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1930: Books and Literature

Oct30

Newbery Medal for children’s literature:
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field is a doll story that I never much cared for. However, Amy at Hope Is the Word blog says of Hitty, “I never once grew tired of this story; on the contrary, I was eager each time I picked it up to find out what Hitty was going to experience next. My girls seemed to love it as much as I did.” So maybe I just have an impaired attention span.

Nobel Prize for Literature:
Sinclair Lewis, “”for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters.” Lewis was the first U.S. writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he didn’t turn it down as he had his Pulitzer in 1926. Lewis said in a letter in1926 that “by accepting the prizes and approval of these vague institutions we are admitting their authority, publicly confirming them as the final judges of literary excellence, and I inquire whether any prize is worth that subservience.” I suppose Scandinavian judges of literary excellence are more to trusted/served.

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures. I read this play a long time ago from an anthology I found in a closet somewhere. It’s a black dialect version of the highlights of Bible stories, adapted by a white playwright (Marc Connelly) from a book of stories written by another white Southerner (Roark Bradford). I remember being fascinated by the play, but I would imagine that it would be politically incorrect and maybe even offensive to me nowadays.

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Conrad Aiken: Selected Poems

Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Laughing Boy: A Navaho Love Story by Oliver La Farge.

Published in 1930:
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. I’ve never read anything by Faulkner. I keep intending to read Faulkner, but the books seem so intimidating—and dark.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Good book. Good movie.
The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene. The first of the Nancy Drew series.
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. Classic picture book.
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.
Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers. The beginning of the romance between novelist Harriet Vane and detective and man-about-town Lord Peter Wimsey. the development of the relationship between Miss Vane and Lord Peter is about my favorite in all of literature. It begins with Lord Peter trying to find evidence that will clear Harriet Vane of the charge of murder.
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. A novel “satirising the Bright Young People: decadent young London society between World War I and World War II.” It sounds like something I would like to read someday.

For the Thrill of It by Simon Baatz

Oct26

For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz.

“The heart of the matter is that . . . all people are divisible into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ The ordinary must live obediently and have no right to transgress the law—because, you see, they’re ordinary. The extraordinary, on the other hand, have the right to commit all kinds of crimes and to transgress the law in all kinds of ways, for the simple reason that they are extraordinary. That would seem to have been your argument, if I am not mistaken.” ~Fydor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part 3, Section 5.

Mr. Baatz begins his tale of the “murder that shocked Chicago” and the nation in 1924 with a longer excerpt from Dostoyevsky’s fictional crime novel because the quotation captures the attitude of at least one of the murderers, Nathan Leopold. The facts of the case are stark and indisputable: on Wednesday, May 21, 1924, nineteen year old Nathan Leopold, and his friend, eighteen year old Richard Loeb, kidnapped fourteen year old Bobby Franks, murdered him, and left his naked body in a drainage culvert. All three boys came from wealthy Jewish families living in Chicago’s exclusive Kenwood neighborhood. Leopold and Loeb both said, after their capture and in their confessions, that they knew Bobby Franks only slightly and had nothing against him. They simply killed him “for the thrill” of planning and carrying out the master crime.

One of the questions I asked myself as I was reading this nonfiction account of such a horrific murder was “why?” Not only why did Leopold and Loeb kill Bobby Franks, but also why was I interested in reading about the sometimes sordid details. Why is Raskolnikov of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment such a fascinating character? I think we can learn something from these stories, both true crime and fictional, some negative and cautionary lessons that are worth considering.

It has almost become a trite truism, but ideas have consequences. Nathan Leopold, in particular, saw himself as a Nietzschean superman, a man to whom the ordinary laws of moral behavior did not apply.

“It didn’t concern him, Nathan replied. He had no moral beliefs and religion meant nothing to him: he was an atheist. Whatever served an individual’s purpose—that was the best guide to conduct. In his case, well, he was an intellectual: his participation in the killing had been akin to the desire of the scientist to experiment. They had killed Bobby Franks as an experiment; Nathan had wanted to experience the sensation of murdering another human being. It was that simple.” Baatz, p.148.

