Robin R. Cutler's Blog, page 3

A “Nation of Immigrants” in the “Good Old Days”

 

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Jane Hall Art School Drawing 1933

Jane Hall’s experiences in Arizona and California before she became an orphan in 1930 did not expose her to as many people from other nations as  New York City. Although her guardians introduced her to an exclusive social world, when she went to art school at The Cooper Union on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, she met a much broader spectrum of young people from all over the world. One of her best friends was Ruth Gikow whose parents had come to New York from the Ukraine in 1920 when she was five years old.  Ruthie and Jane took many of the same classes; a prodigious worker, she would become a well-known artist whose works were exhibited in major museums.

In light of the current and constant debate on who we are and whom we should be as Americans, it helps to  take at least a brief look at immigration in Jane’s world in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, I certainly did not know that, at the end of the 19th-century, 9% of the total population of Norway emigrated to America.

Some Perspective on Immigration From the Liberty Ellis Island Foundation Website

“By the 1880’s, steam power had shortened the journey to America dramatically. Immigrants poured in from around the world: from the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and down from Canada.

The door was wide open for Europeans. In the 1880s alone, 9% of the total population of Norway emigrated to America. After 1892, nearly all immigrants came in through the newly opened Ellis Island.

One immigrant recalled arriving at Ellis Island: “The boat anchored at mid-bay and then they tendered us on the ship to Ellis Island…We got off the boat…you got your bag in your hand and went right into the building. Ah, that day must have been about five to six thousand people. Jammed, I remember it was August. Hot as a pistol, and I’m wearing my long johns, and my heavy Irish tweed suit.”

Families often immigrated together during this era, although young men frequently came first to find work. Some of these then sent for their wives, children, and siblings; others returned to their families in Europe with their saved wages.

The experience for Asian immigrants in this period was quite different. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, severely restricting immigration from China. Since earlier laws made it difficult for those Chinese immigrants who were already here to bring over their wives and families, most Chinese communities remained “bachelor societies.”

The 1907 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan extended the government’s hostility towards Asian workers and families. For thousands, the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay would be as close as they would ever get to the American mainland.

For Mexicans victimized by the Revolution, Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia, and Armenians escaping the massacres in Turkey, America provided refuge.

And for millions of immigrants, New York provided opportunity. In Lower New York, one could find the whole world in a single neighborhood.

Between 1880 and 1930, over 27 million people entered the United States – about 12 million through Ellis Island. But after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, American attitudes toward immigration began to shift. Nationalism and suspicion of foreigners were on the rise, and immigrants’ loyalties were often called into question. Through the early 1920s, a series of laws were passed to limit the flow of immigrants.

In the 1930s the Great Depression had begun, leaving few with the means or incentive to come to the United States. Many recent immigrants returned to their native lands, including hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, many against their will. The restrictive immigration policies of the 1920s persisted.

In the late 1930s, with World War II accelerating in Europe, a new kind of immigrant began to challenge the quota system and the American conscience. A small number of refugees fleeing Nazi persecution arrived under the quota system, but most were turned away.

Once the US declared war against the Axis Powers, German and Italian resident aliens were detained; but for the Japanese, the policies were more extreme: both resident aliens and American-born citizens of Japanese descent were interned. Congress would officially apologize for the Japanese Internment in 1988.

After the war, the refugee crisis continued. President Truman responded: “I urge the Congress to turn its attention to this world problem in an effort to find ways whereby we can fulfill our responsibilities to these thousands of homeless and suffering refugees of all faiths.”

Congress answered with the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, offering hundreds of thousands entry into the United States. But millions more were left to seek refuge elsewhere.

Between 1956 and 1957, the US admitted 38,000 Hungarians, refugees from a failed uprising against the Soviets. These were among the first of the Cold War refugees.

In this era, for the first time in US history, more women than men entered the country. They were reuniting with their families, joining their GI husbands, taking part in the post war economic boom.

By the early 1960s, calls for immigration reform were growing louder. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed the Hart-Cellar Act into law. Gone was the quota system favoring Western Europe, replaced by one offering hope to immigrants from all the continents. The face of America was truly about to change.”

