Brinkley Girls & Doggies

Nell Brinkley was an outstanding cartoonist of the 1910's and 1920's, finally gaining recognition (above all, thanks to the work of comics scholar Trina Robbins) for her "Brinkley girls", sparklingly cheerful and active flappers that looked pretty but acted courageously and independently in Brinkley's stunning one-page compositions and serial adventure stories.

I was leafing through Trina Robbins' edited collection The Brinkley Girls and discovered an obsession with dogs of all sizes, temperaments and breeds...



Miss Prudence Prim, in spite of her name, is a great flirt, but her doggy gets to kiss the handsome gentleman this time.



During the First World War, "Golden-Eyes" couldn't stay away from blood-curdling adventures in No-Man's-Land, always with her brave collie Uncle Sam by her side. Note how Nell Brinkely's persistently pretty style renders even the terrible and spiky-helmeted Hun hunky.



"Golden-Eyes" and Uncle Sam - her lover Billy is seen in the portrait, but look who gets the cuddles.



In "The Fortunes of Flossie", a seemingly silly flapper gets her future told by various Gypsies and sideshow shamans, but somehow the predictions always come true. The jealous Billy overhears how Flossie is promised a kiss by a stranger...



More baby dogs!

About Nell Brinkley at the Ohio State University Libraries website
And at Wikipedia

Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa, originally uploaded by punalippu.

The Japanese-born Hollywood star in the silent film His Birthright from 1918.

John Held Jr.

The Jazz Age cartoonist par excellence, with a handsome doggy (from the Condé Nast archives, which for some reason won't work in my browser right now).

"Show Monsieur the sights?"

"Show Monsieur the sights?", originally uploaded by punalippu.

Very early cartoon by John Held Jr. in The New York Times, 1920. His style would develop in a completely different way during the twenties.

You can compare samples of his early and later work here.

Hero of the (r)Evolution

Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial: John Thomas Scopes, originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

During 1925, Watson Davis (1896-1967), Science Service managing editor, took numerous photographs while covering the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial as a reporter. In what was dubbed "The Trial of the Century," Scopes was tried and convicted for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution.

Nice glasses and boater. What's up with the stylish scientists 80 years ago? See previous post.

The Scientific Gaze

Mildred Adams Fenton (b. 1888), originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

Mildred Adams Fenton (b. 1888) trained in paleontology and geology at the University of Iowa. She coauthored dozens of general science books with her husband, Carroll Lane Fenton, including Records of Evolution (1924), Land We Live On (1944), and Worlds in the Sky (1963).

She looks fantastic. I want to draw her.

From the LIFE photo archive

Google has made the incredible photo archives of LIFE magazine digitally available to the general public. Many of the photos have never been published before and include works by celebrities like Alfred Eisenstaedt, less-known photographers like Hugo Jaeger (colour photos of the Third Reich, a creepy experience), and unknown illustrators. Here are some of my favourites in no particular order, perhaps they give an impression of my main interests :)

Helsinki; in front, the Russian Orthodox church, in the back, the Lutheran Helsinki Cathedral. I bet the photographer chose this angle because of the "red scare" during the general strike in Finland in 1949. An anecdote about Ronald Reagan tells that the President during a visit in Helsinki quipped, "I can see Russia from here!"
Date taken: August 08, 1949 * Photographer: Mark Kauffman

Ella Fitzgerald at "Mr. Kelly's" nightclub in Chicago, 1958. Photographer: Yale Joel

Jesuit novices contemplating their breviaries at Los Gatos Novitiate a.k.a. Sacred Heart Novitiate, San Jose, California. There are many more beautiful photographs from their vineyards and the varied work of the novices by Margaret Bourke-White. Date taken: October 1953


Carl Mydans, who also documented the Winter War from the Finnish side, took beautiful colour photographs of Venetian life in the 1940's.


This is adorable. A man is combing his girlfriend's hair in Italy, 1963. The photograph Paul Schutzer clearly enjoyed documenting Italian masculinity since there are many charming photographs of men doing nice things like dancing, mountain-climbing, relaxing or just goofing around. It is nice to rest one's eyes on those pictures after an overdose of full-colour Nazi and Fascist parades...
Tragically, Paul Schutzer was killed while covering the Six-Day War.


From peace to war, and to yet another war: This photo was taken in Khe Sanh, Vietnam, by Larry Burrows in 1968. The American soldier under siege is gently holding a native puppy. I hope they both got away alive; the photographer himself died while covering the invasion of Laos in 1971, when the helicopter he was flying in was shot down by North Vietnamese forces.

