in a Straw Hat” and the Matisse, “Open Window”, both of which are now in the permanent collection of The Detroit Institute of Arts. However, it is my belief that the people who brought this sale to Ralph’s attention were René Gimpel and Howard Young, based on the fact that Gimpel was an early champion dealer for Matisse and also admired Van Gogh.

(S.) HOWARD YOUNG (1878-1972) New York City art dealer with an art gallery in the Hotel Pierre on Fifth Avenue. Howard Young was the Grand Uncle of Elizabeth Taylor and partner with Elizabeth Taylor’s father, Frank Taylor, who opened a branch gallery in London and later Beverly Hills, CA ( where Frank’s daughter the actress Elizabeth Taylor was “discovered”). Howard Young, as he was known, specialized in selling pictures by recognized French impressionist and modern pictures. He was clearly in contact with and probably a colleague of René Gimpel.

JACQUES SELIGMANN (1858-1923) New York City and Paris antiquarian art dealer specializing in classical sculpture…. (Partners with René Gimpel)

C.T. Loo (Ching Tsai Loo) (1880-1957) New York City and Paris, art dealer specializing in Chinese art.

Julius (Wilhelm) Böhler (1883-1966): in Munich and Lucerne: specialist in German Old Master pictures from the middle ages forward, purveyors of art to the Royal Prussian Court Collection (curated by Prof. Wilhelm von Bode).

Paul Bottonweiser, Berlin: art dealer in Old master German and Flemish art (from whom Ralph Booth purchased the great Van Eyck of St. Jerome in his study in the collection of the DIA)

RENÉ GIMPEL (1881-1945, died in Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg): third generation Alsatian /Parisian art dealer in fine pictures. Brother-in- law to Joseph Duveen and associate of Jacques Seligman. Gimpel visited Detroit on numerous occasions and scheduled group dinners downtown with M/M Ralph Booth, M/M George Booth, M/M Edgar Whitcomb and M/M Edsel Ford, and Mrs. Juliuis Haas as described in Gimpel’s published memoirs.

SEE: René Gimpel, DIARY OF AN ART DEALER, 1966, translated into English by John Rosenberg, Lib of Cong. #66-20172:…. contains numerous references to Ralph Booth and the Detroit Museum and recounts trips with his “good friend” Ralph Booth to dealers.
Quote from Gimpel’s diary
Entry for February 19, 1927;
“This afternoon Ralph Booth showed me (Gimpel) the new (unfinished) building that will be inaugurated in October (1927). It’s a palace. Without Ralph, this city would possibly have to wait fifty years for a museum. He found the $5 million required, obtained from the local authorities (and private donors), but he has been working on it for twenty years. What perseverance!”

René Gimpel had a low estimation of the DIA Director Valentiner’s aesthetic eye;
Gimpel’s entry for 1924 reads
The Gagarine Rembrandt:
“He (Gagarine, the art dealer) is asking $130,000 for it. The paint has peeled in many places; the wooden panel on which it is painted is full of knots. And is it by Rembrandt? I strongly doubt it. In fact, I don’t believe it. “There is a follow-on footnote that this picture was bought in Detroit in 1929, authenticated by Valentiner. I’ve seen it again. I don’t believe in it.” This picture was subsequently removed from the galleries at the DIA and judged not to be a Rembrandt.

From Gimpel’s Diary the following comment on Dr Wm. Valentiner:
Pg. 319 February 3, 1927:
“In Detroit, the museum is making considerable efforts to expand. In two or three years a wealthy collector will be found on every street corner. Unfortunately, Dr. Valentiner has such bad taste, and he is the chief adviser!”
Pg. 352 November 30,1927:
“The American collector is prey to the hugest swindle the world has ever seen: the certified swindle. Thirty years ago the Americans bought so many fake pictures that eventually he wanted authentication; expressly for him, experts were created and promoted….. The Detroit museum also has a fake marble bust bought by that deplorable expert Valentiner.”

NOTE: While Ralph Booth was in regular communications with Dr Valentiner regarding Ralph’s visits to art dealers from the time Valentiner commenced his consultancy with the Detroit art museum until Ralph resigned as art commissioner to accept his ambassadorship, he and his wife Mary only rarely if ever traveled together with Dr. Valentiner in Europe or stateside. There is virtual no correspondence which exists between Ralph Booth and Valentiner. My assumption is that any communication between Ralph Booth and Dr. Valentiner probably was by telegrams which are lost.

Note: Ralph Booth expressed an interest in collecting art at an early age. As a teenager, he is reported in family history as having purchased a Whistler etching as a birthday gift for his mother. As a young man he collected Whistler etchings and prints, pictures by Anders Zorn, and bronze sculpture by American sculptor Gutzon Borglum and collected a large group of western art bronzes together with his brother George (donated to the DMA/ DIA). His early collections of Whistler and Zorn were sold prior to relocating to Detroit. Ralph spent much time while living in Chicago at the Chicago Athletic Club and the Chicago Union League Club, which displayed a large donated collection of pictures and bronzes including an early Monet. Without question this club experience was Ralph’s frame of reference for the art collection which he purchased for the Detroit Athletic Club in 1915/1916 as head of the club’s art committee.