And half a century later we see the controversial results of this change debated every day.

SEE THE ELLIS ISLAND FOUNDATION WEBSITE FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

 

 

 

New Year’s Eve 1938 and 2017: Elephants and G-men (or when FBI Agents were Heroes)

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Rea Irvin’s Dec 31, 1938, New Yorker cover

The January 1, 2018, New Yorker cover, “Cramped” by George Booth, features a huge grey elephant that looms over the living room of two people trying to have a quiet evening at home. Another pachyderm appeared on the December 31, 1938, cover of the magazine. This gleeful pink elephant by Rea Irvin (1881-1972) might just as well be the cover this week. Interpret it as you will.

In December 1938, Cosmopolitan also tackled a subject worth considering as we approach 2018, though not on its cover. A favorite hero in American popular culture in those days was the G-man (Government-man) also known as the FBI agent. J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the FBI, had 675 of these dedicated agents who risked their lives each day. As one agent recalled: “going where I’m not wanted, where I’m hated and feared, is my business, and coming back alive is my problem, for I’m one of those G-men you hear so much but seldom see, although you [the American public] are my employer, and danger is my job, and death is my paymaster.”

This agent, writing under a pseudonym in Cosmo’s  ”Autobiography of America Series,” feared that he would not live to bounce grandchildren on his knee: ”Fellows in my trade simply don’t live to be old men. If the mad dogs don’t get us, overwork will.” The 33-year-old agent from Georgia, (“most agents are Southerners”), had worked on the Lindbergh case and believed it made the FBI’s reputation in the eyes of the public. But being an agent was a rough life then and it still is. Cosmo’s unidentified agent rarely saw his young wife and two sons.  Pursuing gangsters and other hard core criminals, especially kidnappers/murderers and “dope peddlers,” as well as those guilty of white-collar crimes, was more than a full-time job.

Agents were not allowed to call themselves G-men in public: “It’s not dignified, and the bureau insists on dignity.” Well, most of the time. Click here for a very popular image of J. Edgar Hoover hiding behind a Mickey Mouse mask on New Year’s Eve 1938. But between the wars, little boys asking for Christmas presents preferred to play G-men rather than soldiers. Children idolized FBI agents; replicas of their equipment made toymakers rich across the United States.  Aspiring to be an FBI agent was a craze among boys and even some girls who joined a Junior G-man girls’ division. Favorite toys included windup cars with a man shooting sparks out the window; toy hand guns, machine guns, and ray guns, badges, and rings.

These days Ninja warriors, Star Wars characters, superheroes such as Batman, Spiderman,  Superman, and Wonder Woman have more appeal than cowboys, detectives like Dick Tracy, or G-men.  Yet we still depend on more than 13,000 men and women who serve as special agents for the FBI, an agency that now has close to 35,000 people on its staff. Though most kids no longer revere them, and some in positions of authority malign their leaders, special agents are still heroes who will be working on this New Year’s Eve across the USA to make sure we all remain safe.

And, for those so inclined, you, or a child you know, can still be an FBI agent next Halloween with a costume from Amazon.com.  

Postscript: For those of you familiar with Such Mad Fun, you may remember that the December 1938 issue of Cosmopolitan included Jane Hall’s novel These Glamour Girls. She was hard at work at MGM on the screenplay for the movie based on this story. Jane had come east for Christmas with a bad case of the flu and barely made it through New Year’s Eve in New York City before having to take the train back to Los Angeles.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Filed under: Notes from the Field, Such Mad Fun Tagged: G-men and FBI agents, J. Edgar Hoover, New Years Eve 1938, New Yorker elephants, Rea Irvin

A Depression-Era Thanksgiving — Just as Many Calories Circa 1932

[image error]I came across an interesting article recently about Thanksgiving in the 1930s thanks to journalist Julie Chang. She notes  that, for those who could not afford to dine in an elegant hotel or club, making recipes from scratch compensated for inflated food prices during the Depression. And many Americans remained optimistic despite their troubles.  At that point, at least in Texas, “the average cost of Thanksgiving for a family of six was about $5.50.” That’s close to $70.00 in 2017 — if you cook at home and shop the sales.