Not only did the ideas that Nathan Leopold fed into his depraved mind have tragic consequences, the philosophy of his and Loeb’s lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was just as twisted and confused and consequential as Nietzche’s philosophy was. Darrow, the most famous defense lawyer in the United States, even in 1924 before the Scopes trial, held to a kind of deterministic philosophy that excused crimes, even the most premeditated and heinous, on the basis of the criminal’s inability to control his hormones and his psychological make-up. In other words, criminals were not to be blamed for their crimes because a person’s behavior is predetermined by psychology and by physical genetic make-up. In his summation, Darrow said:

“I know . . . that one of two things happened to this boy; that this terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and came from some ancestor, or that it came through his education and his training after he was born. I do not know what remote ancestors may have sent down the seed that corrupted him, and I do not know through how many ancestors it may have passed until it reached Dickie Loeb. All I know is, it is true, and there is not a biologist in the world who will not say I am right.” Baatz, p. 374.

Nature or nurture, either way, Loeb and Leopold were not responsible for the murder of Bobby Franks. They were compelled to the crime by their own physical and psychological make-up, and to punish them for a crime that they had no choice about committing would be both unjust and useless.

Hogwash. Both Nathan Leopold and Clarence Darrow have latched onto ideas that they believe in but refuse to carry to their logical conclusions. If Leopold’s interpretation of Nietzche is correct, then I can declare myself a superwoman, above all human law, and I can murder Leopold or Clarence Darrow or anyone else if I choose to do so. I certainly have the right to do so. And if Darrow is right, no one can hold me responsible for that action, and punishment is a ridiculous concept. As is mercy. I am totally at the mercy of my biological and psychological impulses, a machine that may work properly according to the workings of the majority of human machines in the world or a machine that may malfunction (according to most people’s standards) and do something criminal. Either way, I am not responsible.

These are the ideas that produced the murder of Bobby Franks, and a few years later, the rise of Naziism and the scourge of the modern eugenics movement.

I didn’t know before I read this book:

Clarence Darrow was successful in saving his clients form the death sentence that the prosecutor asked to be imposed. Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and 99 years for the kidnapping of Bobby Franks. Richard Loeb died in prison, victim of a murderer himself. Nathan Leopold was released on parole in 1958. Leopold died of a heart attack in 1971.

The Alfred Hitchcock move Rope was based on a play by playwright Patrick Hamiliton that took the murder of Bobby Franks and the characters of Leopold and Loeb as its source. The play moved the action from Chicago to London. Hitchcock’s 1948 movie version starred Jimmy Stewart as a Nietzschean philosopher who is appalled when his ideas are made real by the murder committed by two former students of Cadell, the Jimmy Stewart character. Rope was one of Hitchcock’s least commercially successful films.

1929: Events and Inventions

Oct25

January 6, 1929. The Albanian missionary sister Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later known as Mother Teresa, arrives in Calcutta from Ireland to begin her work among India’s poorest and sickest.

'Mother-Teresa-collage' photo (c) 2009, Peta-de-Aztlan - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

February 14, 1929. St. Valentines Day Massacre. Seven gangsters are gunned down in Chicago in a gangland shooting. Police believe the killing is the work of Al “Scarface” Capone and his gang and is a result of the deadly war for control of the illegal alcohol trade and other illegal activities in and around Chicago.

March, 1929. Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party wins a rigged election in Italy and forms Italy’s first fascist government. All secondary school teachers are required to take an oath of loyalty to Fascism, and children are taught that they owe the same loyalty to Fascism as they do to God.

May, 1929. Joseph Stalin consolidates his power in the Soviet Union by sending Leon Trotsky into exile. The only country that will grant Trotsky asylum is Turkey, in return for his help in their civil war. Stalin continues to institute communist reforms. Millions of Soviet farmers are removed from their private farms, their property is collected, and they are moved to state-owned farms.

August 16, 1929. In Jerusalem, Arabs and Jews fight over access to the Wailing Wall, a Jewish holy place. The rioting, initiated in part when British police tore down a screen the Jews had constructed in front of the Wall, continues until the end of the month. Over 200 Jews and Arabs are killed in the rioting.

'Zeppelin over St. Paul's' photo (c) 1930, The National Archives UK - license: http://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/August 29, 1929. The German-built airship Graf Zeppelin lands in New Jersey, having circled the world in twenty-one days, seven hours, and twenty-six minutes.

October 3, 1929. The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed Yugoslavia to be ruled over by the present King Alexander. King Alexander has abolished the old constitution of the Kingdom, and he is now dictator and sole ruler of the country of Yugoslavia.

