Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa, originally uploaded by punalippu.

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

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.

The Waitress

Cover of the magazine Ukiyo (うきよ), 11/1921. (Found here)

The word ukiyo is probably familiar to many in the compound ukiyo-e, "images of the floating world". Ukiyo means thus floating world, but the cover reveals through subtle hints that this is a new world - the old-time bijin (美人 - "beautiful person", the female subject-object of countless ukiyo-e woodcuts) has changed into a modern girl (モダンガール), a waitress at a Western-style café.



(Waitresses at Café Printemps, 1922; source)

That is my guess; the little clues consist of her laced apron combined with a fresh blush, a matching comb and a coquettish gesture. She resembles the Taisho era popular image of the café waitress, which still lives on in Japanese pop culture. For a basic introduction to the café boom in 1910's and 1920's Japan, see Elise K. Tipton's article "Pink Collar Work" in the excellent journal Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context.


(Two Taisho era waitresses; more images here)

In some ways, the café waitresses carried on the geisha tradition of providing inspiring company, selling a romantic fantasy over a cup of coffee or tea. Because they were associated with modernity and Westernization, but perhaps even more because their customers were poor students and aspiring intellectuals, the waitresses were often ridiculed and depicted as prostitutes (and some of them doubtlessly had to be; their salaries were extremely low, and Tipton has some interesting stories about waitresses trying to organize themselves and join the labour movement). (Some examples of cartoons here.) Today, the "maid café" fad plays on similar strings - it is the fleeting dream that is desirable, not the fulfillment of desires. In this case, nostalgia enhances the value of the fantasy. Because the 21st century waitress is no longer a threat to the social order, the early 20th century waitress is seen as an innocent and plucky character in a historical romance. She is even desirable (and marketable) as a costume, like other characters from bygone times: the samurai, the ninja, the courtier.


A Taisho waitress costume from a contemporary costume rental service.

Brideshead Revisited

I find it sad, but also somewhat amusing, that contemporary Hollywood producers are more conservative than British upperclass Catholic converts in the 1940's; compare the current film version of Brideshead Revisited with Evelyn Vaugh's novel from 1945.

In the original, Charles is fascinated by the aristocratic Marchmain family, especially the younger son Sebastian. In the movie, focus is shifted from their ambiguous relationship to a kind of triangle drama between Charles, Sebastian and the latter's sister Julia, who enters Charles' life much later in the novel. According to the producer, this was done because "the theme of love across a religious and aristocratic divide has contemporary relevance".

Poppycock, I say. It is threatening to mainstream Hollywood that a relationship between two men (regardless of the sexual content) could be of equal worth to a relationship between a man and a woman; the heterosexual romance has been elevated to the highest possible fulfillment of a plot (a relatively modern development; see Jonathan Ned Katz's brilliant The Invention of Heterosexuality).

The novelist himself, with a deeply religious message to boot, lets Charles state: "Charles's romantic affection for Sebastian is part due to the glitter of the new world Sebastian represents, part to the protective feeling of a strong towards a weak character, and part a foreshadowing of the love for Julia which is to be the consuming passion of his mature years." Thus, I see his view of love between men as rather pre-modern; an introduction to love, a rite of passage perhaps, but not the ultimate fulfillment. However, in contrast to the hegemonic narrative of modern Hollywood, heterosexual love does not bring this ultimate fulfillment either. Vaughn's goal is love divine, in the selfless act of forgiving and letting go, not in the selfish act of possessing another human being.

Even though I cannot call myself a theist, I don't think much of this current idolizing of romantic love as the magical cure of all evils; as anyone who is or has been in a relationship knows, dreaming of love is easy, living with it is hard work.

Luckily I discovered the ITV series from 1981 first, with a young Jeremy Irons as Charles. Just as you think it cannot possibly get any campier, enter Anthony! (I wish I could be there.)

Between Seasons

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Farewell summer...


Welcome, winter.

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Interesting Blogs

Added some new internet friends to the blogroll:

The Flapper Girl - Feminism, fashion, 1920's, music, culture... In Croatian.

Modärna Tider - Style, events, literature, moving pictures... In Swedish.

How come those people 80 years ago still seem so terribly ahead of their time? For I assure you, I and my friends are not love with the original modern times because we are nostalgic (well, maybe a little), but because we are the very opposite of conservatism...

Though, what's wrong with conserving the good stuff? Maybe it won't taste as fresh... but it will cheer up long winter nights.

Parisian Hat

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Just had to add this portrait to the series of Yosano Akiko posts. Yosano bought the hat in Paris in 1912.

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.

The Poet-Dictator and his Legionaries

The Poet-Dictator and his Legionaries, originally uploaded by punalippu.

From "Världen sedan 1914" by T. Vogel-Jørgensen (Swedish edition), Natur & Kultur 1939

No bucket jokes, please...

Ruth Bayton

Ruth Bayton, originally uploaded by punalippu.

Photo: d'Ora, Vienna. From the cover of Swedish photoplay magazine Filmnyheter, 1928:1.

Ruth Bayton is practically unknown on the great internet, but my guess is that she was a British black dancer. There's an interesting article about black artists in 1920's Britain that mentions her, available on Jstor (if you have access to this database).