Writing for the Southeast Texas-based Beaumont Enterprise a few years ago, Chang reproduced recipes that were published in the Beaumont Journal on November 21, 1932, by a Mrs. Alexander George “who advised that Thanksgiving no longer had to be a ‘trial to the housewife in the matter of cost or labor involved.’ Although we don’t doubt that Mrs. George meant well by her menu and recipes, they seem a little labor-intensive today. You Thanksgiving chefs out there can be the judge:”  (Recipes below are exactly as published.)

Chestnut Stuffing

1 pound of chestnuts

6 cups of bread, crumbled

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Cover nuts with water. Cook slowly 15 minutes. With knife, make slits in side of nuts. Remove meats and press through a sieve and potato ricer. Add to rest of ingredients and lightly stuff fowl.

Asparagus Swiss Serving 6

4 tablespoons butter

6 tablespoons flour

3 cups milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cub cheese, cut fine

2 hard cooked eggs, diced

2 tablespoons chopped pimentos

2 tablespoons chopped celery

1 teaspoon finely chopped onion

2 cups cooked asparagus

2/3 cup (bread) crumbs

3 teaspoons butter, melted

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter and add flour. Mix well and add milk and cook until creamy sauce forms. Add seasonings, cheese and eggs. Mix and add asparagus and pour into buttered baking dish. Cover with crumbs which have been mixed with melted butter. Bake 20 minutes in moderate oven. Serve in dish in which cooked.

Candied Sweet Potatoes

10 medium sized sweet potatoes, peeled

1 cup dark brown sugar

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix ingredients and pour into shallow pan. Bake 50 minutes in moderate oven. Turn potatoes frequently to allow even cooking and browning.

Spiced Cranberry Jelly

6 cups berries

3 cups water

4 whole cloves

1 tablespoon broken cinnamon bark

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix berries, water, spices and salt. Cover and cook slowly 10 minutes. Strain and add sugar. Boil 4 minutes. Pour into molds and chill until stiff.

Colonial Pumpkin Pie

2 unbaked pie crusts

3 cups cooked mashed pumpkin

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon mace

1 teaspoon ginger

4 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup cream

2 1/2 cups milk

Mix pumpkin, sugar, salt, spices, eggs, cream and milk. Pour into unbaked crusts. Bake 10 minutes in moderate oven. Lower fire and bake 45 minutes in slow oven. Have crusts deep so that thick pie will result when it is done.

Today, Julie Chang is an education reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. For Julie or for anyone who is tackling Thanksgiving dinner at home, the task may be made far simpler by  using some carefully chosen prepackaged shortcuts and to-go options for everything including the turkey, options that did not exist 80 years ago. This year I will be with family that includes at least one vegan, two seafood lovers who do not eat meat, and two who will have turkey. Because some of my California family will be in Florida for the first time ever, we will go out to a nearby feast where everyone can have their choice, unified in gratitude if not in culinary tastes. Here are some guaranteed to- be healthy vegan recipes for Thanksgiving from a place very near my apartment in the Sunshine State.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

Filed under: Notes from the Field Tagged: 1930s recipes, candied sweet potatoes 1932, Chestnut stuffing 1932, Hippocrates Health Institute, Julie Chang, pumpkin pie 1932, spiced cranberry jelly 1932, tasty asparagus 1932, Thanksgiving 1930s, vegan Thanksgiving

“The world is at sea on a raft in a hurricane” 1940 and 2017

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Illustration for Edna Ferber’s Essay, Cosmopolitan, October 1940.

As many of you know, for quite a while I’ve been reading magazines published in the 1930s and 1940s; I’ve been interested in the values that women’s magazines, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, imparted to their women readers. In those days, magazines were filled with articles about current events as well as fiction by some of the nation’s best authors.