October 24, 1929. The New York Stock Exchange collapses, with terrified investors selling more than 13 million shares in one day. Experts say that stocks have been overpriced for a while, and now suddenly investors in the stock market agree. Millions face financial ruin in the U.S. and around the world as stock prices re-adjust.

December 29, 1929. The All India Congress in Lahore, India demands Indian independence from Britain, something it had threatened to do if Britain did not grant India dominion status as a self-governing part of the British Empire.

Late in 1929: The French begin work on the Maginot line, as a defense against a possible German attack. The Maginot Line is a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructs along its borders with Germany.

Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction Set during the 1920’s

Oct24

The Night of the Burning: Devorah’s Story by Linda Press Wulf. Haunted by the loss of her parents to war and typhus, and driven from her Polish shtetl during the murderous anti-Semitic pogroms of 1921, Devorah, 12, and her younger sister, Nechama, are taken with 200 other Jewish orphans to safety in South Africa’s Jewish community.

An Ocean Apart, a World Away by Lensey Namioka. (Laurel Leaf, 2003) Xueyan, a privileged Chinese girl, is given the opportunity in 1921 to attend Cornell University in the United States. A sequel to Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by the same author.

Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate. Celeste goes to visit her almost mythical Aunt Valentina who lives in a mansion in Harlem, an actress who drives a big car and wears fancy clothes.Semicolon review here.

Witness by Karen Hesse. (2001) In a small Vermont town in 1924, the Ku Klux Klan moves in, and citizens are reluctant to do anything about the Klan until a shooting occurs.

Jake’s Orphan by Peggy Brooke. (2000) A twelve-year-old boy takes a job on a North Dakota tree farm in 1926 to escape the Minnesota orphanage where he lives. Recommended for ages 9-12.

Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine. (1999), An orphaned boy sneaks out of the Hebrew Home for Boys and discovers Harlem’s world of jazz in 1926. Recommended for ages 8-12.

Moonshiner’s Gold by John Erickson. A mystery/adventure novel set in the Texas Panhandle in 1925-27. Fourteen-year-old Riley McDaniels’s father has just died, and he and his mother struggle to keep their ranch going. Riding home from school one afternoon, Riley discovers that moonshiners have built a still in a nearby deserted canyon on their property and are making whiskey.

Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle. (2006) A fourteen-year-old boy who discovers a dead body on the beach in 1929 and suspects it has something to do with bootlegging.

Bright Young Things by Anna Godberson. YA, probably skews older. Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey leave their Midwestern home for the bright lights of Manhattan.

Vixen by Jillima Larkin. Also looks as if it would be best for older teens and twenty-somethings. 17-year-old Gloria Carmody wants to live it up as a flapper in Jazz Age Chicago.

Choosing Up Sides by John Ritter. (1998) An athletically talented thirteen-year-old boy in 1920s Ohio whose father, a fundamentalist preacher, opposes his wish to play baseball. Recommended for ages 10-14.

The Storyteller’s Daughter by Jean Thesman. (1997) A fifteen-year-old girl in Seattle during Prohibition suspects her father may be illegally smuggling rum into the country, just before he disappears.

Chief Sunrise, John McGraw, and Me by Timothy Tocher. (2004) A fifteen-year-old boy leaves his abusive father and goes to New York in to try out for the New York Giants baseball team.

Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber. In the 1920s, Iris’ emotionally distant father sends her to rural Missouri to act as a companion to an elderly woman while he heads to Kansas City with his fiance. Iris’ mother died when she was five, and it takes her some time to learn to care for Mrs. Nesbitt and see her own future with optimism.

The River by Rumer Godden. YA before there was YA, The River tells the story of a young British girl coming of age in India.

More suggestions?

1928: Arts and Entertainment

Oct24

The 1928 Olympics are held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Only one U.S. athlete wins an individual event gold medal, Ray Barbuti in the 400-meter run.

In November 1928, the first animated cartoon with sound, Steamboat Willie, opens in New York City, and a star is born—Mickey Mouse. Mickey is the joint creation of U.S. animators Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.

Also in November, French composer Joseph Ravel’s Bolero, based on a Spanish folk song, premieres in Paris.

And in December George Gershwin’s An American in Paris opens in New York City, with Gershwin himself playing the piano.

1928: Events and Inventions

Oct24

January 10, 1928. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin exiles all opposition leaders for Moscow. Leon Trotsky is sent to Alma-Ata in Kazahkstan. Other rivals have been sent to Siberia or to small remote villages in the Soviet Union.

