Dr. Michael Claxton, an associate professor of English, decided it was time to take a sabbatical from his normal duties last semester to finish researching for his upcoming book. The book, a biography of mid-20th-century performer and magician Dell O’Dell and her husband, Charles Carrer, is the product of more than seven years of research and writing.
Claxton said he became interested in magicians and sleight-of-hand performance when he was a young child, and although he was never good at performing it himself, he has long been fascinated by its history. He said he decided to write the biography of O’Dell and Carrer, who performed during the 1920s until the early 1960s, when a friend who worked in publishing showed him several old scrapbooks that once belonged to O’Dell.
Although he said he enjoyed his research, Claxton said it was a long process. It required too much of his time for him to continue teaching and writing the book at the same time, so he applied for a sabbatical.
“I did quite a bit of research and wrote drafts for a couple of chapters in the summer of 2012,” Claxton said. “But it is hard once the semester starts, because with preparing lectures and grading compositions, there is not as much time to do research. I think any faculty member will tell you trying to do research outside of teaching is a challenge.”
Claxton said he is grateful for the time he was able to take off to work on the book. While on his sabbatical, Claxton said he had the chance to work with a number of other faculty members who aided him in his research, including Dr. Noble Goss, an associate professor of foreign language. Goss helped Claxton translate more than 800 German postcards that were exchanged between Carrer and Carrer’s mother, who lived in Switzerland at the time. Goss said he found the project fascinating and was glad to spend time researching with someone from another department.
“Most of us who teach have narrow, limited fields of expertise,” Goss said. “Interdisciplinary contacts help fill in knowledge gaps. In this case I contributed my knowledge of German and learned a lot about circus and vaudeville entertainment in the pre-World War II period.”
Claxton said because O’Dell and Carrer never had children and have no living immediate family, researching the couple’s lives was like solving a difficult puzzle. Still, Claxton said he had fun digging beneath the surface as he researched about their lives.
“She was a character,” Claxton said. “She was a practical joker. In her house, for example, if you sat down in a chair it might have rubber legs and you would fall on the floor. If you picked up the phone, you might get squirted in the face with water. She was kind of like your crazy uncle who has all these gags.”
Claxton finished the first draft of his book in December and returned to Harding this semester to resume teaching. Both Claxton and Dr. John Williams, chair of the English Department, said they think the sabbatical will have many positive outcomes as Claxton now returns to the classroom.
“I’m sure Dr. Claxton will be energized by his work, and consequently his students will benefit from that renewal,” Williams said. “The longterm results, I hope, other than a bestselling book for him, will be opportunity and incentive for Michael to publish work in other areas of Victorian or cultural studies. If this happens, he, the department and the world outside Harding will benefit from his considerable talent and expertise.”
Squash Publishing of Chicago plans to publish around 1,000 copies of the biography this November.