In October 1940, just weeks before Franklin D. Roosevelt would defeat Wendell Wilkie and become the only three-term president, Americans agonized over whether to enter World War II.  Germany had taken over France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. October 31st was the deadline for the Jews in Warsaw to move into the Warsaw Ghetto. It was also the day when the Battle of Britain ended between the RAF and the Luftwaffe with a British victory. In America, that September, all men between 21 and 45 were required to register for the draft. Still, children were free to celebrate Halloween with much more enthusiasm than those experiencing real horror in Europe. Their costumes were inspired by movies such as “Snow White” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Popular songs appropriate to the scary holiday included “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” and “The Ghost of Smokey Joe,” both released in 1939.

Against this sobering background, Edna Ferber (1885-1968), the Pulitzer Prize- winning novelist, short story writer and playwright— who even today has 89 books on Goodreads—published an essay in Cosmopolitan called “Something to Believe In.” That something was American freedom. It’s hard not to imagine whether she couldn’t have written a similar piece today (though it would not have appeared in Cosmopolitan ).

“The world is at sea on a raft in a hurricane,” Ferber wrote. Chaos reigns. And “the everyday behavior of everyday life doesn’t fit this new precarious situation. One thing we’re agreed on. Anybody’s opinion is as good as anybody’s opinion. We can all speak out.” In fact, she continues, Americans “are the only people in the world who can freely speak our minds and our hearts” everywhere.  “It is a thing we’ve always taken for granted.  Now, suddenly, it takes our breath away.” Ferber was worried: “We are not doing enough to preserve America’s vitality. Every American has the right and the voting power to put at the head of this government, as a paid and functioning servant, the man [not man or woman, I note] to be known as President,” yet not enough people vote.  Not enough people care enough to make sure that the people that we place in office are “people of known integrity and ability.” And there is far too much cynicism and disillusionment. Sound familiar?

“Liberty is more perishable than life, more transitory and evasive than happiness. It has to be guarded, defended, fought for over and over again.” The United States is “in danger from subversive forces without and within the continent.” Too often, Ferber opines in 1940, “we have worshipped material success;” we need to be prepared for some sacrifice and self-denial. For out of fear may spring “the flower of heroism.” We all need to “work for the common good, change from the lazy, sneering, contemptuous, soft and careless attitude that has enslaved us for a quarter of a century.” Finally, Edna Ferber warns us—then and now: “If we believe that what we have is desirable enough to keep we should keep it. If we’re licked before we start, we deserve to lose it.”

Over this past weekend, I heard that more than 92 million people who could have, neglected to vote in the 2016 presidential election. I had not realized the number was so huge. One amusing website noted last January that if “Did Not Vote” had been a candidate in the U.S. presidential election, it would have won by a landslide. That’s one reason why—as we perch on the brink of at least one possible war which could be far more harrowing than the last one— Edna Ferber has some thoughts that may be useful for us today.

It is fascinating that so much emphasis was placed on cultivating character in pre-1950  popular women’s magazines aimed at housewives and single young working girls. They are dense with serious content. They are not only about how to dress, how to lose weight, how to decorate, and how to please a man. In fact, one article emphasizes that “people about to be married need training in character much more than they need instruction in sex.” [“Religion in the Home” by William Lyon Phelps, Good Housekeeping, June 1938.]  There are many, many substantive magazines now, though most of these are not sold in supermarkets. [In my local supermarket, Cosmo is so racy it has a shield over the cover.]  And there are hundreds of ways to learn from thoughtful, inspiring online publications, blogs and websites etc.  But I fear that most of the people who did not vote in 2016 probably do not see them.

Filed under: Notes from the Field Tagged: 1940, American life 1940, Edna Ferber, freedom, popular culture 1940, voting in the United States

Real News or Fake? In 1939 Dorothy Thompson Weighed In on the Topic.