May, 1928. Japanese and Chinese Nationalist forces clash in Shantung province in China. The Japanese retain control of the city of Tsinan-Fu

June 8, 1928. Nationalist forces, led by General Chiang Kai-shek enter the Chinese capital of Beijing (Peking). Chiang has expelled the Communists from the Kuomingtang, and he and his Nationalists may now be regarded as ruling the entire country of China, except for a few pockets of rebellion by Japanese, Communist and warlord groups.

'Nationalist government of Nanking - nominally ruling over entire China, 1930' photo (c) 2008, http://maps.bpl.org - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

June, 1928. US aviator Amelia Earhart, as a passenger, is the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air.

July, 1928. The first commercially available TV set goes on sale in the U.S. Cost: $75.00.

August 27, 1928. The Kellogg-Briand Treaty. The United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, and eleven other countries sign a treaty promising not to go to war—ever. the treaty is also called the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War or the World Peace Act. There is an exception in the treaty for wars of self-defense.

September 30, 1928. Scottish doctor and bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers the antibiotic penicillin. It is hoped that this wonder drug may soon be used to treat human bacterial infections.

October 1, 1928. Stalin announces his Five Year Plan to industrialize the Soviet Union, iprove it socialist economy, and take all farming out of private hands.

October 6, 1928. Chaing Kai-Shek becomes Chairman of the Nationalist government and COmander-in-Chief of all armed forces in China under the new CHinese constitution. Chiang chooses the city of Nanking as his capital, and his alliance with Northern warlords seems to be keeping the Communists and other dissidents out of contention for power in the Chinese government.

October 7, 1928. Ras Tafari is crowned “King of Kings of Ethiopia, the Conquering Lion of Judah and the Elect of God” in ceremonies at the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Ras Tafari says that he is a descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but he is required to share power with his aunt, Empress Zauditu.

Kool-Aid, the first powdered soft drink mix to be sold nationally in stores through wholesalers, is packaged in envelopes printed by Edwin Perkins, the inventor of the drink mix, and hits the markets in 1928, first locally and then beyond.

Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Oct23

Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922-1928.

Before (and after) she was married to famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, daughter of the American ambassador to Mexico, kept a journal and wrote a plethora of letters. This book is the first of five volumes of collected letters and journal entries of Anne Morrow soon-to-be Lindbergh. The others are called: Hour of Gold Hour of Lead, Locked Rooms Open Doors, The Flower and the Nettle, and War Within and Without.

The Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room wrote about and recommended Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s journals here. I second her recommendation.

The journals and letters cover the romance of Anne and “Lindy” as a young Anne meets the famous aviator at a reception given by her ambassador father. Anne Morrow married Charles Lindbergh in a private ceremony at her family home in May, 1929. He then taught her to fly an airplane. She received a pilot’s license, and the two flew together in 1933 to China and Japan. In 1932, the Lindberghs’ infant son Charles was kidnapped and murdered. It was the sensational crime story of the decade. They had five other children subsequently: Jon, Land, Anne, Scott, and Reeve.

From Bring Me a Unicorn on her first meeting with Charles Lindbergh:

I saw standing against the great stone pillar — on more red plush — a tall, slim boy in evening dress — so much slimmer, so much taller, so much more poised than I expected. A very refined face, not at all like those grinning ‘Lindy’ pictures — a firm mouth, clear, straight blue eyes, fair hair, and nice color. Then I went down the line very confused and overwhelmed by it all. He did not smile — just bowed and shook hands.

I highly recommend the journals of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, all five volumes.

1927: Arts and Entertainment

Oct23

In February, Paris audiences are stunned by a recital by 10-year American violin prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin.

On October 6, 1927, the New York premiere of the first “talkie”(feature length talking movie), The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, causes audiences to stand up and cheer.

In December, jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington opens at The Cotton Club, a famous Harlem nightclub.

1927: Events and Inventions

Oct23

January-December, 1927. Civil war continues in China as General Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army attempt to consolidate power over all of China and drive out the warlords who control various parts of the country. In March, Chiang Kai-shek’s army takes the important port city of Shanghai, but Communists in Hankow and in Shanghai refuse to cooperate with the Nationalist government and declare their own revolution. In December General Kai-shek crushes a Communist uprising in the city of Canton.

