| In preparing to write the novel Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis came to Kansas City twice in 1926. His original plan was to conduct research in Detroit with Pastor William L. Stidger. Lewis's letter to Stidger was automatically forwarded to the pastor's new address, Kansas City, Missouri, which then became the research center. During the first visit, in January, he relied on Stidger, pastor of Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church. Lewis stayed at Stidger's home, worked out of his office, and planned to use him as his technical advisor. In this capacity, Stidger introduced Lewis to a group of pastors who would later be called Sinclair Lewis's "Sunday School Class" as well as his "laboratory."; At his first meeting with this group, Sinclair Lewis met and immediately struck up a friendship with the pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church, Leon M. Birkhead, and by the time Lewis left the city following his first visit, he had decided to work with Birkhead instead of Stidger. When the author returned to Kansas City in April, he stayed at Birkhead's house, abandoning Stidger. Lewis met weekly with these and other pastors, ostensibly to learn more about the pastorate.; Since the fruit of Lewis's research, the fictional novel Elmer Gantry, portrays preachers as frauds, many have assumed that the pastors in Kansas City were charlatans. This study is an attempt to correct such an assumption by examining the lives of some of the ministers Lewis met in Kansas city, including William L. Stidger, Leon M. Birkhead, Burris Jenkins, Earl Blackman, I. M. Hargett, and Bert Fiske.; Part of the reason these pastors were misrepresented in the novel was due to Lewis's research methodology, which will also be examined here. Instead of observing unobtrusively and recording facts with journalistic integrity, as he had done in earlier works, Lewis spent much of his time in Kansas City talking, preaching, and working to promote himself. The resulting fiction was therefore based less upon reality and contained more imaginary material. |