 

 

 

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Dorothy Thompson on the cover of Time magazine, June 12, 1939

She was one of the most celebrated journalists of her era. On June 12, 1939, she graced the cover of Time magazine which called her “‘the second most popular and influential woman in the country behind Eleanor Roosevelt.’”  And Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961) was one of the women Jane Hall admired most. As readers of Such Mad Fun will know, Jane had, at times, flirted with the idea of being a journalist; she wrote several reports from Hollywood including a profile of author Vina Delmar for Cosmopolitan. But when I flipped through the August 1939 issue that includes Jane’s profile this morning, what intrigued me was an article titled “Government by Gossip” by Dorothy Thompson

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Thompson had spent many years in Europe—she even interviewed Hitler in 1931. She begins her article by acknowledging that she’d been a professional for 19 years and knew a great deal about what was going on in Europe as well as “a large number of the leading figures in politics, journalism, business and letters.” She had a reputation among her colleagues for being “exceptionally well informed.” But, Thompson wants her readers to know, that she does not feel well-informed. Unlike many others, she does know what she doesn’t know; and she worries because millions of dollars are being spent all the time to create false impressions. “An enormous amount of what we believe is rumor – and some rumor may even be true.” So many people are pulling strings every moment; “since no government, even the most brutal dictatorship, can work without having the masses behind it, the doping of the public is going forward on a gigantic scale.”

In dictatorships many people realize that the government only tells them what it wants them to know; but in countries with an independent press, at a time when the news coverage has never been greater, there has hardly been an event in recent international affairs “about which we know with positive authenticity all the essential facts.” Thompson gives several specific examples of how hard it is for journalists and their readers to know what’s really happening on several fronts such as the Spanish Civil War. Despite the miles of newspaper reports, she asks, “who is sure of certain highly important facts?” Even in America, there are way too many versions of what really motivates President Roosevelt’s decisions at critical times.

Thompson’s questions remain critical ones: “What is the condition of our armaments? One group of experts say they are excellent; another says they are lamentable. The man in the street doesn’t know, and he can hardly have an intelligent opinion, because he doesn’t know – and neither does Congress – what our defense policy really is.” Plus, on another matter,  she wrote: “There is a great deal of talk about balancing the budget, but does anyone in Congress really want economy to the extent of risking votes?” Thompson refused to discuss in detail “various poisoning campaigns, launched in the most shameless manner, for the purpose of boosting personal ambitions, aiding foreign powers, provoking public confusion for revolutionary purposes, and assassinating reputations with the object of removing the prestige of public personalities. Yet such conscious and malicious poisoners of public opinion are rampant these days.”  . . .”And even if you have your favorite columnists, [or substitute pundits on television and on the internet] consider that once in a while they, too, may be very, very wrong!”

Wikipedia lists some of Thompson’s most famous quotations. How about this one? “No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. When our dictator turns up [in America] you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American . . . [People] will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of ‘O.K. Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay.’” [1935]

It was intriguing to read these words from the late 1930s. Some of Thompson’s caveats could come up in a Ted talk today. For years she had a syndicated newspaper column called “On the Record,” and she wrote a monthly column for the Ladies’ Home Journal until she died. I wonder what she would’ve thought of the new Cosmopolitan had she lived beyond 1961. Now I’m convinced that Jane Hall’s lifelong fascination with politics came in part from Dorothy Thompson’s columns in the 1920s, 1930s and beyond. I can see why.

Filed under: Notes from the Field, Such Mad Fun Tagged: Dorothy Thompson, fake v real news, Jane Hall, journalism 1930s

Such Mad Fun- Travel back to the Golden Age of Hollywood in this unforgettable award-winning story

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What determines who a woman will become?

Jane Hall was an orphan at fifteen and a “literary prodigy” according to the press. How did this daughter of Arizona’s most popular humorist become a Depression-era debutante, a successful author of magazine fiction, and a screenwriter at Hollywood’s most glamorous studio? Jane soon found that her ambition conflicted with the expectations of her family, her friends and the era in which she lived. Devastated by the loss of her parents, how long would it take Jane to trust her emotions and love again?

Read the full story in the new book Such Mad Fun: Ambition and Glamour in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robin Cutler.

“A valuable, absorbing contribution to the history of women, golden-age Hollywood, and America’s magazine culture of the 1930s and ’40s.”

— KIRKUS starred review.

Unsure? There are even more sample  reviews.  See https://awards.forewordreviews.com/books/such-mad-fun

And this excerpt in Vanity Fair!  