OBSERVATION: Two Rival Art Dealer Syndicates

Reviewing Ralph’s interaction with various art dealers and galleries, it appears that once he was charged with purchasing art to fill the new museum on Woodward Avenue with an encyclopedic variety of significant and representative art, both old masters and contemporary, Ralph branched out and was more than likely introduced to European based art dealers who worked together in loose syndicates of like dealers. These introductions could have been made by 1) Paul Reinhardt, who sold inventory for a number of particularly Parisian art dealers, 2) Howard Young, who had contacts in both Paris and London, and 3) Jacques Seligman, who was directly associated with René Gimpel.

Here is my take on the two, competitive and very much rival art dealer syndicates or networks:
NORTHERN Syn.
CHIEF: Prof. Bode
Account Agent or Representative: William R. Valentiner
Dealers: Paul Bottonweiser, Julius Böhler
Adviser: Bernard Berenson

SOUTHERN Syn.
CHIEF: René Gimpel
Dealers: Howard Young, Jacques Seligman, Duveen Bros., possibly Thannhauser in Lucerne

These two syndicates or network were bitter rivals. René Gimpel especially had nothing nice or complementary to say about Valentiner. In particular, these “southern” and mostly French dealers were biased against “German” or northern European art including Dutch old masters. They were also anti-German in general. Note: Gimpel in particular coming from Alsace held a grudge against the Germans for occupying his homeland and for WW1. During WWII Gimpel appeared to collaborate with the Nazi and was allowed to remain in Paris while providing information to the German authorities on matters relating to fine art. At the same time Gimpel was very active in the French underground and resistance. When Gimpel’s involvement with the French underground came to light late in the war, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp where he died in 1945 just before liberation.

Ralph Booth also created an art collection for the central office of Booth Newspapers, located on the 25th Floor of the Buhl Building in downtown Detroit. This corporate collection of 18th and 19th century picture was later distributed and donated to art museums amongst Booth Newspaper towns: Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, and Muskegeon.

Ralph H. Booth’s other business interests:

Principal investor and member of the founding Board of Directors of The Union Guardian Bank Group, headquartered in the Union Guardian Building in downtown Detroit. This bank holding company, the second largest in Michigan in 1928, entered Federal receivership in February 1933. The closing of this bank by order of the Governor of Michigan on Valentine’s Day 1933, triggered the immediate collapse of the First National Bank of Detroit, the state’s largest bank holding company. Together these two bank failures led to the closing of all banks in Michigan, which led directly to the great national bank closings and the start of The Great Depression, thereby creating a national financial crisis which prompted Roosevelt’s financial rescue plan known as “THE FIRST 100 DAYS” beginning when FDR took the oath of office in March 1933. Because of his involvement as a director of this Bank, Ralph along with his fellow directors was held to be doubly liable to the depositors. (Ralph’s investment in this bank was between $500,000 and $1M dollars, so his liability to the Bank regulators was double this amount).

Note: Ralph was probably an investor and may have been on the Board of Directors of the (Detroit) Guaranty Trust Company. This Trust Company, which also failed in 1933, was the original corporate trustee of the Ralph H. Booth Trust. Following the Trust Company being declared insolvent in 1933, Detroit Bank and Trust (later Comerica) purchased assets of the Trust Company including the Ralph H. Booth Trust. This is how Comerica became corporate trustee of this family trust. The headquarters of the Guaranty Trust Company were located in a building constructed for them sited on Griswold Street and now known as the Grand Trunk Railroad Building, which overlooks Campus Martius and was once at the rear of Old City Hall.

Ralph Booth’s outdoor recreational activities: Mountain Climbing, Hiking, Ballooning, Trout Fishing (Pere Marquette Rod and Gun Club on four miles of the Pere Marquette River, near Baldwin, Michigan.)
*In June 1899, Ralph became the youngest man to complete an ascent of the most dangerous elevation of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe.
* The following year, 1900, Ralph attempted an ascent of Mt. Rainier, the highest mountain in the lower continental United States. This ascent was unsuccessful as Ralph fell down a deep ice crevasse. His guide abandoned him assuming that he had died in the fall. The manager of the hotel at which Ralph was staying sent a telegram to his parents informing them of the death of their son. However, Ralph was able using his ice ax to pull himself out of the crevasse and sent his own later telegram from the same hotel informing his parents of his survival and asking them to meet him in the lobby of the hotel.

What is known of Ralph’s ballooning adventures are as follows:
Prior to World War I in 1913 he ballooned over the alps and upon landing in Austria, having crossed the border, he was arrested as a possible spy for having flown over or near Austrian military installations
He ballooned over Paris and the Eiffel Tower with his wife and two children waving to him from below.