The Morris and Essex dog show hit a world record for attendance in 1939. By Mary Ann McGann
Dog lover or not, you may find yourself this month — television remote in hand — stopping in mid-channel-surf to watch dog owners briskly trot alongside their perfectly coiffed canine pride and joy to compete in the Westminster Kennel Club 136th Annual Dog Show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The eminent two-day show — which organizers say is the second-longest continuously held sporting event in the United States, after the Kentucky Derby — is a storied occasion in the annals of the so-called dog fancy world.
But in 1927, and for 30 years following, an equally celebrated dog show here in the Garden State captured the world’s attention. Described by a radio broadcaster in 1932 as “the greatest show in the world,” the Morris and Essex Kennel Club dog show had observers of the time tripping over themselves (and each other) with superlatives.
“The fourth annual show of the Morris and Essex Kennel Club in Madison, New Jersey established a record for one day shows not alone in the quantity and quality of the exhibits, but in the perfection of its staging and the munificence of its appointment,” gushed one writer in a May 1930 issue of Popular Dogs.
"If anyone has doubted that (dog) breeders, owners and exhibitors had let a depressive period curtail their favorite sport, this great gathering of dogs from almost every part of the country should dispel the doubt," a New York Times reporter noted on May 17, 1931.
"May means many things. To some, it is beautiful flowers and brilliant green grass and foliage. To others, it stands for deep blue skies flaked with light cumulus clouds with warm breezes reminding them of summer days ahead," Vogue's May 1937 issue waxed poetic. "But to dog fanciers, it stands for one thing — that incomparable (dog) show, Morris and Essex."
And, in June 1941, Time magazine stated that “the Westminster is not the biggest, richest or most spectacular dog show in the world. The show that is all these things — bigger than England’s famed Cruft’s — is the Morris and Essex.”
The woman behind the single-day dog show about which everyone raved was Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, niece of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and a well-known dog breeder, exhibitor and judge. (Dodge became the first woman to judge the Westminster dog show in 1924.)
“She upheld the standard of the dog show fancy,” says Jane St. Lifer Kennedy, a member of the historical committee of the current Morris and Essex Kennel Club, which was resurrected in 1997. “Many, many people have tried to follow in her footsteps. But nobody is Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge.”
From sterling silver trophies to white-gloved luncheon servers, Dodge attended to every detail of her dog show, which was held on what the May 1934 issue of Country Life called the “velvety expanse of polo field” on Hartley Farms, her husband’s estate. (The M&E show was commonly reported at the time to have taken place at Giralda Farms, Dodge’s nearby residence. Dodge and her husband, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr., maintained two estates.)
The event spread out over 130 acres, with 3 1/2 acres of tents and more than 20 acres set aside for parking. There was a telegraph office for journalists to file reports and a small field hospital, staffed by a doctor and two nurses. Honored guests and judges were served an elegant lunch, while others received a special boxed lunch.
“This is from 1938,” says Nicolas Platt, great-nephew of Marcellus Hartley Dodge, pointing to a newspaper clipping hanging on a wall of the former judges’ studio, now a one-room museum on Hartley Farms. “A Morristown caterer provided 1 1/2 tons of roast turkey, 100 hams, 750 quarts of potato salad, 8,000 rolls, 400 fruitcakes and 750 quarts of ice cream. Of course, nowadays, it would be much, much more.”
Renowned judges from around the world were recruited, including Captain Max von Stephanitz, who is credited with developing the German Shepherd breed in Germany, along with Hollywood celebrities such as Gary Cooper.
“The first year in which registration soared was 1931, when the popular movie dog Rin Tin Tin put in an appearance,” writes Barbara J. Mitnick in her biography “Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge” (Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, 2000). “Thereafter, the entry list increased, the prizes became more extravagant and the crowds grew ever larger. By 1936, ‘See you at Madison!’ seemed to be the annual exclamation of dog fanciers nationwide and even abroad.”
Dodge arranged for participants to be ferried to and from the Madison railroad station. And, according to the New York Herald Tribune on May 29, 1937, “early arrivals (to the dog show) found that roads had been straightened to avoid congestion leading into the parking fields.”
“Realize that Madison was a little town, and the Morris and Essex dog show was attended by 50,000 people,” says Edwin Sayres, president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “So, it was literally the annual event for the town,” adds Sayres, whose father managed Dodge’s kennel of about 80 purebred dogs at Giralda Farms.
“Eight hundred people were employed to do the dog shows for that one day,” Platt says. “And it never rained. Not once.”
The show “was always beautiful. And always mobbed,” says George Pickel, who, as a local teenager, worked at the dog show.
For three decades, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge — once hailed with her husband, heir to the Remington Arms fortune, as the richest young couple in America — paid the entire bill for that one elaborate day, estimated one year as costing $250,000.
“She had the means, but I think more so, she had this incredibly avid interest and was very, very knowledgeable,” Sayres says. “She wasn’t a wealthy disengaged person. This was her passion.”
As a breeder and show exhibitor, Dodge’s interest was, first and foremost, in German shepherds and later, in pointers and English cocker spaniels. She is credited with advancing understanding of these breeds’ history and how best to train and care for the dogs. Her research even led to the official separation of the American and English cocker spaniel breeds.
“What impressed me about Mrs. Dodge was not so much that she did the dog shows, which was impressive enough, but that she was so scientifically interested in the welfare of dogs and in the breeds,” says Mitnick.
“Eventually, Giralda Farms became known, both nationally and internationally, as the home of the finest (dog) breeds,” Mitnick writes in her book. “Over the course of nearly four decades 180 Giralda dogs became champions and obedience winners in various events, and more than 200 won the title ‘Best in Show.’ Ultimately, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge came to be known as ‘the first lady of dogdom’ and ‘the dog fancier of the century.’”
Dodge established the animal welfare organization, St. Hubert’s Giralda, in 1939. And, after ending the dog show in 1957 (“her energy on the wane,” says Mitnick), she set aside 16 acres of Giralda Farms to build an animal shelter and education center. “To this unhappy segment of dogdom, I now give top priority of my time and strength,” Mitnick quotes her as saying.
The Morris and Essex Kennel Club was revived in 1997 by a group of dog enthusiasts seeking to continue Dodge’s legacy. Three years later, the club held its first dog show, 43 years after the first lady of dogdom held her final show.
“We spare no expense. It’s a major undertaking. We have sponsors who are very, very generous to us,” says Wayne Ferguson, president and show chairman of the Morris and Essex Kennel Club. “We have a free box lunch for every exhibitor, just as Mrs. Dodge did. Our trophies are identical to the way Mrs. Dodge presented them. The engraving. The banners. The judges. The list goes on and on. We keep it as close to what she started as possible. It really has captured the hearts of the dog show community.”
Held every five years (the next will be in 2015), participants in the modern-day M&E dog show are encouraged to dress as they would have in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. And, darned if the spirit of the inestimable Mrs. Dodge doesn’t seem to linger ...
“I talk to her sometimes,” Ferguson says, with a laugh. “We have conversations, especially near a show. And she has kept rain away now for all three shows, which is an amazing feat.’”