For RIGHTS INFORMATION, News, Press and Reviews click here

For the latest news or comments check out Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/suchmadfun/

Contact the author through this website

Additional Contact:

Angelle Barbazon

JKS Communications

angelle@jkscommunications.com

(615) 928-2462

Such Mad Fun is available in all formats  except audio. And it can be ordered from your local bookstore anywhere. .Enjoy!

BOOKSELLERS MAY ORDER FROM INGRAM

Amazon

Hardcover
Paperback
Kindle

Barnes & Noble

Hardcover
Paperback
Nook

iBook

iBook Store

Kobo

Kobo Store

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes & Noble.

Filed under: Such Mad Fun Tagged: 1930s, Glamour, Jane Hall, Such Mad Fun

Such Mad Fun – A Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of 2016 and a Foreword Indies Gold Winner for Biography

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What determines who a woman will become?

Jane Hall was an orphan at fifteen and a “literary prodigy” according to the press. How did this daughter of Arizona’s most popular humorist become a Depression-era debutante, a successful author of magazine fiction, and a screenwriter at Hollywood’s most glamorous studio? Jane soon found that her ambition conflicted with the expectations of her family, her friends and the era in which she lived. Devastated by the loss of her parents, how long would it take Jane to trust her emotions and love again?

Read the full story in the new book Such Mad Fun: Ambition and Glamour in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robin Cutler.

“A valuable, absorbing contribution to the history of women, golden-age Hollywood, and America’s magazine culture of the 1930s and ’40s.”

— KIRKUS starred review.

Unsure? There are even more advance reviews.  See https://awards.forewordreviews.com/bo...

And this excerpt in Vanity Fair!  

For the latest news or comments  check out Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/suchmadfun/

Contact the author through this website or message her on Facebook.

Or contact:

Angelle Barbazon

JKS Communications

angelle@jkscommunications.com

(615) 928-2462

Such Mad Fun is available in all formats  except audio. And it can be ordered from your local bookstore anywhere if they don’t have it. Enjoy!

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes & Noble.

Amazon

Hardcover
Paperback
Kindle

Barnes & Noble

Hardcover
Paperback
Nook

iBook

iBook Store

Kobo

Kobo Store

 

Filed under: Such Mad Fun

From Cooper Union to Harvard’s Hutchins Center: The Journey of a Painting

 

For my followers, please excuse the delay in posting this past 8 weeks.  I’m well on the way to recovery from a fractured right wrist. But there is interesting news to report about an oil painting Jane Hall did while she was in art school at Cooper Union (1932-1935). It has now found a permanent home at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. How can this be? First a little background:

Jane’s favorite professor at Cooper Union was well-known American regionalist John Steuart Curry; the project she tackled first for his life drawing class was an oil painting of a festival in Virginia that she called The Warrenton Oyster Fry. It’s the only painting that survives from her art school days.

[image error]At the top of the crowded, colorful canvas filled with young, high-energy African Americans engaged in lively camaraderie, a banner reads “Sons and Daughters of the I Will Arise Oyster Fry.” Jane had tried harder than ever on this project, and her efforts paid off.

The authentic carnival atmosphere impressed Mr. Curry, who, according to Jane’s diary, said she’d “got something there;” even the art school director, Austin Purves, thought the painting was “swell, something I’ve been waiting three years to hear.” She’d been to an exhibit of John Steuart Curry’s work at the Ferargil Galleries on East 57th Street in Manhattan; there, two years earlier, he had shared the stage with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton in an exhibition of leading American regionalist painters. “He is a wonder,” Jane noted in a letter, plus the newspapers now referred to his “ ‘meteoric rise;’ ‘single-handedly, John Steuart Curry could probably bring about a renaissance in American art.’” Jane was exuberant. “Did I tell you that I am his special protégé?” she wrote her guardian and aunt, Rose Hicks. “I’m studying composition under him in the afternoon . . . I know now what I want to be – a real artist – a painter – an immortal.” She’d also earned an A on a written exam.

The Warrenton Oyster Fry received honorable mention when awards were given out at Cooper Union’s Day Art School that spring.  Jane was thrilled that on April 21st The New York Times  included her name on the list of those who had done well at Cooper.  She didn’t know yet that Mr. Curry would not return in the 1935-1936 academic year. And, in 1935, she would leave art school to get a job.