Top 3 Swedish Poets

***

Dan Andersson (1888-1920)

När de gamla såren heta tära,
när din kind är vätt av ensamhetens gråt,
när att leva är att stenar bära
och din sång är sorg som vilsna tranors låt,
gå och drick en fläkt av höstens vindar,
se med mig mot bleka, blåa skyn!
Kom och stå med mig vid hagens grindar,
när de vilda gässen flyga över byn!

"Gässen flytta", ur Kolvaktarens visor (1915)

Harry Martinson (1904-1978)

Har ni sett en koltramp komma ur en orkan -
med bräckta bommar, sönderslitna relingar,
bucklig, stånkande, förfelad -
och med en skeppare som är alldeles hes?
Fnysande lägger den till vid den soliga kajen,
utmattad slickande sina sår,
medan ångan tynar i pannorna.

"Har ni sett en koltramp..." ur Spökskepp (1929)

Joe Hill (1879-1915)

My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don't need to fuss and moan
"Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."
My body? - Oh. - If I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again
This is my Last and final Will
Good Luck to All of you

Joe Hill

Paolo Garretto

More of a 30's guy than 20's, but nice to look at...
Paolo Garretto was an Italian artist who became famous for his stylized caricatures of famous people in the 1930's and 1940's. His career started in 1928, and he was published in the British Caricature of Today magazine and the Italian satirical magazine Pasquino. He was recruited by Vanity Fair as cover artist (the portrait to the right was taken for VF by Lusha Nelson). The New York Times tells in its obituary from 1991 about his life's trials:

When World War II broke out, Mr. Garretto, an Italian citizen living in the United States, was interned as an enemy alien and deported to Italy. He was approached by the Nazis to produce caricatures of President Roosevelt and other Allied leaders. When he refused, he was interned as a political prisoner in Hungary from 1942 until the end of the war.

Interestingly, Garretto did several rather nasty caricatures of Roosevelt while in the USA. As a cartoonist myself, I find the principle sound. As long as he was not allowed to lampoon Mussolini, why should he attack the president of a state that granted him the freedom to do so?
Here are some of Garretto's portraits of my 1920's favourites, more at cartantica.it


Comrades & mortal enemies, Trotsky and Stalin


Marinetti and Marconi, bringing in the machine age


Former subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka and von Stroheim


And finally my top picks, d'Annunzio and Atatürk! I love that bald owlish head and those lynx eyes.

Fashions Summer 1920

Some illustrations from The New York Times, June-July 1920. Artist unknown - for some reason I suspect an early John Held Jr, but he did illustrations in a completely different woodcut style for the NYT before he started drawing bobblehead flappers. Will post some of those later.

Sheet Music Covers

Originally published on historia.ainurin.net (May 25, 2007)

Sheet music published in the early 1900's has wonderful graphics. The covers range from modern, colourful and stylized art deco to faintly yellowing pastels and filigree fonts from the art nouveau period. Sometimes they feature cartoon characters or rough ethnic stereotypes, sometimes photographs of famous performers. Beautiful women are the most common subject, but there are a lot of other interesting images as well: political propaganda, ideal landscapes, flowers, humorous situations, satirical comments on trends, etc.

I have collected links to some of the best sheet music archives here for our browsing convenience.

UCLA Music Library: APAM
Archive of Popular American Music (my favourite)



Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University:
19th and early 20th century American sheet music



Perfessor Bill Edward's ragtime collection (with midi files)



Brown University Library Digital Collection:
African-American Sheet Music 1820-1920
(This is an odd one. Many of the covers are very racist and many of the songs are so-called "coon songs" performed by white minstrel singers in blackface. But some of the items in the collection have been created by African-American musicians, for example St. Louis Blues by W. C. Handy. Often black artists also performed minstrel songs in blackface for white audiences. It's hard to find a fitting description for this collection.)



The E. Azalia Hackley Collection
- was created in 1943 by a gift of material to the Detroit Public Library from the Detroit Musicians Association, a branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians. The Hackley was the first archive to document the contributions of Blacks to the performing arts.


The University of Chicago's library has a sheet music directory for those who hunger for more.

