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.

The Sin in Syncopation

Welfare workers tell us that never in the history of our land have there been such immoral conditions among our young people, and in the surveys made by many organizations regarding these conditions, the blame is laid on jazz music and its evil influence on the young people of to-day. Never before have such outrageous dances been permitted in private as well as public ballrooms, and never has there been used for the accompaniment of the dance such a strange combination of tone and rhythm as that produced by the dance orchestras of to-day.

Certainly, if this music is in any way responsible for the condition and for the immoral acts which can be traced to the influence of these dances, then it is high time that the question should be raised: "Can music ever be an influence for evil?"

Anne Shaw Faulkner, The Ladies Home Journal, August 1921 (pp. 16-34.)

Mrs Faulkner goes on to list several reasons to why jazz is evil, and the first reason is the most blatantly obvious one: because people think it is. Of course, not any kind of people. Clergy don't count - they can't be expected to approve of dancing generally. Jazz is recognised as an evil influence by the proprietors of "large dance halls" and "big country clubs", but interestingly also in "big industry", where it was claimed that workmanship and efficiency declined after the workforce had enjoyed jazz.

"Jazz" was defined differently in the early 1920's; for some, it was a very vague term, applicable to almost any kind of "out-of-tune" music, or syncopated rhythm. The latter is also common in many varieties of folk music around the world. Mrs Faulkner focuses on this trait:

Syncopation, this curious rhythmic accent on the short beat, is found in its most highly developed forms in the music of the folk who have been held for years in political subjection. It is, therefore, an expression in music of the desire for that freedom which has been denied to its interpreter.

Both Russians, Poles, Hungarian Gypsies and African-Americans share this historical experience. But is there also a universally human appeal in the rebellious, sinful syncopation? Is that why the workers become less efficient? Mrs Faulkner tries to exorcise jazz by explaining it, by dissecting it and analysing it to bits and pieces, but in the end, there's only strangeness and weirdness left. And when she cannot explain, she conjures up new demons.

Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds. The weird chant, accompanied by the syncopated rhythm of the voodoo invokers, has also been employed by other barbaric people to stimulate brutality and sensuality. That it has a demoralizing effect upon the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists.

Mrs Faulkner now attacks the elusive jazz devil head-on, summoning "many scientists", the authorities of benevolent "white" magic, to her help. The "black" magic of jazz threatens not only workplace efficiency and public morality. It threatens the very foundation of bourgeois civilisation. Young people have become "imbued" with the spirit of rebellion - with jazz - "that expression of protest against law and order, that bolshevik element of license striving for expression in music".

And now we come to a piece of popular science that was quite en vogue in the early 20th century, and that I hope to return to in a future post. It is also vital to the later development of the storyline in Goldenbird.

The human organism responds to musical vibrations. This fact is universally recognized. What instincts then are aroused by jazz? Certainly not deeds of valor or martial courage, for all marches and patriotic hymns are of regular rhythm and simple harmony; decidedly not contentment or serenity, for the songs of home and the love of native land are all of the simplest melody and harmony with noticeably regular rhythm. Jazz disorganizes all regular laws and order; it stimulates to extreme deeds, to a breaking away from all rules and conventions; it is harmful and dangerous, and its influence is wholly bad.

Curious preferences, just a few years after the horrors of the Great War! No wonder that people should be trying out these new vibrations, after witnessing what the regular beat of marches and hymns could lead to! But Mrs Faulkner fears something else than war: she fears "degeneracy".

A number of scientific men who have been working on experiments in musico-therapy with the insane, declare that while regular rhythms and simple tones produce a quieting effect on the brain of even a violent patient, the effect of jazz on the normal brain produces an atrophied condition on the brain cells of conception, until very frequently those under the demoralizing influence of the persistent use of syncopation, combined with disharmonious partial tones, are actually incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong.

Or - could it be - that syncopation and disharmony, those musical methods of rebellion, simply fan the flames of discontent with the present state of things and reveal the artificial nature and natural artificiality of society? There is a battle between two modern worlds - the good, hierarchical, efficient and regular world of Mrs Faulkner and her scientist sorcerers, and the evil, rebellious, crazy, disorderly, sexually charged and racially mixed world of jazz musicians and dancers.