My daughters and I were not sure how to interpret this painting, or whether it would be well understood if we hung it in any of our homes. Thanks to Carlyn’s initiative, we had superb help from Curator Sheldon Cheek at The Hutchins Center Image of the Black Archive and Library. He found it to be a “sympathetic treatment of a theme rarely experienced by most white people. The exaggerated figural style reflects the liveliness of an event where African Americans could truly be themselves without the restrictions placed on them by Jim Crow society. There is a very close resemblance between Jane Hall’s use of bodily gesture and that of her mentor John Steuart Curry, as can be seen in his depiction of a black family at the mercy of a Mississippi flood painted in the same year as the Warrenton Oyster Fry.”  Mr Cheek believes “Jane Hall’s style is best described as an east coast representative of American Regionalism as developed by Curry, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton etc.”   He continues: “In a more literary vein, I am also reminded of Du Bose Heyward and George Gershwin’s contemporary evocation of southern black life in Porgy and Bess. The reception by white audiences of these varied, privileged, and somewhat voyeuristic glimpses into the world of the other seems to been genuinely sympathetic, similar to the visits by whites to those Harlem jazz clubs exclusively reserved for them.”

This month we donated the painting to the Hutchins Center; it is wonderful to know that it has such a distinguished home.

 

Filed under: Such Mad Fun Tagged: African American life 1930s, Cooper Union 1930s, Cooper Union Day Art School, Harvard University, Hutchins Center, Jane Hall, John Steuart Curry, Sheldon Cheek, Warrenton Virginia 1935

A Glamour Girl Hooked on Murder?

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G. P. Putnam’s illustration for Dick Wick Hall’s first Saturday Evening Post story, “Salome, Where the Green Grass Grew.” Dick was Jane Hall’s father. He is in “jail” because his tiny desert patch of lawn caused such a public disturbance in the Arizona desert. The image reminds us of Jane’s cowboy roots and perhaps the source of her interest in true crime songs and poems.

It all began when I sang parts of a grizzly ballad to my grandsons who are into gory stuff at almost 7 and 9. We wondered where the verses came from, and what the rest of the lyrics were.   I wasn’t even sure how to spell the name of the Wratten family, but the tune is catchy and we wanted more.  I had learned the words from my mother, Jane Hall, the author and glamour girl with tomboy roots. She also taught me other brutal bits of popular culture such as the ballad, “Frankie and Johnny,” and the Robert Service poem, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” (Well, at least part of it.)  Is there a pattern here? Maybe my mother’s infatuation with these true crime stories explains mine with silver cap guns and a Hopalong Cassidy outfit. (Until I became a Native American warrior at about ten.)

Google research led to the website of a generous University of Kentucky law professor, Richard H. Underwood, who has just published a book about true crime stories in old American murder ballads.  He pointed me to other websites with more about the case. Turns out crimes still inspire musical renditions…listen to these songs published by Rolling Stone.

Back to the Wrattens: In the middle of the night on Tuesday, September 18, 1893, five men slaughtered an entire Indiana family hoping to find $1200. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, one of the assassins called it a “picnic” except for the “old woman” who fought them. Her name was Elizabeth Wratten. Here’s one lyrical version of what happened:

Home came old Pa Rattin,

A-drinkin’ he had been,

He knocked upon the front door,

And bellowed, “Let me in!”

First came old Ma Rattin,

She came to let him in,

He stuck her with the bread knife,

And let the daylight in.

Then came Grandma Rattin,

A sittin’ by the fire,

He snuck up close behind her,

And choked her with a wire.

Then came Grandpa Rattin,

Old and feeble and gray,

He put up an awful struggle,

Until his strength gave way.

Then came sister Rattin,

A-playin’ with a doll,

He shot her in the temple,

Just to see which way she’d fall.

Then came Baby Rattin,

Asleep in her trundle bed,

He kicked her in the short ribs

Until the child was dead,

And spat terbaccer juice

All over her golden head.

Then came play-boy Rattin,

Drove up in his limousine,

He wrapped him in old newspapers,

And poured on gasoline,

And lit him with a blowtorch

Just to hear the old boy scream.