Cylinder Recordings

Originally published on historia.ainurin.net (2006/10/30)



The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the Department of Special Collections, Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California (Santa Barbara - phew, that's some name!) has made available an incredible amount of digital versions of cylinder recordings from the late 19th and the early 20th century. Browse through themes such as Jazz, Dance Bands, Swedish or Finnish or Japanese music, ethnic humor at the expense of Italians, Irish or Jews, and contemporary events such as the Great War or the Prohibition.

Thomas Alva Edison's invention, the phonograph cylinder (in wax and celluloid), was not easily defeated by the disc. Today, restoration is hard work, since celluloid deteriorates with age, and wax is notoriously fragile. Although Edison was not the only one to produce them, the age of cylinder recordings ended when the Edison Company left the recording business in 1929.

Goldenbird fans can enjoy the novelty jazz song that Mayann is singing on stage in chapter one: Jazz Baby, performed by Rachel Grant (a k a Gladys Rice) in 1919.
Afterwards, you may refresh your Italian with this basic lesson from the 1900's. It seems that it is rather difficult to catch a train directly to Milan. But it is a pretty language, no?

Headlines from 1920

The Goldenbird story tales place on the exact dates of June 19th-23rd. The story this far has reached June 21st. What happened in the world during those three days? The New York Times free archive gives us some funny and thought-provoking headlines of the summer of 1920.

1920, June 19th
Goldenbird: The gang gathers in the politically disputed, Italian/Slavic resort Ginestra. Falco is scheming, Mayann is busy with her rehearsals and swimming lessons, and Andy and Lou paint the town red in the evening.
Meanwhile, in the real world:
D'ANNUNZIO STATES TERMS. Tells Giolitti He Won't Yield Fiume Till Independence Is Granted. - We all should know d'Annunzio and his Fiume escapades by now...
ITALIAN PRISONERS KILLED. Albanian Attacks Follow Assassination of Essad Pasha. - Some Albanian forces blamed the assassination on "Italian intrigue" and took out their anger on 330 POW's.
AIRCRAFT BUILDERS' TASK; To Convince People Planes Are Safe "... The next generation will know more about airplanes and flying than we do today of the automobile..." - Modern technology revolutionized communications, but Lindbergh's cross of the Atlantic was still far in the future.
ROOSTER FOR DEMOCRATS. Illinois Woman Declares Mule Isn't the Right Party Emblem. - I thought it was a donkey? Certainly wouldn't improve the quality of dirty political puns.
SEAMEN RESENT GERMANS. British Delegate at Conference Clashes with Teuton. - The International Seamen's Conference in Genoa, Italy, was disturbed by quarrels between the former enemies. NYT was slightly biased as well: "... a German delegate, with red upstanding hair and red pointed beard, rose with an arrogant air and delivered his speech in loud tones."
ITALY ASKS ABOUT SUICIDE. Government Wants Facts from Palmer About Red's Imprisonment. - This famous case involved the alleged suicide of anarchist Andrea Salsedo. As a worker for the political newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva he had been taken in for interrogations without arrest or warrant by the Bureau of Investigations in February 25. There, he was urged to reveal names and details about his comrades. His widow claimed that he had been tortured before he threw himself from the 14th floor on May 3. His case inspired anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti to organize protests, which would incriminate them further in the famous "trial of the century" 1920-1927.

