Thursday, March 8, 2012

Economic Viability of Rabindranath's Lecture-tour in USA in 1916

Rabindranath reached Seattle, Washington , USA on 18th Sept 1916 in the night.He started his lecture on and from 19th sept, 1916 at Seattle SunsetClub. He continued lecturing in different states of USA from West to East and then back to West. He went to 18 states and delivered more or less 56 lectures and traviled for 122 days. He left USA on 17th Jan 1917 from San Francisco by  Siberia-Maru, the same ship he came to USA. He was to deliver lecture upto April, 1917. But he had cut short of his program on physical ground. Still from his program of delivering lectures in different cities of different States, he earned a good sum of money. Not only he earned money by delivering lectures, he also earned money from other sources.
1. By delivering lectures in different cities as per the contact,
2. From Royalty of increased sales of newly published books which he wrote or translated during this visit
3. From Royalty of Books published after his return to India.
Though the total amount which he gained  was not available, still the program was economically viable. The contract he made with Mr. Pond was to deliver 40 lectures. He maintained that contact.
Rabindranath wrote his son Rathindranath on 22 Aug;
" The money we would gain would be spent in repaying the loan taken from;
i) Andrews for paying to the University amounting to Rs.3000/-
ii) To Tarak Palit taken for Tagore Company amounting to Rs. 30,000/- with interest @ Rs.8%.. This amount was not taken for the benifit of the school. Rabindranath thought he would utilize the fund earned for the development of the School.
iii) The rest amount was utilized for the benifit of the School.
25th Feb, 1917, Pearson wrote to rathindranath;
" I hope you received all right the sum of $ 10,000.00 ( Equivalent Rs. 30,000/- in 1916)   sent on 23rd Dec...and that you received the balance from New York which was to be sent at the beginning of February.. the money which was plced in deposit in Vhicago, twelve thousand odd, is to be sent with interest at the end of March to arrive about May.
Beside this, the recently published books, written or translated during this journey, was sold in huge quantities The account submitted by Bratte during 1 May to 30th Oct, the no, of books sold was 15,875 and the royalty from 1May to 31 Dec was $ 9011.08