Richard Underwood also mentioned Paul Slade’s website. Slade explains why murder ballads still intrigue us: “First and foremost, I think it’s because they’re essentially a form of journalism. Most of the songs you’ll find discussed here were written very soon after the real-life crimes they describe, and sold in the streets within hours of the killer’s capture or execution. Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, these songs were tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying news of all the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public.”

So if you come across any children who have reached a gorier-the-better stage, this is a bit of pop culture to investigate. I’m sure Jane Hall would love the fact that her great-grandsons now know about the Wratten family. Maybe even more than she did. Such mad fun.

Notes: Wratten has been spelled Rattin and Wrattin.

Filed under: Such Mad Fun Tagged: Jane Hall, Murder ballads, Paul Slade, Richard Underwood, Wratten Family Murder

A Burning Question: Skin Color and Social Class in 1937 and 2017

[image error]“What interests you most in this Cosmopolitan world of today?” the magazine asked in September 1937.  The answer could be found in another question: Is a person’s social standing to be “gauged by his complexion”? Columnist, cartoonist, and frequent contributor to the New Yorker and several other magazines, Weare Holbrook (d.1985), tackles this subject– and he’s not writing about American cultural diversity. He’s talking about sun worshipers.

“ The Burning Question” begins: “Since the suntan craze swept the country like a plague of jaundice, a new caste system has arisen in our summer resorts.” Of course, that system also applies to chic winter resorts in, say, Florida.  It seems that in 1937 there were three distinct color groups: “The “Cordovan ruling class, composed of the aristocrats who own cottages and stay there all summer;” “the Beige bourgeoisie who live in hotels and stay only a few weeks;” and the third, oh so unfortunate group, was “the Pink proletariat who bloom but for a single day and then return to the city.”  Holbrook acknowledges somewhat wistfully that he is, in fact, a member of this third group. With more than a twist of satire he notes how carefully sun worshipers apply oil assiduously to each body part and bake themselves like rotisserie chickens.  (This is way before Neutrogena Broad Spectrum 100+ or widespread TV. Have you noticed the golden visage of our president and so many pundits these days who appear on screens with real news and fake complexions?)

The “mania for looking leathery” distracts golfers and tennis players who feel an even suntan is more important than the score, Holbrook observes. His empathy for those who do not turn brown no matter how much they try is evident. “You can see them at any summer resort, basking away as if their little hearts would break.… from shell- pink, their color deepens to ashes of roses, and then to lobster red.” Then the peeling and blisters begin. Holbrook does not support this craze: “It seems to me that it might be simpler to intermarry with the Indians and let nature take its course. At least it would save our grandchildren  a lot of trouble.” Hmmm…that’s a provocative thought for 1937.

Holbrook will retire to the shade rather than compete with the sun worshipers. He’s happily resigned to being “a pale, anemic- looking eccentric who may be found on the front porch, fully dressed and in his right mind, with an electric fan on one side of him and a tall drink on the other. Small boys may hoot at me derisively and my café- au- lait contemporaries may point the nut- brown finger of scorn at me, but there I will remain. And perhaps, years hence, the Daughters of the American Revolution or the Colonial Dames or some other group of harker-backers may erect a monument to my memory, as the Last White Settler in America.”

I find this occasionally tongue-in-cheek essay intriguing eighty years later when, alas, a person’s social standing is still gauged by his complexion in some parts of this country, and it’s not because of a suntan or lack of it. Oddly enough, some of those doing the judging may have the deepest tans. Concerns about social status remain prevalent in the public’s consciousness.

My mother’s first Cosmopolitan story,  “Sidewalk Café,” appears in this issue. In looking back, I’m reminded how important it was to Jane Hall to have tan legs and arms, while never letting the sun touch her porcelain face; thanks to wide- brimmed hats, it remained practically free of lines until she died at age seventy-two. There’s a lesson in that.

Filed under: Such Mad Fun Tagged: Cosmopolitan 1937, Jane Hall, Rosalie Rush, skin color and social status, suntans 1937, Weare Holbrook