Scripting a Pearl Buck revival

A priceless, stolen manuscript recovered by the FBI. A dispute over its ownership. The drama played out on television and the front pages of newspapers.

If you're running Pearl S. Buck International, the Bucks County foundation devoted to promoting the life and work of the author, these circumstances add up to one thing:

The chance of a lifetime.

If that sounds strange, consider how Buck has been largely forgotten since her 1973 death, and how the foundation that runs her historic home in Perkasie struggles to attract visitors, donors and attention.

But Buck's most celebrated work, The Good Earth, the 1931 novel about family life in China, retains its power and cachet. News that federal authorities had found the hand-edited, 400-page manuscript generated headlines across the country last month.

The discovery immediately pits the foundation and Buck's heirs against one another - a familiar stance - but this week there was word that an agreement to allow the display of the work was at hand.

For the foundation, the sudden glare of the spotlight offers fresh opportunity at a crucial time.

Pearl S. Buck International, known as PSBI, is a $3.8 million organization that operates three programs: Welcome House, which provides domestic and international adoption services; Opportunity House, which offers education and health care to children in Asia; and the Historic Site, which gives tours of the author's home.

The adoption program traditionally provided the bulk of PSBI's income. But tightened regulations are slowing adoptions in places such as China, forcing the foundation to look to other countries, such as Vietnam, and to explore new ways of securing its future. Meanwhile, PSBI is midway through a campaign aimed at raising $2 million for sorely needed repairs to Buck's home, Green Hills Farm.

"We're at the infancy stage of what we're going to be," said Janet Mintzer, chief executive officer of PSBI. "For the first time we have a focus on the house."

Since the manuscript was found, visits to the Buck home are up 10 percent and telephone requests for information have tripled, said Rhonda Gelman Kelley, PSBI's vice president of marketing and development.

"And we're planning on keeping the momentum going," she added.

PSBI faces challenges on other fronts, in a region where tourism is highly competitive and historic sites are as common as souvenirs. It promotes an author whose once-supreme popularity withered after her death; who published her most popular book before World War II; and, not least, whose historic home sits on a country road, far off the tourist track.

"You need a GPS system to find the place," said Michael Smith, who teaches media relations at La Salle University.

But he and others who work in public relations and marketing say the recent flood of news reports provides a chance for PSBI to implant itself in the public mind.

"The Asian symbol for crisis is made up of two characters: One is danger. One is opportunity," said Hugh Braithwaite, head of Braithwaite Communications in Center City.

He tells clients in similar situations to map plans for regular events and announcements to spur publicity forward. The Buck homestead isn't solely dependent on the author, he said. It can promote by connecting itself to news in China or even to issues such as the preservation of historic papers.

To see how one event can have lasting impact, it's useful to consult another near-forgotten American woman, Alice Paul. She used to live in South Jersey.

In 2004, HBO released Iron Jawed Angels, starring Hilary Swank as Paul, who fought to get women the right to vote. The movie was a success - and included some historical miscues.

For instance, Paul's love interest was invented. Another character was a composite.

And guess what? Rhonda DiMascio, president of the Alice Paul Institute in Mount Laurel, couldn't care less.

"HBO did a world of good for us. That gave us incredible visibility all over the country," she said. "Because of that movie, we have 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds interested in Alice Paul."

The institute grabbed the chance to promote Paulsdale, the family home in Mount Laurel, sponsoring movie parties, taking the film to schools, talking up Paul with authors - one is writing a biography. The institute turned the film's errors to its advantage, compiling a list and using it to drive classroom discussions on dramatic license.

The momentum has never really slowed.

Just last month, the TV show History Detectives aired a segment about a painting that might be the 1913 artwork for a pamphlet from a suffrage march.

"We didn't get on television, but Alice Paul did," DiMascio said. "If people Google Alice Paul, guess what? We're going to come up."

The Good Earth

won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and helped Buck win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. It caused a sensation when it was published - and another last month.

PSBI immediately updated its Web site, adding photos, articles and links. It sent out a torrent of e-mail. It briefed its 80 volunteers so they could answer questions. On deadline, it yanked the cover off its newsletter and replaced it.

"It's a phenomenal opportunity," said John Long Jr., chairman of the PSBI board.

And the timing is key.

For the last two years, IRS records show, the foundation has spent more money than its taken in. In fiscal 2004, PSBI recorded $3.4 million in revenue and $3.5 million in expenses. In 2005, revenue rose to $3.8 million, expenses to $3.9 million.

Visits to the homestead went down 8 percent, from 16,739 to 15,462.

That helps explain why the manuscript is so important as a potential tourist draw. And why PSBI executives want a fast, amicable settlement with the Buck heirs. News reports of the friction might alert more people to Buck's legacy, but donors don't like to think their money may go to pay legal bills.

"It's a double-edged sword," said Kelley, the PSBI vice president.

The breezeway doors, freed from their hinges, are spread across the patio behind the farmhouse, freshly painted and waiting to be rehung.

After Buck's death, nobody did much more than replace the roof. Now the wear of three decades as a museum requires repairs to floors, roofs and windows. The first phase, to stop rain and water infiltration, is done. To finish will cost an additional $1 million.

On Monday, Mintzer and Long met with one of Buck's sons, Edgar Walsh, who administers the trust that provides income for the writer's children.

Mintzer and Long said the discussion had produced a basic agreement that would allow the historic site to display the manuscript, and that a formal announcement should be coming. Walsh, reached by e-mail, said he was too busy to be interviewed.

Mintzer said both sides wanted the same thing - to promote Buck, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries who spent much of her early life in China and at home fought for women's rights, civil rights and racial inclusion.

She was successful and outspoken in an era when women were expected to be neither. She denounced the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only American immigration law to target a specific race, and the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II. Welcome House was the world's first interracial adoption program, founded because U.S. agencies considered Asian and Amerasian children "unadoptable."

"It's really, really easy to make her relevant," Mintzer said. "The Pearl Buck House is such an easy sell if we can get people here."

Find out more about Pearl S. Buck International via http://go.philly.com/

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