I'd really like to know more about her, so if you can help, I'd be happy...

Alfred Abel

I first encountered him in Metropolis (1926, good article at cyranos.ch). Abel played the future industrialist Joh. Fredersen, father of the young hero, who orders the creation of an artificial woman in order to provoke the oppressed workers into a fatal uprising. (I've always wondered why the robot woman is supposed to subvert the peaceful preaching of Maria, although the real Maria keeps the workers lulled in a state of passive hope, most useful to the rulers.)
Abel's gaunt look was very impressive, and his acting was wonderfully tactful (compared to the rest of the cast). Turns out that he was rather cute in real life, although the eyebrows were part of the mask. Behold:

What a striking difference!

Abel (1879–1937) was not only a successful and well liked actor in film and theatre (as early as 1914, he had performed in every theatre in Berlin), he was also a director and producer. His first film part was under the direction of theatre wizard Max Reinhardt (I found a book about him in Berlin last December). Besides Fritz Lang (Dr. Mabuse, Metropolis) he also worked with F. W. Murnau and Ernst Lubitsch - names that really should make your modern little hearts beat faster. Interestingly, he began his career by studying gardening and artistic drawing... and his own production company was called Artifex Film (something interesting for my mother!). He also had a well-kept wardrobe:
As usual in this blog, he died far too young, after a longer illness in 1937. He just escaped the claws of the Third Reich; his daughter Ursula, who was also pursuing a career in acting, could not produce proof that he was "Aryan", and she had to give up her dream. Without the proper pedigree, an actor was not accepted. Abel's father was a peddler, Louis Abel, married to Anna Maria Selma in Leipzig. Their names and trades would make them suspicious in the eyes of later generations. All clues pointed to a Jewish origin.



Sources: Wikipedia
Filmportal.de
film.virtual-history.com

I suppose that accusation was a sign of posthumous anti-Chirayliqism (as experienced by certain Russian actors, who, being too handsome, were accused of belonging to various politically incorrect ethnicities).

On Mustaches

A mustache-themed post at the lovely film star blog Allure inspired me to scan these images of silent film star David Powell, from an article about him in the Swedish photoplay magazine Filmen (1920, No.5), which included some musings on the subject of mustaches. Since many of Goldenbird's male characters have mustaches, I have given the subject a lot of thought. Mustaches are historical phenomena of great social and political import.

The 19th century could be considered the golden age of facial grooming. Looking at the 20th century, we see a continued interest in mustaches during the first decades, but gradually, mustaches fall out of favour. In the latter half of the century, the beardless mustache is more and more associated with subcultures or "others", non-Europeans. Why did it happen? I can speculate on several reasons. The mustache has always been a symbol of privilege. In many European armies of the 18th century, only officers were allowed to wear a mustache. With the democratization of Western culture, the mustache acquired a taint of aristocracy and backwardness (one might ask why the moderniser Kemal Atatürk, for example, shaved off his mustache). On the other hand, mustache-wearing has been seen as obligatory for men in many Southern European countries - as well as Arab, Turkish, and South Asian cultures. For example, in Italian regional proverbs, the mustache is a symbol of sexual prowess, and it is not surprising that the celibate priests were not expected to sport them (full beards are a different story - with a full beard, you're a patriarch, a revolutionary, a mystic, larger than life!). Perhaps the decline of the mustache was a new phase in the development of the Western bourgeois masculine ideal, as it became a trait of villains, often foreigners.

One thing is sure: The mustache had a rocky career in the dream world of Hollywood, often opposite to its popularity in the "real" world. Behold mild-eyed, Scottish-born Welshman David Powell (below, with Billie Burke).

"- Well, a mustachioed gentleman never looks quite correct, according to many. 'That's no good,' I once heard a couple of ladies utter when my likeness appeared on the screen. My acting was obviously of less importance. Due to the mustache, I was impossible from the very beginning. - On another occasion, I heard an older gentleman make the assumption that I surely was the villain of the drama - 'look at the whiskers'. The comment was incorrect, since my act at that occasion did not include any rascality or roguishness. - However, in a few of my latest films, The Firing Line and The Teeth of the Tiger - the latter currently in production - I believe that my mustache will be in harmony with the characters that I will play. In the first, I have to fall nobly in action; it is the prerequisite for the happiness of the heroine, Irene Castle, with Vernon Steele. And in the latter one I am very cruel; according to the script, I have to look like I had seven human lives on my conscience."

- David Powell, Filmen 1920 No5 (my translation)

NB: In both of the films that Mr Powell mentions, he played characters with French names - in the latter, the great Arsène Lupin himself!

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.

Fashionable

"Le Bon Féminisme" - by Géorge Leonnec, 1922
From La Vie Parisienne, a humorous and fashionable French magazine with plenty of cheeky and masterful illustrations.

I have seen the accompanying "joke" in another reproduction of this image, and it went something along the lines:
Butch: - So, what do you think about feminism?
Femme: - I dunno, I just prefer men!

Har har.

This inspired me to sketch the first fashion styles for Mayann and Lou. See the latest version here...