January 7 1927. The first transatlantic telephone call is made from New York City to London.

January 31, 1927. Britain orders 12.000 soldiers to proceed immediately to Shanghai to protect British citizens and British interests in the city. The United States orders Navy ships and Marines to the city on a similar mission.

'04-00694 Charles Lindbergh' photo (c) 2003, SDASM Archives - license: http://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/February, 1927. An attempted rebellion against the military dictatorship of President Antonio Carmona in Portugal is crushed in Lisbon. Carmona named himself president in July, 1926. Carmona will be president of Portugal for the next 24 years until his death in 1951.

April 30, 1927. The Mississippi River floods destroying many communities in several states. Over 200,000 people lose their homes.

May 21, 1927. Charles Lindbergh, in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis, becomes the first person to fly alone non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. He immediately becomes an international celebrity.

July 10, 1927. Kevin O’Higgins, vice-president of the Irish Free State (Ireland), is assassinated while on his way to Mass by three members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The killing fuels fears of further civil war and unrest in Ireland.

July 15, 1927. WWI veterans and striking workers occupy the University of Vienna in Austria and they seize the Palace of Justice and set it on fire. Socialists are calling for the resignation of Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel’s government; the socialist leaders are accusing Seipel of tolerating the illegal activities of the rioters.

October 23, 1927. Josef Stalin expels political rivals Leon Trotsky and Grigori Zinoviev from the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

December 2, 1927. Sales begin of the new Model A Ford, a replacement for the Model T. The new Model A is available in four standard colors, but not in black.

1927: Books and Literature

Oct23

Publishing history is made when in 1927 Random House, book publishers, is founded in New York City by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer.

1927 Newbery Medal Winner: Smoky, the Cowhorse by Will James (Scribner)

Published in 1927:
God’s Trombones by James Weldon Johnson. One of my very favorite books of poetry.
“The Creation” from God’s Trombones.
“Go Down, Death” from God’s Trombones.
“The Prodigal Son” from God’s Trombones

The Big Four by Agatha Christie. In December of 1926, Agatha Christie, already famous as a mystery novelist, produced her own mystery when she disappeared for ten days. She was found living at a Yorkshire health spa under an assumed name. She probably had what was then called a “nervous breakdown.” But she still managed to publish a new mystery novel in January 1927, The Big Four. It’s not her best,but it satisfied her fans and kept them on board waiting for the next novel. Agatha Christie later wrote her agent saying:

I have been, once, in a position where I wanted to write just for the sake of money coming in and when I felt I couldn’t—it is a nerve wracking feeling. If I had had one MS ‘up my sleeve’ it would have made a big difference. That was the time I had to produce that rotten book The Big Four and had to force myself in The Mystery of the Blue Train.

Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers, the third mystery novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. To get a flavor of the 1920’s in England, read these and the early Agatha Christie novels featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. I read this book a long time ago, and I remember thinking that it was quite profound in its treatment of foreknowledge and God’s providence. I’m wondering if I would still think so now, thirty or forty years later.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Eldest Daughter recommends Virginia Woolf, this book in particular, but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t “get it.” Just as I don’t “get” James Joyce.
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. I’ve heard of this novel, but I’ve never actually read this story of a crooked evangelist. Elmer Gantry is the prototype for the stereotypical character that appears to this day in novels and movies and TV dramas.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. Reviewed by Carrie K. at Books and Movies.

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon, the first book published in the Hardy Boys series of mystery adventure stories for boys. This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by author Leslie McFarlane, the original man behind the pseudonym Franklin Dixon. The story begins with Frank and Joe Hardy barely avoiding being hit by a speeding driver with bright red hair, and it goes on from there as the brothers follow the trail of disguises and robbery and hidden loot.

Emily’s Quest by L.M. Montgomery, the last of the Emily trilogy. Eldest Daughter likes these books as well as or better than the Anne of Green Gables series.

The Midnight Folk by John Masefield. I put this one on the list because I plan to find a copy and read it someday. Classic British children’s fantasy.

Set in 1927:
Fordlandia by Greg Grandin. Nonfiction. The story of Henry Ford’s experiment in utopian rubber production in the Brazilian rain forest (begun in 1927).
River Rising by Athol Dickson. River Rising is set in southern Louisiana, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, just before and during the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927.
Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith, author of the classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Fourteen year old Annie and twenty year old Carl marry and go together to live at the university campus where Carl is a student.