The Man of the Hour

1905. In the 1890s, one of the most well-known popular magazine contributors signed her stories and essays Octave Thanet, the pseudonym used by Iowan, Alice French. The Man of the Hour begins: In the early eighties Fairport considered herself a city; but she was, in fact, an overgrown, delightful town sprawling among the low hills of the Mississippi Valley. Near enough the town's origin still to distinguish its outlines, but remote enough to idealize them, the old settlers were a power, and could be found of a sunny afternoon at Luke Darrell's livery stable, busy with the apotheosis of the days when they shot quail before breakfast; true brotherly love prevailed among men; and the river was the highway of commerce.