I fear that "good" won the battle by taming the "evil", de-clawing it and fattening it on dollars if it conformed, banishing it into oblivion if it rebelled. But rebellion will always find a way...

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.

Tonsure or not?

I have wrestled with the problem a longer time. Properly, Falco ought to be tonsured, having already received minor orders. The tonsure during the 19th and early 20th century was not larger than a host (some orders used the measurement 'three fingers wide'). According to Wikipedia, "failing to maintain tonsure was the equivalent of attempting to abandon one's clerical state, and in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, any cleric in minor orders (or simply tonsured) who did not resume the tonsure within a month after being warned by his Ordinary, lost the clerical state". The tonsura (or corona clericalis) was, however, not required for clerics serving in countries with a non-Catholic majority population. Perhaps this is Falco's convenient excuse - his order expects him to serve in various countries, also such that target Catholics for persecution.

I have encountered the tonsure in anti-Catholic literature as well as nostalgic Catholic art. In German writer Eugenie Marlitt's novel Die zweite Frau from 1874, a Catholic priest is making an unwelcome advance at the noble Lutheran heroine. The scene could be described as exploitative - the lady is horrified, but also attracted by the priest's abandon of moral control. The sing that makes her break out of his spell is the sight of his tonsure:

Er trat plötzlich unter einem leidenschaftlichen Zurückwerfen des Kopfes auf sie zu und breitete niedersinkend beide Arme aus, um die Kniee der jungen Frau flehend zu umfassen — das grüne Lampenlicht floß grell über das marmorartige Oval seines Gesichts, über den leblosen weißen Fleck inmitten der dunkellockigen Haarmassen — ihr war, als zeige ein unsichtbarer Finger auf diesen Fleck als auf ein Kainszeichen — sie floh, während ihre schönen Hände wild nach dem knieenden Manne stießen.

The novel was written during Chancellor Bismarck's Kulturkampf ("culture struggle") against the Catholic church in the Second Reich, and is a clear example of literary anti-Catholic propaganda. There are more interesting themes in the novel (the "second woman" of the title is either the heroine, who marries a seemingly loveless and superior nobleman, or the nobleman's brother's Oriental concubine, who is the focal point of a conspiracy where the priest plays the villain).

The tonsure fell gradually out of use (except for a ceremonial cutting of hair during the ordination). As of 15 August 1972, first tonsure is no longer conferred, except for certain orders who retain the right. Some nice examples of tonsures can be spotted in the naivist painter Baldino's works.

Walter Trier

Erich Kästner's books from the 20's and 30's have lovely illustrations. We got some of them (Emil und die Detektive, for example) from our dear old neighbour, Herr Dr. Rosenplänter, when we lived in Germany.
The illustrator was Walter Trier. He had to flee Germany with his family in 1936, because he was Jewish. I think I have a crush on him (he looks a little like Falco).
Trier was a prominent illustrator, but he also provided caricatures and cartoons for Simplicissimus, covers for the British magazine Lilliput, Allied propaganda flyers to be thrown over Germany during the war. He was offered work by Disney, but refused - he wanted to work under his own name. Shortly after emigrating to Canada, he died in his atelier 1951.
Some pictures:
A map of Europe in WW1
German boxer Max Schmeling
Hermann Göring paper doll "for the young"
Covers for Lilliput magazine (always with a man, a woman and a dog)
Some of Kästner's and Trier's books

Erich Kästner was forbidden from publishing in 1933, and his books were publicly burnt. He was hounded by the Gestapo, but he continued to write and publish his works in Switzerland, and he travelled to meet Trier in Austria in the 1930's. In 1943, he was no longer allowed to write, either. After the war, Kästner dealt with his experiences in pacifist books for children and adults. He continued to work together with his friend Trier.
You can follow Emil and the detectives' path through Berlin of 1929 in photos, drawings and maps here.