Henry Barnes (1912-2008) was a leading figure in the Waldorf and anthroposophical movements in North America during the last half of the twentieth century. He was a class teacher and high school history teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York from 1940 until 1977 and was elected Chairman of the Faculty for 28 of those years. He was the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society from 1974 until 1991. He lectured extensively throughout North America and Europe.
 

Henry Barnes –
A Constellation of
Human Destinies

ISBN 978-0932776-38-9
127 pages; paperback; $17.50.

Henry Barnes, at 96, completed this memoir shortly before his death on September 18th, 2008. He writes about his childhood and youth and his fateful meeting with anthroposophy and Waldorf education. He then goes on to describe highlights of his work at the Rudolf Steiner School and for the Anthroposophical Society. The book concludes with chapters on his old age and the two companions—his wife Christy Barnes and her sister Arvia Ege—whose lives, together with his own, formed a unique constellation of human destinies. Another section of this book includes memories of friends, former students, colleagues and family which throw light on this remarkable individual from many different points of view. Photographs taken at all ages add poignancy to this memoir of one of the great leaders of the Waldorf and anthroposophical movements in the last half of the 20th century.

Contents: Introduction; A Constellation of Human Destinies; Childhood and Youth; My Work Begins: Serving the Anthroposophical Society, Publications; Memories of Family, Friends, former Students and Colleagues; Old Age; Christy Mackaye Barnes; Arvia MacKaye Ege; Thoughts on this Constellation of Destinies.

Percy MacKaye
Poet of Old Worlds
and New
By Henry Barnes

ISBN 0-932776-26-4

128 pages, illustrated paperback $12.50.

 

In May and July, 1916, Percy MacKaye’s civic drama Caliban was staged in Lewisohn Stadium in New York City and Harvard Stadium in Boston. Produced by a company of 5,000 citizens led by professional actors and enjoyed by audiences of 10,000 each night, this festive pageant brought these cities together in a creative celebration of their common humanity.

“These communal masques touch the bottom of that instinct of the Artist, latent in us all, and have offered thousands a chance of participating in the joy of actually creating beauty. Such an achievement is surely a foretaste of the eventual realization of the democratic ideal, when art will be made not only for the people, but also by the people, and all the people will cooperate to make the common life more beautiful, until the communal life itself shall become a living work of art.”
New York American, May 28, 1916

This beautiful little book presents a moving sketch of a poet awaiting rediscovery. Drawing on Arvia MacKaye’s longer biography, Henry Barnes gives a lively introduction to Percy MacKaye’s dramatic and inspiring life. A real gem hidden in the appendix is an astonishing account of an exchange between Percy’s grandfather and President Lincoln!