MARQUISJAMES

Although Marquis James was born in Springfield, MO, he made Enid, Oklahoma, and the old Cherokee Strip, famous. His parents were Rachel Marquis and Houstin (sic) James, a �fifth or six cousin of Jesse James.� His father, a Civil War veteran and attorney who represented many desperate characters on the edge of the law, participated in the Land Run of 1893, staking a claim near what would become Enid. Growing up in a frontier town and meeting the characters from his father�s practice, such as Dick Yeager, Bill Doolin, and Jack Dalton, was a young boy�s dream. These early experiences formed the basis for his later, and perhaps most famous book, The Cherokee Strip.

His mother taught Marquis to read at the age of four and he spent hours devouring the books in his own family library and later at the Enid Public Library. History was his favorite subject, but math and grammar were beyond him. In 1940 �Markey,� as he was known, wrote, �When I add a column of figures and get the correct answer it is purely an accident and I am sure I could not name the eight parts of speech, let alone define them.� He graduated in 1909 from Enid High School, where he helped found the school publication The Quit!, and began college at Oklahoma Christian (later Phillips) University. The unexpected death of his father, and subsequent need to work to help his mother, cut short his college studies, but launched his most remarkable writing career.

At the advice of one of his newspaper employers, James set out at the age of twenty, as an itinerant reporter. He soon found jobs working on papers in cities such as Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. This was great training. James not only honed his newspaper skills, but also supplemented his income by turning out detective stories for pulp magazines. In 1914, while working on the New Orleans Item, he met and married Bessie Rowland. Soon the couple were both working on different newspapers in New York. In 1924, their daughter, Cynthia, was born.

With the US entry into World War I, James enlisted and fought in France. He left the Army as a Captain returning to New York. Soon he landed a job as the national director of publicity for the American Legion. It was in this position that James began writing a series of biographical sketches that were both historically accurate and entertaining to read. His first literary project was a biography of Sam Houston. James had met Sam�s son, Temple, while a child and the younger Houston had planted a seed in the boy�s mind that now began to sprout. Temple had Left Texas for Indian Territory because he had killed a man. In 1929, he published his study of Houston, entitled The Raven. This won him his first Pulitzer Prize in 1930. This encouraged him to tackle a more substantial work, the life of Andrew Jackson. The two volume work, The Border Captain and Portrait of a President, was completed after seven years and in 1938 he again won the Pulitzer Prize. This remains one of the most popular studies of the life of Andrew Jackson.

James desired to write good history with interesting, exciting, and readable prose. He disliked the fact that so much of history was written in a pedantic and stilted manner. One of the most well-known Jacksonian scholars, Robert V. Remini, described James�s style, �It is a pulsating, full-blooded, vivid, and durable account of a heroic life written with imagination, enormous narrative power, and distinctive and absorbing style.� Yet Remini also believed James treated both Houston and Jackson in a one-dimensional manner. He wrote, �The biographies of Houston and Jackson succeeded because they were splendid action pieces and little more.�

James was aware of his shortcomings. Because of his youthful experiences in the Old West, the intense nature of newspaper stories, coupled with his writing of bloodcurdling mystery stories, James was a man who admittedly loved action and wrote to grab the attention of the reader. He wrote that, �all my subjects so far have been men of action. When I feel capable of doing a man of thought. . . I want to tackle Jefferson and possibly Franklin: He never would write that book. To keep himself going financially, he wrote many magazine articles and radio scripts.

In 1940, he began to write the histories of businesses. These paid well and over the next twelve years he wrote: Biography of a Business, 1791-1942: A History of the Insurance Company of North America (1942); The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (1947); The Texaco Story (1953); and Biography of a Bank: A History of the Bank of America, with B.R. James (1954). ALthough James has been criticized for becoming a �pen for hire,� he always stipulated in his contracts that he would write what he found. He would have the final say in what was printed with his name attached. He was not simply writing a favorable review of the business, but serious history.

We are not sure exactly when James began writing what would be his autobiography - - The Cherokee Strip. Apparently one day his daughter, Cynthia, asked why he did not write down the stories he told her about �the old days� in the Cherokee Strip. She found these much more interesting than his usual subject matter. These were the stories about the most famous outlaw in the Strip, Dick Yeager, the yarns spun by the old buffalo hunter, Mr. Howell, who probably awakened the story-telling part of James�s makeup, and the adventures and misadventures of his father�s business ventures. Also fascinating is the �railroad war� between North and South Enid, and the adolescent happenings of the �Gang at Waumpie Washburn�s� pool hall. According to the forward by William W. Savage, Jr., James had a detailed manuscript already written by 1934. The book, however, would not be published until 1945.

In 1952, James and his first wife, Bessie, divorced. Subsequently, in January, 1954, he married Jacqueline Parsons in Rye, NY. During his last years, he became interested in race relations. He was working on a biography of Booker T. Washington, with his wife Jacqueline, when he suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1955 at the age of sixty-four.

Dr. Paul S. Vickery is an assistant Professor of History at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Dr. Vickery portrayed politzer prize winning author Marquis James at a Waller assembly on February 26, 2001. Marquis James who graduated in 1909 from Enid High School is best known for his 1945 book "The Cherokee Strip" and his politzer prize winning books on "The Life of Andrew Jackson."

Annotated Bibliography for
Marquis James

Primary Sources:
Marquis James has written and published millions of words as he wrote for magazines, newspapers, and radio programs. His major books, and those that are most appropriate for students are:

James, Marquis. The Cherokee Strip: A Tale of an Oklahoma Boyhood. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. First published in 1945. This is a book that every child in Oklahoma ought to read. It is not only great history about the early days in Enid, Oklahoma, but also great stories of outlaws, cowboys, and youthful adventures. This is his only book still in print.

The Life of Andrew Jackson. New York: Bobbs - Merrill 1938.

This book is composed of two books. The first entitled The Border Captain, covers the early Fife of Andrew Jackson up to the election of 1824. The second volume, subtitled Portrait of a President, was published in 1937. It won James�s second Pulitzer Prize in 1938. In 1935, he and his wife, Bessie Rowiand James published The Courageous Heart, a book about Jackson written for juveniles.

The Raven: The Life of Sam Houston. New York: Bobbs - Merrill, 1928. This work won James the first Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1930. He and his wife Bessie Rowland James Collaborated on a children�s book about Houston, entitled Six feet Six, published in 1931.

They Had Their Hour.. New York: Bobbs - - Merrill, 1934. This is a series of short stories about famous and not-so-famous people and the historical events that Happened to them. It too is a great book for high school aged students arid makes for great reading.