1920, June 20th
Goldenbird: Falco is chased by mountain warrior monks in the Slavic hinterland, while Mayann continues her flirt with the swimming teacher, and Lou realizes her and Andy's adventures have had serious consequences.
Meanwhile in the real world:
WARNS OF FUTURE SHORTAGE OF OIL; Director of Geological Survey Declares That Consumption Has Overtaken Output. - 80 years ahead of his time!
HARDING THE HARMONIZER, GENEROUS AND LIKABLE; Republican Presidential Nominee Began as Poor Boy, Became an Editor, Has Ideal Home Life, Is a Baptist and Believes in Good Causes, But Plays Draw Poker - Warren G. Harding would become the next (and for some time, reputedly the worst) US president soon.
NEW IMMIGRANT TYPE EXCELS PREDECESSOR; Ellis Island Finds Proof in Decreasing Numbers of Undesirable Arrivals. - Didn't stop the US authorities from enforcing racially discriminatory immigration laws for the next few decades.
HARLEM LIBRARIES DRAW THE CHILDREN; Two Branches Crowded with Eager Throngs of Enthusiastic Subscribers. SOME ATTRACTIVE EXHIBITS Clubs and a Large Variety of Books for Youthful Readers Lure Young of Many Races. - Happy news from a part of New York City that would soon be the cradle of a great Africa-American cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
GERMANS DEPRESSED OVER THEIR FUTURE; Looking Forward with Anxiety to the Outcome of the Spa Conference. PRICES STILL MOUNTING Workers Like the Republic, but Business Circles See Only Hope in a Dictator. Deny Planning Revenge. Sans Souci Beauty Unimpaired. Labor Likes New Republic. Big Crowds at Theatres. - Germans may have been gloomy, but many of the Allies still thought they were recovering a bit too fast, and were maybe even enjoying themselves secretly!
ALAND EXCITEMENT GROWS. - Sweden and Finland were having an argument about the Åland islands, which eventually became the first international dispute that the League of Nations managed to solve peacefully.
SIBERIAN PARLEYS BROKEN OFF; New State and Japanese at Odds Over Scope of Negotiations. - The "new state", the Far Eastern Republic, ended as a Soviet puppet state.
LITTLE THINGS FOR SUMMER; Collars, Guimpes, Scarfs and Bags Become Important Adjuncts to the Wardrobe Belts and Sashes. "... FEMININE wardrobes acknowledge no limit in accessories. And this season, perhaps more than ever before, has contributed beautiful and truly artistic "little things" as parts of the prevailing styles. What can add more freshness or charm to the general appearance of a costume than a crisp new collar or a sash?" - What is a "guimpe"? This? As an accessory lover, I am intrigued.

1920, June 21st
Goldenbird: Falco is back in town. After a skirmish with a pointy-eared Russian anarchist and Dr Shapiro, he is ready to face the greatest challenge of them all: Mayann the red-hot jazz baby.
Meanwhile in the real world:
OVERALL PARADE IN PARIS. Poets and Actresses Devote the Day to the Wearing of Blue Jeans. - They didn't have the vote yet, but they had the threads...
COLLEGE MEN URGED TO LEAD; Dartmouth Students Told of America's Mission In the World. - While Wilson's plans for an active US foreign policy were torpedoed by a widespread isolationist opinion, the theoretical idea of a universal mission takes hold - "a mission given by God for the sake of humanity".
OIL PRODUCERS SAY PRICES MUST RISE; Further Advances Are Needed if Healthy Competition Is to Remain. DEMAND EXCEEDS SUPPLY. - It has returned to haunt us...
WELCOMED MEXICAN INVASION; Thousands of Families Crossing the Border to Till the Soil and Otherwise Build Up the Southwest 100,000 in the Northward Movement. Replacing the Drift to Cities. Entering the Sugar Beet Field. Qualities to Be Reckoned With Bilingual New Mexico. - More happy news, but we cannot escape the sad:
2 DEAD, MANY HURT IN CHICAGO RIOT; Sailor and White Civilian Killed and Colored Policeman Wounded by Negroes. AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED Police Reserves and Rifle Squad at Scene of Trouble Started by Parading Abyssinians. In the shadow of the horrific Red Summer of 1919, race riots continued to flare up locally in America. The mysterious "Abyssinians" of the article were a "return to Africa" movement inspired by Marcus Garvey, possibly "The Star Order of Ethiopia".

Jazz in Scientific World

In the New York Times, November 16, 1919, prof. Charles Lane Poor, professor of Celestial Mechanics at Columbia University, explained Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity:

When is space curved?
When do parallel lines meet?
When is a circle not a circle?
When are the three angles of a triangle not equal to two right angles?
Why, when Bolshevism enters the world of science, of course!

In the early days after Einstein's discoveries, people were very confused about the meaning of the word "relative" in that scientific context. It simply did not mean that "anything goes" or that "there are no rules" (just as bolshevism was confused with anarchy). Similarly, jazz was interpreted as "chaos in music", although jazz bands always were integrated in particular historical and cultural contexts, and therefore as relative (in the true meaning of the word) as the laws of physics.

"For some years past," Professor Poor said the other day, after reading the cable dispatches about the Einstein theory, "the entire world has been in a state of unrest, mental as well as physical. It may well be that the physical aspects of the unrest, the war, the strikes, the Bolshevist uprising, are in reality the visible objects of some underlying, deep mental disturbance, world-wide in character. This mental unrest is evidenced by the widespread intent it social problems, to throw aside the well-tested authors of Governments in favor of radical and untried experiments."

