Author and publisher Allen Davenport Bragdon, age 92, passed away on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
An avid sailor, gardener, man of passion, music lover, ballroom dancer, idea man, author, promoter, Italophile and sentimentalist, we knew him as man of spirit and joie de vivre. During his long career in publishing, he created an eclectic array of books and materials on varied subjects including cooking and crafts, how-to, fairy tales, and the brain.
His career in publishing was long and fruitful, including stints as editor and executive at Doubleday & Co., Macmillan Publishers, and American Heritage. In 1974, he established Allen D. Bragdon Publishers, which he ran from his Upper West Side home in Manhattan. One of his early projects there was Family Creative Workshop, a 24-volume craft encyclopedia for Time-Life Books, which found its way to families across the country and continues to inspire home craft projects to this day. His Brownstone Library imprint, inspired by the location of his publishing house, included many cooking and crafts titles featured as main selections of book clubs such as Better Homes & Gardens and Book of the Month.
Allen had a knack for not only dreaming up ideas for books but also mastering the technical details of their subject matter and working in close collaboration with their authors, designers, and editors to shepherd them through the production process. Most importantly, he had a strong faith in the innate skill, creativity, and dignity of ordinary folks and a belief in the importance of respecting his audience by ensuring the workability and authenticity of everything that went into his books.
In the late 1980’s, he moved his publishing company to his family home on the Bass River, in Cape Cod, MA, where he collaborated with Field Enterprises on a multi-year card and binder series sold by subscription to craft hobbyists all over the country. The financial success of this collaboration allowed him to branch out in new directions inspired by his own interests and whims, including Ingenious Inventions of Domestic Utility, which landed him on the David Letterman show on Dec 27, 1990. It was also during this period that he embarked on a series of books presenting insights from the world of brain research to the layperson, starting with Building Mental Muscle (published by Barnes & Noble) and continuing with half a dozen other titles under his own Brainwaves Books imprint.
Allen was born to Joanna (Davenport) and Clifford R. Bragdon in Cleveland, Ohio in 1930. He had one sister, Cherry, whom he adored and who sadly pre-deceased him. He had a host of Davenport cousins with whom he was close.
He was educated at The Putney School in Putney, VT, then at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he received a BA in literature and language, and at Harvard Business School. He entered the Navy as an officer and was stationed in Naples, Italy, from 1955-57, where he claimed to have survived attempts on his life by an organized crime syndicate that took umbrage at his inspection of goods shipped through the harbor. It was also here that he met Chicago native Gloria Scala, who became his first wife. They had two children, Allen Clifford Bragdon and Sara Davenport Bragdon. Being active in the food world, he later met and married famed author Irena Chalmers. They made a home in Port Washington, NY, for the duration of their marriage.
Along with his many other sporting activities, Allen was an avid mountain biker and often rode his bike to work in Manhattan long before it was fashionable (an eccentricity noted in a NY magazine at the time). On a later ride in the steep rustic Chianti hills, he happened upon a medieval hilltop and found his ‘castello’, a real dream-come-true story. He spent the next five years renovating a four-story home in the heart of Tuscany. He developed a large community of friends in Italy who adored him and with whom he was forever toasting to la bella vita with a bottle of cold prosecco.
Allen was a passionate sailor and was very involved in the New England Beetle Cat Boat Association and the Bass Rive Yacht Club where he held the position as Commodore. He was known by his walking stick with the head of Giuseppe Verdi, his favorite composer.
Allen was preceded in death by his parents, Joanna and Clifford, his sister Cherry and partners, Gloria Bragdon and Irena Chalmers. He is survived by his two children Allen and Sara, his daughter in law Catherine M. Creamer and his five grandchildren, Julia R. (Nathan) Sunnekalb, Ian R. Bragdon, Oliver M. Bragdon, Ella M. Capstick and Thomas C. Capstick and his nieces and nephews.
Allen was a lover of life and a romantic. His motto was Carpe Diem and he loved hosting family and friends in his New York, Cape Cod and Tuscan homes. He and his warm smile will be greatly missed.
A celebration of life and spreading of ashes will be held on August 06, 2023, at the Bass River Yacht Club. Arrangements will be made by Catherine Creamer ([email protected]) and updates will be posted to Allen’s Facebook page.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions/donations sent to the Bass River Sailing School, South Yarmouth, MA in his name.