Ruth Tenzer Feldman's Blog, page 22
June 26, 2012
The Bread and Roses Strike, 1912
In Blue Thread, fictional Miriam Josefsohn and the Osborne sisters (Charity and Prudence) joined the real crowd who waited at the railroad station in Portland to meet suffragist leader Anna Howard Shaw on Saturday, September 29, 1912. During the rally, Miriam tells us:
The people around us commenced to recite a poem and Charity joined in, her voice high-pitched and clear. Prudence touched my sleeve. “This poem has been popular since the textile strike this past winter.” She searched my face. “...
June 21, 2012
Shopping for Shoes in 1912
And while I was downtown, I could replace my black shoes. Surely Meier & Frank would have the same pair. I took four dollars from my rainy day fund—a serious depletion, but it couldn’t be helped.
Judging from its ads, Meier & Frank was the department store to go to in Portland in 1912, and four dollars would have bought a decent pair of shoes. The elegant five-story building on Fifth Street between Alder and Morrison boasted more than 100,000 square feet of floor space. There was a ten-story a...
June 18, 2012
Broadway Books, 6/19, 7pm: Come!
The title of this post says it all. I’ll be at Broadway Books on Tuesday, June 19th, from 7 to 8 p.m. I’ll read from Blue Thread and talk about spinning a midrash on woman suffrage. You are invited to come and listen, and ask questions, and chat with me. I will sign new and used books. You are also invited to come and ignore my talk entirely–just browse in the bookstore. Everyone knows about Powell’s. Try this independent, woman-owned gem on Portland’s east side. Books and chocolate. What cou...
June 13, 2012
Thanks, KBOO Community Radio!
Kudos to Jennifer Kemp, a volunteer at KBOO Community Radio and the relaxed, smiling person on the left in this picture. Jennifer recently interviewed me about Blue Thread. She escorted me into an intimidating techno-studio (can you detect anxiety here?), put me at my ease (no small task), asked thought-provoking questions, and edited the tape for KBOO’s half-hour show about books, “Between the Covers.” Here’s the audio link to the program that aired recently.
KBOO describes itself as “volunte...
June 10, 2012
There’s something new on the Blue Thread menu: the Just For Fun page. June 6, 2012
Fictional Ephraim and the True Tragedy
Ephraim Jacobowitz, who loves his boss’s daughter, Miriam, has a small role in Blue Thread. We get a hint of his life before 1912, when he tries to persuade Miriam that he wants to help her print her postcards.
“I think you are printing cards for the suffrage campaign—and, yes, women should vote. I do not discuss this with your father; I need my job because of my sister.” He stood taller. “This does not matter to you, I know, but Bella is one of her three children. Their father was killed in t...
May 29, 2012
Beloved Baloo
We meet the stuffed bear in Blue Thread when Miriam is looking for the “garment of fringes” that is destined to be hers.
I trudged down the hall and forced myself to open Danny’s door.
The air was musty and cold…. Danny’s bed, books, and toys were gone…. I opened the dresser drawers. Each was empty, except for the bottom one, which had something bundled in tissue and half hidden in the back corner. I put the bundle on my lap and carefully unwrapped it. Danny’s bear peeked out with his brass but...
May 25, 2012
Fire!
Hello! My name is Michael. My wife Ruth asked me to guest-write an article on fire engines in Portland, a hundred years ago and today.
Miriam Josefsohn is walking home in the October Portland rain. Her thoughts are elsewhere as she steps into the street and in front of a fast-moving fire engine. The huge polished boiler that powers the pump is belching steam, and the three-horse team pulling the engine is at full gallop. (Luckily, two hands pull Miriam back to safety in the nick of time…) The...
May 22, 2012
What Did Miriam Wear in the Water?
This snapshot from 1915 will give you a pretty good idea of what (fictional) Miriam Josefsohn and her parents might have worn when they ventured into the Pacific surf off the Oregon coast. Not far from their home in Portland a (real) sweater manufacturing company was starting to experiment with lighter weight and more revealing bathing suits.
For centuries, people swam in the nude. Then some folks went for the cover-up-everything look that made swimming difficult. Bulky suits were still in fas...
May 18, 2012
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Hans Christian Andersen’s Den Standhaftige Tinsoldat, or, as it is usually translated from Danish, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, was already a classic in the early 1900s, when Miriam and Danny Josefsohn acted out parts of the story in Blue Thread, parts that Miriam believed led to Danny’s death. The tale of the toy solider who loved a paper ballerina was first published as part of a short story collection in 1838.
Andersen (1805-1875) left his home in Odense, Denmark, at 14 to sing and act in Co...