Professor Poor dismissed Einstein's theories as "psychological speculations and fantastic dreams". He compared them to some rivals of Newton, who had tried to find other explanations for the moon's motions than the forces of gravitation - "during a time of profoud mental and political unrest". Newton had prevailed, and he would prevail against these new "speculations" as well, was the Professor's conviction. Einstein's notion of a fourth dimension was the final blow: the professor felt as if he had been "wandering with Alice in Wonderland and had tea with the Mad Hatter".

Interestingly, the article nowhere mentions jazz, except in the caption. Perhaps it was added in order to excite the reader. If there was any conceivable connection between jazz and bolshevism and physics, only a die-hard anti-semite could have spotted it.

It is important to remember that Einstein was not alone - many scientists had co-operated with him, contributed to his results and pointed out mistakes: Max Planck, Henri Poincaré and Hermann Minkowski, among many others. As Einstein's genius became more and more recognised, the critical tone changed. I was amused to find another musical reference in Martin Gardner's popular book about the theory of relativity from 1962, Relativity for the Million. According to Gardner, the theory had the same effect on the world as the new dance fad, the twist, which invaded the American dance halls in 1962! Some danced the twist with enthusiasm, some were deeply shocked and indignated (as our prof. above), and others complained that they were too old to learn it. (Perhaps people in the 1960's had forgotten all about how shocking jazz used to be?)

Further reading: Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory. New York: Henry Holt, 1920 (online at Bartleby.com)

Puppy & Girl

Washington, D.C., 1920. "Miss Marie Smith." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. Found on Shorpy: The 100-year old photo blog.

Straw Hat Season

Street Scene: 1921 (From Shorpy, the 100-year-old photo blog.)
Falco is wearing a straw hat in Goldenbird #1. Back in the beginning of the century, it was the standard summer headgear of men, in Europe as well as in America. Just do a search in the New York Times archives on "straw hat season", and you will reveal the importance of a cultural institution, as well as the controversy that it could spark among well-behaved citizenry, especially if the holy limits of June 15th and September 15th. A sample of headlines follow...

KILLED IN STRAW HAT ROW.; Man Shoots Another Who Destroyed His Out-of-Season Headgear.
October 9, 1911, Monday [...more...]

FIRST STRAW HAT OUT; And Honeysuckle Blooms in Jersey, with Mercury at 70.
January 21, 1913, Tuesday
WASHINGTON, N.J., Jan. 20. -- It is straw-hat season here now. J. Clark Axford, a local business man, set the fashion by driving around town to-day with the Summer headgear adorning him. He was laughed at for the most part, but nobody could deny that there was nearly as much excuse for the light covering as in the middle of Summer. [...more...]

THE STRAW HAT SEASON IN ITALY.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
In pointing out that the Italians are a highly civilized nation, would it not be of weight to adduce the fact that in Italy men continue to wear straw hats as long as the weather justifies them? - LOUIS HOW. New York, Sept. 20, 1917. [source]

CITY HAS WILD NIGHT OF STRAW HAT RIOTS; Gangs of Young Hoodlums With Spiked Sticks Terrorize Whole Blocks. VICTIMS RUN THE GAUNTLET Youths Line Car Tracks and Snatch --Mob of 1,000 Dispersed on Amsterdam Avenue.
September 16, 1922, Saturday
Gangs of young hoodlums ran riot in various parts of the city last night, smashing unseasonable straw hats, and trampling them in the street. In some case, mobs of hundreds of boys and young men terrorized whole blocks. Complaints poured in upon the police from men whose hats were stolen and destroyed. But as soon as the police broke up the gangs in one district, the hoodlums resumed their activities elsewhere. [...more...]

Whew! And people complain about today's youth. Among other interesting tidbits of straw hat related information: the trimmings were often made with "glycerined ostrich". "Anomalies in Millinery" is a lovely headline, too. I must remember to use it somewhere.

Bathing Beauty

The cover of Goldenbird #1 is inspired by this cover illustration for Judge magazine by Robert Patterson (1898-1981). I found this short info about the artist online:

After studying at art at the Chicago Art Institute and in Paris, Robert Patterson began his career as a cartoonist for Judge and Life, and on the staff of French Vogue. He has done illustrations for some dozen magazines, for advertising and other media and for numerous books, and is a portrait painter as well. He edited, as well as illustrated, ON OUR WAY, a book for teenagers. With his wife and son and daughter, Mr. Patterson lives in Easton, Connecticut.

The illustrator is berhaps most famous for his work on the 1950's epic children's book, You Will Go To The Moon. At least, I think it's the same Rob Patterson.